Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/175

 voyage. One of Columbus's vessels is understood to have been only a half-decked craft. Sebastian Cabot, and some of the earliest explorers of Baffin's Bay, sailed in vessels under thirty tons. The Anna Pink, which accompanied Lord Anson half round the world, was a vessel of eighteen tons. In their shipping, seamanship, and habits of sea life and endurance, there was certainly nothing to make it, à priori, improbable that they should undertake a voyage of discovery to the south and west of Greenland. The details of adventures on such a voyage may not be correct, and yet the fact itself true. The following is an abridgment, as short as possible, of the details, and the conclusions drawn from them as to the localities in America which they visited. The eight chapters themselves are annexed in the Appendix.

Eric Red, in spring, 986, emigrated from Iceland to Greenland with Heriulf Bardson. He fixed his abode at Brattalid, in Ericsfiord; and Heriulf at Heriulfsness. Biorne, the son of the latter, was absent in Norway at the time, and finding on his return that his father was gone, resolved to follow him, and put to sea. As winter was approaching, they had bad weather, northerly winds and fogs, and did not know where they were. When it cleared up they saw a land without mountains, but with many small hills, and covered with wood. This not answering the description of Greenland, they turned about and left it on the larboard hand; and sailing two days they came to another land, flat, and covered with wood. Then they stood out to sea with a south-west wind, and saw a third land, high, and the mountains covered with glaciers; and coasting along it they saw it was an island. Biorne did not land, but stood out to sea with the same south-west wind, and sailing with fresh gales reached, in four days more, Heriulfsness in Greenland, his father's abode.