Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/331

310 unexpectedly upon a plain covered with grass, yielding so friendly and "down "-like to my aching feet, particularly under the circumstances described, was enough for me to express my great joy and admiration. It is said that the name Greenland was given to that land by the Norwegians and Icelanders because it looked greener than Iceland. I could, therefore, on my trip across that grassy plain, fully appreciate their feelings on beholding a greener land than their own. Yet many a one going directly from the United States and visiting Greenland would from the bottom of his soul exclaim,

"This Greenland! Then, indeed, have I come into a Paradise, but into that of which Milton speaks:—

With reference to the plain I crossed over, Tookoolito afterward informed me that in 1860 a company of Innuits, herself and Ebierbing of the number, spent three weeks in passing over the land amid the mountains, and on other plains of great extent westward of Cornelius Grinnell Bay. Their trip was made for a reindeer hunt. On their way, and running northwest from the plain near what I have called Alden Mountain, was another plain, extending in every direction as far as the eye could reach. This convinced me that in general arctic navigators know but little about the interior of the northern country. Rarely anything but the coasts are seen and explored. On the trip I am now referring to I saw more level ground than since I left the United States. Nothing in Greenland that I saw could compare with it.

Tookoolito also informed me that reindeer visit those plains in great numbers. On their excursion they killed as many as they wanted; and so numerous were the deer that they might be compared to flocks of sheep. Much of the meat they had obtained during the hunt was left behind. The fawns were chased down by the Innuits and caught; as she said, "their