. A voyage to the arctic in the whaler Aurora. tors supervised the work ofthese. One or two ships from Copenhagen visited thecoast every year with supplies, taking back oiland skins. We have all svnig about the icy mountains ofGreenland, and most of us have in a vague wayconnected the country with w^hales, without hav-ing any idea of how great this whaling industrywas some years ago. In the appendix it will beseen that Great Britain alone sent one hundredand fifty-nine ships to Greenland waters in 1819,and, of course, the Norwegians and Dutch, theDanes, Gemians and others also profited by thef
. A voyage to the arctic in the whaler Aurora. tors supervised the work ofthese. One or two ships from Copenhagen visited thecoast every year with supplies, taking back oiland skins. We have all svnig about the icy mountains ofGreenland, and most of us have in a vague wayconnected the country with w^hales, without hav-ing any idea of how great this whaling industrywas some years ago. In the appendix it will beseen that Great Britain alone sent one hundredand fifty-nine ships to Greenland waters in 1819,and, of course, the Norwegians and Dutch, theDanes, Gemians and others also profited by thefisheries. Many words in the modern whalersvocabulary are of Dutch origin, as these hardypeople were conspicuous among the most daringfollowers of this dangerous trade. Greenland has a past, but its history, viewedthrough the mists of centuries, and always moreor less traditional, is anything but distinct. The country w^as discovered toward the end ofthe tenth century; and a banished Norwegian,called Erick, wintered at what is now called Erick. IN THE WHALER AURORA 103 Sound, shortly after. The unscrupulous Erick, inorder to promote colonization, called the newcoimtry Greenland. A fleet of twenty-five sailstarted for the country with colonists. Many werelost, but about half of them settled there and werejoined by others, foraiing quite a colony. Christianity was introduced about 1121 and abishop was appointed. By degrees the colonistsin the south formed other colonies, churches werebuilt, and the people prospered for a time. Grant tells us in his history of Greenland thatthere were about one hundred hamlets on thesecoasts. The colonies on the east coast have dis-appeared. Some ruins have been found, but whereare the people ? Nothing has been heard definitelyfrom them since 1408, when the east Greenlandtrade ceased. Some think that black death des-troyed them, others say that polar ice, comingdown, closed the coast from intercourse with theparent country, so that they starved. Ac
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidvoyage, booksubjectwhaling
