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and fifty-one men, sailed in a southerly direction till they entered a river which fell into the sea from a lake. They steered into this lake, and called the place Hóp, which, in Icelandic, signifies a bay, or the land bordering on such a bay Here they landed, and found wheat growing wild on the low grounds, and on the rising lands grape-vines. To this place Mount Hope's bay corresponds; and it was at this Hóp that Leifsbooths were situated. Above this, and most probably on the beautifully-situated elevation afterward called by the Indians Mont Haup, Karlsefne and his companions erected their dwellings and passed the winter. They had no snow, and the cattle fed in the open fields. One morning, in the beginning of 1008, they perceived a number of canoes coming from the southwest past the cape. Karlsefne exhibited friendly signals by holding up a white shield, and the natives, a sallow-colored and ill-looking race, drew nigh, and commenced bartering furs and squirrel-skins for pieces of red cloth, and afterward for milk-soup.

While this traffic was proceeding, a bull, which Thorfinn had brought with him, came out of the wood and bellowed loudly. This terrified the Skrellings; they rushed to their canoes, and rowed away. About this. time Gudrida gave birth to a son, who received the name of Snorre. At the commencement of the following winter the Skrellings appeared again in much greater numbers, and menaced hostility by loud yellings. They advanced-a battle took place; the Skrellings had war-slings, and a galling discharge of missiles fell upon the land; one, enormously large, fell with a crash that filled the Northmen with dismay, and they fled into the woods. Freydisa, the wife of Thorward, a bold and artful woman, upon perceiving the retreat of her countrymen, called to them, and reproached them with their cowardice, saying, if she had a weapon she would defend herself better than any of them. She followed them into the wood, where she saw the dead body of Snorre Thorbradson; a flat stone was sticking in his head, and his drawn sword was lying by his side. This she seized, and by her frantic gestures so terrified the Skrellings, that they in turn fled to their canoes and rowed away. Thorfinn and his people now rallied; they came up to her and praised her courage; but they became convinced that they could not continue in the country without being in constant alarm from the powerful hostility of the natives, and therefore determined upon returning to their own country. They freighted their ships, sailed eastward, and came to Straumfiord, where they passed the third winter; Karlsefne's son Snorre being then three years old. At Markland they met with five Skrellings, two of which (boys) th caught and carried away with them. These children, after they had been taught the Norse language, informed them that the Skrellings were ruled by chieftains (kings), that there were no houses in the country, but that the people dwelled in holes and caves. Karlsefne, after having gone in quest of Thorhall, pursued his voyage to Greenland, and arrived at Ericsfiord in 1011.

The next voyage was undertaken at the instigation of Freydisa, who prevailed on two brothers, commanders of a ship from Iceland, to make a voyage to Vineland, and share equally with her in all the profits. To this the brothers, Helge and Finnboge, assented, and a mutual agreement was entered into that each party should have thirty-five able-bodied men on board their ship; but Freydisa concealed five additional men, whom she took with her. They reached Leifsbooths in 1012, where they remained during the winter. But the deceitful conduct of Freydisa caused an estrangement between the parties, and she at length succeeded, by subtlety and artifice, in persuading her husband to effect the murder of the two brothers and their followers. After this atrocious act they returned to Greenland in the spring of 1013.

At this time Thorfinn Karlsefne was waiting for a fair wind to sail for Norway. His ship was laden with a more valuable cargo than was ever before

known to leave Greenland. When the wind was favorable, he sailed to Norway, and sold his goods. The next year he proceeded to Iceland, and in the year following, 1015, purchased the Glaumboe estate, where he resided during the remainder of his life. Snorre, his American-born son, also dwelled and ended his days there.

Among the numerous and illustrious descendants of Karlsefne was the learned bishop Thorlak Runolfson, born in 1085, of Snorre's daughter Halfrida, who was probably the original compiler of the account of the foregoing voyages. After these, many voyages were undertaken, and the last piece of information preserved in the ancient MSS. relates to a voyage, in the year 1347, from Greenland to Markland, undertaken for the purpose of bringing home timber and other supplies. On her voyage homeward the ship was driven out of her course, and arrived, with loss of anchors, at Straumfiord, in the west of Iceland. From the accounts of this voyage, written by a contemporary nine years after the event, it appears that the intercourse between Greenland and America Proper had been maintained to so late a date as 1347; for it is expressly stated that the ship went to Markland, which must have been thus mentioned as a country still known and visited in those days.

Thus it appears that, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the ancient Northmen discovered a great extent of the eastern coasts of North America, and made frequent visits to Massachusetts and Rhode Island; and that, during the centuries immediately following, the intercourse was never entirely broken off. As confirmatory of these statements, Dr. J. V. C. Smith, of Boston, has written an account of a remarkable rough stone cemetery, discovered about fifty years ago in Rainsford island, in the bay of Boston, which contained a skeleton and a sword-hilt of iron. Dr. Smith argues that, as the body could not have been that of a native Indian nor of a settler posterior to the re-discovery, it was most probably that of one of the early Scandinavians. Dr. Webb, of Providence, has also furnished an account of a skeleton found at Fall river Massachusetts, on or near which were a bronze breast-plate, bronze tubes belonging to a belt, &c., none of which appear to be of Indian or of a comparatively modern European manufacture.

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A Runic inscription is also still to be seen on Dighton rock, on the east side of Taunton river, which is exposed and covered at every ebb and flow of the tideAt Newport, Rhode Island, there is a stone tower built of rough pieces of

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greywacke stone, laid in courses, strongly cemented by a mortar of sand and gravel of excellent quality, which nearly equals the stone itself in hardness. It appears to have been at some former period covered with a stucco of similar character to the cement with which the stone is held together. It is nearly twenty-five feet in height; its diameter outside is twenty-three feet, and inside eighteen feet nine inches. It is circular, and is supported upon eight arches resting on thick columns about ten feet high; the height of the centres of the arches from the ground is twelve feet six inches. The foundation extends to the depth of four or five feet.

The columns are peculiar, having only half capitals, which seem to have been simply rounded slabs of stone, of which the part projecting on the inside had been cut away. According to Professor Ráfn, the architecture of this building is in the ante-Gothic style, which was common in the north and west of Europe from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. The circular form, the low columns, their thickness in proportion to their distance from each other, and the entire want of ornament, all point out this epoch. He imagines it was used for a baptistery, and accounts for the absence of buildings of a similar character by the abundance of wood in America.

II. FROM the time of the Northmen nothing seems to have been known of the western continent till the birth of Christopher Columbus.

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The territory of Genoa had the honor of giving birth to him, and the traveller in Italy is still gratified by beholding at the little village of Cocoletto, the humble mansion, where, in a narrow room in the rear, looking out upon the deep blue Mediterranean, and over which the troubled sea often throws its spray, Christopher Columbus, called by the Spaniards Colon, first saw the light. He appears to have had an early attachment to sea affairs; he studied navigation with the

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utmost industry, and supported himself by making charts for the sea-service He had the universal character of a sober, temperate, and devout man; he was a good mathematician, and had, in other respects, a tolerable share of learning. The fame of the Portuguese in naval affairs having drawn him to Lisbon, he there settled, carried on a trade to the coast of Guinea, and at length married a woman of considerable fortune.

The reasons which, probably, determined Columbus to attempt the discovery of America, were the following: he had observed, when at the Cape de Verd slands, that at a particular season, the wind always blew from the west, which he thought was occasioned by a large tract of land lying that way; and he thought that the spherical figure of the earth demanded, that the land on the one side should be balanced by an equal quantity on the other.

He flattered himself that by sailing west, he should find a nearer passage to the Indies, than that which the Portuguese hoped to discover, by sailing round the coast of Africa, of a great part of which they had already made themselves masters. When he was fully convinced of the possibility of carrying his scheme into execution, he proposed it to the state of Genoa as early as the year 1484; out they having rejected it, he applied in the year 1485 to John the Second king of Portugal, in whose dominions he had now resided some years, and commissioners were appointed to treat with him; who, having artfully drawn his secret from him, advised the king to fit out a ship to try the practicability of the plan, and to rob Columbus of the honor and advantage of it; but the design failed; and when the king would have treated with Columbus a second time, his indignation at the treatment he had received, determined him to apply elsewhere; and that very year he sent his brother Bartholomew with proposals to Henry VII., king of England, while he himself proceeded to Spain, to offer his services to Ferdinand and Isabella.

Bartholomew had the misfortune to fall into the hands of pirates, who, stripping him of all he had, he arrived in England in a very miserable condition where he was taken ill of a fever, and reduced to great distress. On his recovery, he applied himself with great industry to the making and selling of maps and charts, by which he at length, in the year 1488, put himself into a proper equipage to appear before the king (Henry VII.), with whom he entered into an agreement, in the name and on the behalf of his brother.

When Christopher Columbus arrived in Spain, he communicated his plan to Martin Alonzo Pinzon, a celebrated pilot, who saw the force of his arguments, and readily agreed to go with him, if his application at court should be successful; but so much difficulty attended the prosecution of his suit, and he met with so many delays and insults, that he was actually on the point of leaving Spain for England, to see what success his brother had met with, and in case his applications had been equally fruitless, to offer his proposals to the court of France At this interval Queen Isabella was prevailed upon to encourage his plan; and articles of agreement were signed at Santa Fe, in the kingdom of Grenada, on the seventeenth of April, 1492.

By this agreement, Columbus was to be admiral of the seas, and viceroy of all the countries he should discover: he was to have a tenth part of the profits redounding to their majesties from his labors; and an eighth of what he should bring home in his ships; himself furnishing one eighth of the expense of the equipment.

When this agreement was concluded, he was allowed three vessels; the Galega, which he named the Santa Maria, a carrac, or ship with a deck, commanded by himself; the Pinta, of which Martin Alonzo Pinzon was captain ; and the Nina, under the command of Vincent Yanez Pinzon, brother to Martin Alonzo, who furnished half of Columbus's share of the expense. These two

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