Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/277

Rh Europeans, and the least brave of the Greenlanders; and, accompanied by only two Greenland men and four Greenland women, to continue to explore the coast in one only of these frail boats. This separation was effected on the 23d of June, in latitude 61° 46′ 40″, and the project, which sufficiently proves the zeal and intrepidity of M. Graah, was crowned with the success which it deserved.

'On the 28th of July, he had advanced as far as an island situate in latitude 65° 18′, and 38° 27′ west from Greenwich. He had to contend, in his progress, not only against the ice, which, besides encumbering the navigation and retarding the progress of the canoe, changed even the coast into a glacier, so that the shelter necessary for the men and for the canoe was only to be found at a very few places,—but also against the unwillingness of his crew to run the hazard of being forced to winter on this uninhabited part of the coast, where they would be in danger of famine.

'He persevered, however, against every difficulty; but was at last stopped altogether by an insurmountable barrier of ice, and forced to return, after having vainly waited till the end of August, expecting a favourable change. On the 1st of October, he arrived at Nugarbik, latitude 63° 22′, where he took up his winter quarters, and sent home a detail of his enterprise, dated April 2, 1830, entrusting the document to the care of a Greenlander, who carried it to the establishment of Julianshaab, from which it was transmitted to Copenhagen. He announces in it his intention to quit Nugarbik on the 3d, to push to the north as far as his limited means would allow, and to return to Nenortalik in the autumn; and it may be hoped that he has since completed his perilous enterprise.

'As for the principal object of the expedition, however, it appears to be already accomplished; for having advanced beyond the latitude ascribed to this ancient colony, without discovering the least trace of it, or the most insignificant remains, even in places which must necessarily have been occupied, if the. inhabitants had ever possessed fixed habitations,—having found no tradition or trace of the religion, language, or manners of that Christian colony among the natives of the country, it appears evident to M. Graah, that this Icelandic colony could not have been to the east of Statenhuk, but on the south-west part of the present Greenland, near the site of the establishment of Julianshaab, agreeably to the opinion which was expressed forty years ago by Mr. Eggers, in a work crowned by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen.

'A chart, transmitted by M. Graah, differs materially from those that have been constructed after the old description of the bishopric of Greenland, by Ivar Bardsen; but it confirms the