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According to the chronicles and traditions of this discovery, Vinland now forms the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The other provinces visited by the Northmen are identified as Labrador, Nova Scotia, and the northern part of New England.

The climate of the new-found province was delightful. The grass is said to have remained green during winter, and the cattle, during the same time, placed at pasture in the fields. In the spring, Leif returned to Greenland with a cargo of wood, a circumstance that revived the spirit of discovery among his countrymen. His brother, Thorwald, sailed the following year in Leif's ship, reached the New England coast, and passed the winter at Mount Hope Bay. In the ensuing spring, (1002,) he again put to sea, doubled a cape, supposed to be Cape Cod, and sailed leisurely along the coast, until he reached a headland overgrown with wood. Two skirmishes here occurred with the natives, in the latter of which Thorwald received a mortal wound. He had been instructed in the Christian religion by his brother, and feeling his death approach, he collected his followers, and asked if any had been wounded. Being answered in the negative, he said: "As for me, I have received a wound under the arm from an arrow, and I feel that it will be mortal. I advise you to prepare immediately for your return: but ye shall first carry my body to the promontory which I thought so beautiful, and where I had determined to fix my residence. It may be that it was a prophetic word which fell from my lips, about my abidThere shall ye bury me, and ye shall plant

ing there for a season.

a cross at my head and another at my feet, and ye shall call the name of the place Krossanes [Cape Cross] through all future time."

After Thorwald's death and burial his men returned to Mount Hope, and in a year after to Greenland. The narrative of their discoveries and sufferings excited much attention, and Thorstein, a brother of the unfortunate adventurer, determined on sailing to Cape Cross, and bringing back the body. This spot (situated, it is supposed, in Massachusetts Bay) he never reached; and, indeed, escaped total shipwreck only by being driven back to the coast of Greenland.

In 1006, a new impulse was given to maritime enterprise, among the Northmen, by the arrival, at Ericsfiord, of two ships carrying Thorfinn, a wealthy and influential person of royal descent, and Snorre Thorbrandson, also a distinguished person. Eric and Thorstein were now dead, and the two visitors seem to have been entrusted with the management of affairs during the winter. During the festivities of Christmas, Thorfinn became enamoured with Gudrida, widow of Thorstein, and soon after married her. Through her entreaties, he fitted out an expedition to visit Vinland, consisting of three ships and a hundred and forty men. He sailed in 1007, accompanied by his wife, his companion, Snorre, and a number of other distinguished persons, male and female.

After a prosperous voyage, during which Thorfinn coasted along the Continent for a number of miles, a landing was effected on an island which received the name of Straum Ey, (Stream Island.) So great was the number of birds at this place, that it was impossible to walk without crushing their nests. After passing the winter at this place, Thorhall, one of the leaders, was sent with eight men to search for Vinland; but, meeting with westerly winds, they were driven across the Atlantic to Ireland, and made prisoners. Ignorant of their fate, Thorfinn set out with. the remainder of the adventurers, and reached their destination in safety.

The country was found to correspond to the description of it given by former navigators. Wild wheat covered the fields, and grapes the hills. The lake was easily found, near which the former settlement had been made, and here, after erecting additional dwellings, the company passed the winter. Numbers of the natives visited them in canoes, carrying on a system of barter extremely profitable to the Northmen. In a few months, this friendly intercourse was

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interrupted, and skirmishes ensued, in which several of the settlers were killed. This event discouraged them, and they determined to abandon all ideas of founding a permanent colony. Sailing to Straum Ey, there they passed the winter; and at the opening of the following year (1011) returned to Greenland. During their three years' residence, the wife of Thorfinn presented him with a sonprobably the first descendant of Europeans ever born in America. He afterwards became a person of great distinction, and his descendants, traced by undoubted genealogy down to the present time, have included some of the most distinguished persons of Northern Europe. Members of every profession, law, politics, letters, and the church, have been proud to trace their lineage to him; and, among these, we have in our century a Bishop of Iceland, Chief Justice Stevenson, of the same country, three professors in the Copenhagen University, and the great sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen.

Straum Ey is supposed by the Danish historians to be Martha's Vineyard, and Straum-fiord, the body of water named by Thorfinn, is said to be Buzzard's Bay.

In the same year that Thorfinn's colony was abandoned, (1011,) a female, named Freydisa, who had been with him, visited America in one ship, with a number of men and women, for the purpose of forming a settlement. Her object seems to have been defeated by dissensions among her followers. Some years after, (1026,) an Icelander, named Gudleif, while sailing for Dublin, was driven out of his course, and landed, as is supposed, in America. Being carried by his captors into the interior, they met an old man, who, after addressing them in their own language, and inquiring after several Icelanders, presented them with a sword, requesting that it might be carried to one Thurida, a sister to Snorre Gode, with a word for her son. He is supposed to have been the bard Biorne, formerly a lover of that lady, and of whom nothing had been heard since 998.

All idea of forming a permanent settlement in Vinland was now abandoned by the Northmen; and, in their subsequent wars with England and France, the very remembrance of their discoveries was obliterated. It was reserved for the power of one master-mind to unite the Old and New Worlds, and to open the path to glory in the western wilds, brighter and nobler than the nations of the East.

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CHAPTER II.

DISCOVERY OF COLUMBUS.

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HE history of the world does not afford an epoch more important to mankind than the discovery of America by Columbus, in 1492. It formed, as is well known, an era that gave a new and more adventurous direction to the ambition of European nations; and while the consequent passion of enterprise sent bold spirits to the vast regions of the newly-found world,-and, simultaneously, by an almost equally great discovery,-that of sailing round Africa to the Eastern Indies,-fresh explorations enriched the sciences, and, from that period, geography, astronomy, and navigation became more practically and more usefully known.

A most remarkable coincidence of events distinguishes the period

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