try, which rose in high lands covered with thick wood. Here the adventurers disembarked, and Thorwald declared 1 this is a goodly place: here will I take up my abode.’ Shortly afterward, the adventurers descried on the shore three small batteaux made of hides, under each of which was a band of three natives. These they took prisoners, except one, who made his escape to the mountains, and in humanly put them to death the same day. A little while after, their wanton cruelty was avenged by the natives, who approached in a multitude of batteaux, and took the com panions of Thorwald by surprise, as they were imprudently sleeping, contrary to his admonitions. Thorwald gave them the alarm, and ordered them to shield themselves against the arrows of the natives by wooden balks set up against the sides of the vessel. Not one of his companions was wounded, and the natives took to flight, after discharging a shower of arrows at the Northmen. But Thorwald him self received a mortal wound, and at his own request was buried at the point of the promontory, where he meant to have settled, and a cross erected at his head and another at his feet. The cape was named, from this circumstance, Krossa-nes. The colony of Greenland had been before this time converted to Christianity, but Erik the Red, Thor- wald’s father, died a heathen. The survivors of Thorwald passed the winter in Yinland, and in the spring returned to Greenland with the news of their discoveries, and of the melancholy fate of Thorwald. “ The native inhabitants found by the Northmen in Vin- land, resembled those on the western coast of Greenland. These Esquimaux were called by them Skroelingar, or dwarfs, from their diminutive and squalid appearance, in the same manner as their Gothic ancestors had given a similar appellation to the Finns and Laplanders. They found these aborigines deficient in manly courage and bodily strength.
