was small, the Skraelings were a multitude; so the colony returned to Greenland in the year 1006.
Apparently no further attempt was made to settle the main land, though from time to time voyages were made thither for cargoes of timber. But the Greenland colony continued, unmolested and flourishing. About the middle of the thirteenth century peoples from the north, short and swart, began to appear; encounters became unfriendly, and in 1341 the northernmost Scandinavian settlement was destroyed. Meanwhile, ships were coming from Norway less and less frequently, and the colony ceased to prosper, ceased to be heard from. At the time when Columbus discovered the Antilles there was a Bishop of Greenland, holding title from the Pope, but there is no evidence that he ever saw his diocese, and when, in 1585, John Davis sailed into the strait now bearing his name all trace of the Norsemen's colony was lost.
But the people of the Far North had not forgotten, and when the white men again came among them they still preserved legends of former Kablunait.[1] The story of the first meeting of the two peoples still survived, and of their mutual curiosity and fear, and of how an Eskimo and a white man became fast friends, each unable to outdo the other in feats of skill and strength, until at last the Eskimo won in a contest at archery, and the white man was cast down a precipice by his fellow-countrymen. There is the story of Eskimo men lying in wait and stealing the women of the Kablunait as they came to draw water. There are stories of blood feuds between the two peoples, and of the destruction of whole villages. At Ikat the Kablunait were taken by surprise; four fathers with their children fled out upon the ice and all were drowned; sometimes they are visible at the bottom of the sea, and then, say the Eskimo, one of our people will die.
Such are the memories of the lost colony which the Greenlanders have preserved. But far and wide among the Eskimo tribes there is the tradition of their former association with
