advancement of the church of Christ, has most graciously provided, by a
considerable sum of money yearly set apart, for the Greenland
Missionaries’ entertainment, which royal bounty continues to this day;
for which goodness the most gracious God will bless his Majesty and all
the royal hereditary house, and be their reward for ever. But as a good
deal of this bounty money must be employed in the promoting of trade
(without which the mission could not subsist), but little remains for
promoting the proper end of the mission, which is the conversion of the
Heathens, in which at present are employed no more than four
missionaries, and two catechists, besides some few charity children
belonging to both colonies, whose entertainment is to be provided for.
Hitherto we have not been able to do great matters, but contented
ourselves with some excursions here and there instructing the natives;
who likewise, when they have had an opportunity, come to us with their
families to be instructed. But as these excursions of ours, and those
visits of theirs have not been very frequent, and only for a short time,
by reason of the impossibility of travelling at all seasons, which has
obliged us to leave them for a while to deal for themselves; it is not
to be expected that our pains-taking should have had that success, which
would attend it, if there were missionaries settled in different
stations amongst them. For in several years we count but between twenty
and thirty aged persons, and a hundred and odd young ones, that have
been found capable to receive the holy sacrament of baptism. If amongst
ourselves we had no schools, nor other pious foundations, for the
instruction and Christian education of youth and old people, pray what
great feats would one or two teachers in a whole country be able to do,
by once or twice a year taking a journey throughout the land, and
preaching a passage sermon? The apostles of Christ did not think this
method sufficient; but after they had preached the word of God up and
down, they besides ordained and constituted teachers and catechists
everywhere. And if so wholesome a method be followed in Greenland, who
will question a happier success?
And this is all I at present have to say of the affairs of Greenland;
leaving it to the judgment of others to be made out and decided, whether
Greenland is a country that deserves to be improved and taken care of,
or no? And whether its inhabitants may be called happy, or no? All
things well pondered, both the affirmative and negative may be true,
without the least contradiction. For Greenland can pass for no better
than a dismal and pitiful country, in regard to the greatest part of it,
_viz._ all the inland country, which is perpetually covered with ice and
snow, that never melts, and therefore of no use to mankind; and as to
the remaining part, on the sea side, most of it lies uncultivated and
uninhabited. But here it may again be said, that as to the first part,
or the inland country, it is a thing that is past remedy; but as to the
last part, or the sea side, it may be put in a better state by
settlements, and manuring, so that it may recover its former fertility;
and thus it might be reckoned a good and profitable country, provided
the formerly inhabited tracks of land were anew settled and peopled. I
will forbear to mention the great wealth and richness, which lies hidden
in the Greenland seas, and can never be exhausted.
From the land I will go to the inhabitants, which every body will think
more wretched than happy, considered as destitute of the true knowledge
of their Creator; and besides lead but very poor and despicable lives.
The knowledge of God is undoubtedly that which affords the greatest
happiness to mankind; as the want of it makes one the most wretched of
all beings. But who would dare to deny it, if I should find out somebody
yet more wretched than they? And such there are who have been blessed
with the true knowledge of God; yet do nevertheless refuse him that
obedience, which, as our Creator and Master, and in regard of our
redemption and a thousand other particular kindnesses, he has the best
of titles to demand it upon, according as he requires it of us in his
holy Word. If the life of the Greenlanders, which we call poor and
despicable, with respect to morality, be compared to that of the most
pretended Christians; I am afraid they will confound others on the great
Day of Judgment. For though they have no law, yet by the light of nature
do some of the works of the law, as the apostle says, Rom. ii. What
thoughts will any one harbour, who seriously considers the predominant
passions, as greediness after gain, covetousness, unmeasured ambition
and pride, sumptuous, voluptuous, and prodigal lives; envy, hatred, and
mutual persecutions, and innumerable other vices and crimes of most
Christians? Can any one help thinking, but that such evil doers (the
remotest from the life, which is God alone) must be deemed the most
unhappy of all? Whilst on the other hand, the Greenlanders pass their
lives, as I may say, in a natural innocence and simplicity. Their
desires do not extend farther than to necessary things; pomp and pride
is unknown to them; hatred, envy, and persecution never plagued them;
neither do they affect the dominion over one another. In short, every
one is contented with his own state and condition, and are not tormented
with unnecessary cares. Is not this the greatest happiness of this life?
O happy people! what better things can one wish you, than what you
already possess? Have you no riches? yet poverty does not trouble you.
Have you no superfluity? yet you suffer no want. Is there no pomp and
pride to be seen among you? neither is there any slight or scorn to be
met with. Is there no nobility or high rank amongst them? neither is
there any slavery or bondage. What is sweeter than liberty? And what is
happier than contentedness? But one thing is yet wanting: I mean, the
saving knowledge of God and his dear son Christ Jesus, in which alone
consists eternal life and happiness. John xvii. And this is what we
offer you, in preaching to you the holy Gospel.
Now, God, who bade light shine forth in darkness, enlighten your hearts,
in the light of the knowledge of God’s glorious appearance in and
through Christ Jesus. May he deliver your souls from the slavery of the
Devil, and of sinful lusts, as you are free from corporeal bondage, to
the end that you always may be free with the Lord both in soul and body.
Amen.
THE END.
CHARLES WOOD, Printer,
Poppin’s Court, Fleet Street, London.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Torfæi Gronlandia Antiqua Havniæ, 1706, p. 16; see also Peyrere
Relation du Groenland, p. 84. These two authorities are principally
followed. Peyrere’s work is in Recueil de Voyages au Nord, tome premier.
[2] Torfæus, p. 13, “_medias alpes_.”
[3] Torfæus, p. 14.
[4] Ibid., p. 19.
[5] Peyrere.
[6] Torfæus possessed three versions of this account in German, Danish,
and Icelandic. His narrative runs,--The most Eastern settlement of
Greenland lies under the promontory of Herjolfsness, and is called
Skagefiord. Here is an uncultivated mountain, called Barrafell. At the
mouth is a long sandbank (_pulvinus longus_), stretched across, so that
no ships can enter, except when the water is raised to a great height
by the wind and tide. At that time numbers of whales crowd into the
bay. Here is a never-failing fishery, which is part of the episcopal
domain.
[7] Torfæus and Peyrere.
[8] Torfæus says, “ubi publica _in sylvis_ venatio.” Of what trees
were these woods composed? Peyrere, copying the Icelandic Chronicle,
says, “Où il se fait grande chasse de toutes sortes de bestes, et entre
autres de quantité d’ours blancs.”
[9] Torfæi Hist. p. 45.
[10] Peyrere’s words are, “il y a une maison royale nommée Fos.”
[11] Torfæus calls it “villa magnifica.”
[12] Torfæus says, “rusticorum villæ.”
[13] Peyrere.
[14] Doctor Wormius, who was famed for his great research in Northern
antiquities, told Peyrere, that these savages, the aborigines of
Greenland, inhabited one side of the bay of Kindelfiord, in the Western
district, and that the Norwegians had a settlement on the opposite
bank. When, then, the author of the Icelandic Chronicle said, that the
Skrellings possessed all the Westerbygdt, he meant only the country to
the West of this bay. A small party of Norwegians, who had passed over
to the Western bank, were destroyed by the Skrellings. This caused the
Viceroy of Norway, who is called judge of Greenland, to dispatch a ship
with a large force to revenge this affront. But the savages, at the
sight of this vessel, took to flight and concealed themselves in the
woods and rocks; which occasioned Ivar Bert to represent the country as
destitute of inhabitants.
[15] Angrim Jonas, of Iceland, according to Peyrere, says expressly,
“Fundata in Garde Episcopalis residentia in sinu Eynatsfiord
Groenlandiæ Orientalis.”
[16] Peyrere, p. 99.
[17] P. 99. See also Crantz, vol. i. p. 78.
[18] Peyrere’s account of Greenland is dated from the Hague, 18th June,
1646.
[19] Vol. i. p. 278.
[20] The Moravian mission in Greenland began in the year 1733. The
brethren of this mission have two settlements or villages upon the
Western coast. One of these, which is called New Herrnhut, is on Ball’s
River; and the other, which is denominated Lichtenfels, is at the
distance of thirty-six leagues from the first, and more to the South.
Crantz says, that, at his departure from Greenland, four hundred and
seventy Greenlanders were living at New Herrnhut in sixteen houses.
The brethren themselves describe this place as a sort of green Oasis
in a cheerless desert. “No one,” says one of the missionaries, “would
expect to find such a pleasant place in such an unpleasant land. The
country consists entirely of bald rocks, thinly interspersed with spots
and veins of earth, or rather sand. But our house, area, garden, &c.
look very regular and decent, and all the adjacent land round about
the place, where once not a blade of grass grew in the sand, is now
enrobed with the most beautiful foliage, so that New-Herrnhut may be
called a garden of the Lord in a most frightful wilderness.” Crantz,
vol. i, p. 162, 163. In p. 399, of the same volume, Crantz extols the
soft beauty of this little Greenland village, compared with the rugged
sterility around. “On the spot,” says he, “that formerly consisted of
nothing but sand, nay, on the very rocks, grows now the finest grass,
the ground being manured for so many years with the blood and fat of
their seals. And when the Greenlanders live in their winter houses, one
may see every evening, yea, throughout the whole night, a beautiful
illumination, which is the more agreeable as the houses stand in two
parallel lines, are of equal height, and have light in all the windows.”
[21] According to the relation and opinion of those Greenlanders, that
inhabit the gulf of Disco, in 69°, Greenland is an island, which they
infer from the strong current that runs from the North, and keeps the
ice open even into the midst of the sea: they will also tell you, they
have spoken with people different from themselves on the other side of
the ice, and hailed them. Their language, they say, is the same, but
the persons different, so that a small strait only divides Greenland
from America. The said straits are so narrow, that men on both sides
can shoot at once one and the same fish. The continent farthest to the
North is all covered with ice; the islands only uncovered, where rein
deer, and also geese and other wild birds, are found in great numbers.
[22] Historians disagree about the time of the first settlement of
Greenland. The Icelanders (as we have mentioned) will have it to be in
the year 982-3. But Pontanus, in his Danish History, refers it to the
year 770; making his assertion good by a bull of Pope Gregory the IVth,
who in the year 835 sent to Bishop Ansgarius, wherein the propagation
of the Gospel is recommended to him, as archbishop of the Northern
Countries, and especially of Iceland and Greenland.
[23] The Greenlanders relate a very ridiculous story, as well
concerning the origin of our colonies (whom they call by the name of
Kablunæt) as of their total overthrow, as follows: a Greenland woman,
in her child-bearing, was once delivered of Kablunæt and dogs’ whelps,
of which the parents were highly ashamed, and for that reason withdrew
from their neighbours and countrymen. This monstrous breed being grown
up, became so troublesome to their father, that he was not able to
endure them; wherefore he retired yet farther to some distant place.
Meanwhile this inhuman race came to this horrible agreement amongst
themselves, to devour their own father, whenever he should happen to
come among them; which a little after came to pass, when he visited
them with a present of some part of a seal, which he had taken,
according to custom. Kablunæt immediately went down to him, to whom the
father delivered the piece of seal’s flesh he had brought them. But he
was no sooner got ashore, than the doggish race seized and devoured
him, and then ate the seal’s flesh given them. Whilst the Kablunæt
dwelled there, one of the Innuits (or mankind), for so they call
themselves, came rowing along the shore, and throwing his dart at some
sea fowl, missed what he aimed at; which one of the Kablunæt, who stood
upon a point of land running out into the sea, observing, mocked and
ridiculed him, and, laying himself down upon the ground, told him that
as he saw he was so dexterous in shooting, he would be the bird; he
might throw the dart at him, and take care not to miss him: whereupon
Innuit shot and killed him. This death caused continual strifes and
wars between the Kablunæts and Innuits, which last at length became
masters, and overthrew the former.
[24] A Greenlander, who came from the most Southern part of the country
near the States Promontory, told my son, when he saw some lemons in his
room, that he had seen fruits much like those growing upon trees in his
country, though they were four times less; which I take to have been
some of those acorns, which I above took notice of, treating of the
nature of the soil.
[25] The lamps and pots, which the Southern Greenlanders make of this
marble, are sold at a very high price; so that the natives of the
Northern parts, where such marble is not to be had, buy them at the
rate of eight or ten rein deer skins a large pot, and a lamp at two or
three skins.
[26] According to what the natives tell, there is in the Southern parts
a hot well, of a mineral quality; which, if you wash therein, cures
the itch; they wash their skins in it, and it takes away all dirt and
foulness, and makes them look like new.
[27] In the 76th degree of latitude the number of bears is so great,
that they in droves surround the natives’ habitations, who then, with
their dogs, fall upon them, and with their spears and lances kill them.
In winter, instead of dens or caves under the earth, as in Norway
and other places, here the bears make theirs under the snow; which,
according to the information the natives have given me, are made with
pillars, like stately buildings.
[28] The farther you go Northwards, the seldomer you meet with rein
deer, except in the 3d or 4th degree to the North of Disco, where
they are in great numbers; perhaps by reason either of its joining to
America, or else because the deer pass over to the islands upon the
ice, in quest of food, which the main land, covered with ice and snow,
does not afford them. The natives, instead of reason, give us a very
childish tale for the vast number of rein deer being found upon Disco
Island, as follows:--
A mighty Greenlander (one Torngarsuk, as they call him, who is father
to an ugly frightful woman, who resides in the lowermost region of the
Earth, and has command over all the animals of the sea, as we shall see
hereafter) did with his Kajar, tow this island to the place where it
now lies, from the South where it was before. Now, as the face of this
island resembles very much the Southern coasts, and the root angelica
is likewise found upon it, which grows nowhere else in the neighbouring
parts, this confirms them in their credulity. And furthermore, they
assure you, that a hole is seen to this day in the island, through
which the towing-rope had been fastened by Torngarsuk.
[29] The above-mentioned author calls the first of these monsters
Havestramb, or Mer-man, and describes it to have the likeness of a man,
as to the head, face, nose, and mouth; save that its head was oblong
and pointed like a sugar-loaf; it has broad shoulders, and two arms
without hands; the body downwards is slanting and thin; the rest below
the middle, being hid in the water, could not be observed. The second
monster he calls Margya, or Mer-woman, or Mermaid, had from the middle
upwards the shape and countenance of a woman; a terrible broad face,
a pointed forehead, wrinkled cheeks, a wide mouth, large eyes, black
untrimmed hair, and two great breasts, which showed her sex; she has
two long arms, with hands and fingers joined together with a skin,
like the feet of a goose; below the middle she is like a fish, with
a tail and fins. The fishermen pretend, that when these sea monsters
appear, it forebodes stormy weather. The third monster, named Hafgufa,
is so terrible and frightful, that the author does not well know how to
describe it; and no wonder, because he never had any true relation of
it: its shape, length, and bulk, seems to exceed all size and measure.
They that pretend to have seen it, say, it appeared to them more like
a land than a fish, or sea animal. And as there never has been seen
above two of them in the wide open sea, they conclude, that there can
be no breed of them; for if they should breed and multiply, all the
rest of fishes must be destroyed at last, their vast body wanting such
large quantity of nourishment. When this monster is hungry, it is said
to void through the mouth some matter of a sweet scent, which perfumes
the whole sea; and by this means it allures and draws all sorts of
fishes and animals, even the whales to it, who in whole droves flock
thither, and run into the wide opened swallow of this hideous monster,
as into a whirlpool, till its belly be well freighted with a copious
load of all sorts of fishes and animals, and then it shuts the swallow,
and has for the whole year enough to digest and live upon; for it is
said to make but one large meal a year. This, though a very silly and
absurd tale, is nevertheless matched by another story, every whit as
ridiculous, told by my own countrymen, fishermen in the Northern part
of Norway. They tell you, that a great ghastly sea monster now and then
appears in the main sea, which they call Kracken, and is no doubt the
same that the islanders call Hafgufa, of which we have spoken above.
They say, that its body reaches several miles in length; and that it is
most seen in a calm; when it comes out of the water, it seems to cover
the whole surface of the sea, having many heads and a number of claws,
with which it seizes all that comes in its way, as fishing boats with
men and all, fishes and animals, and lets nothing escape; all which it
draws down to the bottom of the sea. Moreover they tell you that all
sorts of fishes flock together upon it, as upon a bank of the sea, and
that many fishing boats come thither to catch fish, not suspecting that
they lie upon such a dreadful monster, which they at last understand by
the intangling of their hooks and angles in its body; which the monster
feeling, rises softly from the bottom to the surface, and seizes them
all; if in time they do not perceive him and prevent their destruction,
which they may easily do, only calling it by its name, which it no
sooner hears, but it sinks down again as softly as it did rise. They
tell you of another sea spectre, which they call the Draw, who keeps to
no constant shape or figure, but now appears in one, now in another.
It appears and is heard before any misfortunes, as shipwrecks and the
like, happen at sea, which it forebodes with a most frightful and
ghastly howling; and they say it sometimes utters words like a man. It
most commonly diverts itself, in putting all things out of order, after
the fishermen are gone at night to rest; and then he leaves behind him
a nasty stench. The fishermen will not suffer the truth of this tale to
be questioned, but pretend it is confessed. But the most superstitious
among them go yet a step farther, and will make you believe, that there
appears to them another kind of sea phantom, in the shape of a child
in swadling clothes, which they call Marmel, and sometimes draw him
out of the sea with their angling hook, when he speaks to them with a
human voice. They carry him to their home, and at night they put him
into one of their boots, there to rest. In the morning, when they go a
fishing again, they take him along with them in their boats, and before
they let him go, they set him a task to inform them of all they want to
know, upon which they dismiss him.
[30] What so many authors of great note relate of the wood ducks, and
affirm to be an unquestionable truth, is by as many learned writers
treated as an old woman’s tale, pretending that such an heterogeneal
generation passes the ordinary bounds of nature.
Others (in consideration of so many authors of credit, who affirm that
they have been eye witnesses to this strange and wonderful generation)
have taken great pains to demonstrate the causes and probability
of it physically and philosophically, amongst whom is the learned
father Kirkerus, in his Mundus Subterraneus; where he maintains, that
the semen of this extraordinary generation is neither contained in
those old pieces of wood, that drive in the sea, nor in the muscles
originally; for a piece of wood cannot produce a living animal, this
exceeding the virtue nature has endowed it with; much less the summer
froth of the sea, which adheres to the rotten piece of wood, and may
produce shells or muscles. Then he forms the question, from whence
comes this semen or seed, which produces such a strange fruit as a
living bird? which question he strives thus to resolve; that, whereas
he has been informed by certain Dutchmen’s journals or voyages into the
Northern seas, that this sort of birds, peculiar to that climate, make
their nest and lay their eggs upon the ice; when the ice by the heat of
the sun thaws and breaks asunder, this innumerable quantity of eggs are
likewise mashed and crushed to pieces and beaten about by the waves;
and that if that part of the egg, which contains the seed, encounters
any subject matter proper to foment and brood it, and is received in it
loco nutricis, assisted by the temperament of the air, the earth, or
the sea, it becomes in due time a perfect bird. This is the renowned
father Kirkerus’s notion concerning the generation of these birds.
But if one examines his reasoning, it is found altogether incoherent:
for it was never known, that sea fowls lay their eggs upon the naked
ice, but commonly upon the islands and rocks in the sea, which are
surrounded and sometimes covered with ice; and consequently when the
ice breaks, and drives away from the islands, the eggs remain still in
their nest, without receiving any hurt. And thus the Dutch found it at
Nova Zembla, in the year 1569; but what they saw was not the right sort
of wood ducks, but what they in Norway call gield ducks; for wood ducks
never are seen to couple, nor to lay or hatch their eggs. Secondly, it
seems no less absurd to maintain, that eggs, after they are mashed in
pieces, and beaten about by the waves, retain as much seminal virtue as
will serve to procreate a bird. From whence I infer, that either the
information the good father had got from the Dutch voyages was intirely
groundless, or this pretended generation goes beyond the bounds of
nature. As to the first inference, it is not impossible that the
authors who relate this story may have been imposed upon by a common
though false report of vulgar and ignorant people; as any one may, that
takes a thing for granted upon a bare hearsay, without the attestation
of eye witnesses in such a matter. For my part I do not doubt at all
of this wonderful generation; for though I have not beheld it with my
own eyes, yet I have met with many honest and reasonable men in my
native country, who have assured me, that they have found pieces of
old, rotten, driven wood in the sea, upon which there hang muscles, in
some of which they saw young birds, some half formed, others in full
perfection and shape. From whence I conclude, that those fowls spring
from no other seed than some clammy and viscous matter floating in the
sea, precipitated upon pieces of old rotten wood as aforesaid; of which
there is first formed a muscle, and then a little worm in the muscle
shell; from whence at last a bird proceeds. And although this may seem
to exceed the ordinary bounds set by nature in the procreation of other
birds, yet it is observed and confessed, that the sea produces many
strange and surprising things, and even living animals, which we cannot
affirm to have had being from the first creation; but that by virtue of
the primitive blessing God gave the sea to produce, it may yet bring
forth many uncommon and wonderful things; as for example, many sorts
of sea insects, viz. crabs and the like. And thus the sea or water in
general may with reason be stiled _pater et mater rerum_; i. e. “the
common parent of things.” Nature seems to delight sometimes in forming
out-of-the-way things: thus we see divers insects formed out of the
very dung of animals; some of which insects often change their kind
and shape, _viz._ from a small worm into a flying animal; as flies,
beetles, butterflies, and so forth.
[31] When they see our drunken sailors quarrelling and fighting
together, they say we are inhuman; that those fighters do not look upon
one another to be of the same kind. Likewise, if an officer beats any
of the men, they say, such officer treats his fellow creatures like
dogs.