Historic Tales, Vol. 1 | Page 7

and these savages
the warlike blood of Eirek manifested itself in a woman of his race. For
Freydis, his daughter, when pursued and likely to be captured by the
natives, snatched up a sword which had been dropped by a slain
Greenlander, and faced them so valiantly that they took to their heels in
affright and fled precipitately to their canoes.
One more story, and we are done. In the spring of 1010 Thorfinn sailed
north with the two ships which he still had. One of them reached
Greenland in safety. The other, commanded by Biarni Grimolfson, was
driven from its course, and, being worm-eaten, threatened to sink.
There was but one boat, and this capable of holding but half the ship's
company. Lots were cast to decide who should go in the boat, and who
stay on the sinking ship. Biarni was of those to whom fortune proved
kindly. But he was a man of noble strain, fit for deeds of heroic
fortitude and self-sacrifice. There was on board the ship a young
Icelander, who had been put under Biarni's protection, and who
lamented bitterly his approaching fate.
"Come down into the boat," called out the noble-hearted Viking. "I will
take your place in the ship; for I see that you are fond of life."
So the devoted chieftain mounted again into the ship, and the youth,
selfish with fear, took his place in the boat. The end was as they had
foreseen. The boat reached land, where the men told their story. The
worm-eaten ship must have gone down in the waves, for Biarni and his
comrades were never heard of again. Thus perished one of the world's
heroes.
Little remains to be told, for all besides is fragment and conjecture. It is

true that in the year 1011 Freydis and her husband voyaged again to
Vineland, though they made no new discoveries; and it is probable that
in the following centuries other journeys were made to the same land.
But as time passed on Greenland grew colder; its icy harvest descended
farther and farther upon its shores; in the end its colonies disappeared,
and with them ended all intercourse with the grape-laden shores of
Vineland.
Just where lay this land of the vine no one to-day can tell. Some would
place it as far north as Labrador; some seek to bring it even south of
New England; the Runic records simply tell us of a land of capes,
islands, rivers, and vines. It is to the latter, and to the story of
far-reaching forest-land, and pasturage lasting the winter through, that
we owe the general belief that the Vikings reached New England's
fertile shores, and that the ship of Biarni and Leif, with its war-loving
crews, preceded by six centuries the Mayflower, with its peaceful and
pious souls.

FROBISHER AND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
Hardly had it been learned that Columbus was mistaken in his belief,
and that the shores he had discovered were not those of India and
Cathay, when vigorous efforts began to find some easy route to the rich
lands of the Orient. Balboa, in 1513, crossed the continent at its narrow
neck, and gazed, with astounded eyes, upon the mighty ocean that lay
beyond,--the world's greatest sea. Magellan, in 1520, sailed round the
continent at its southern extremity, and turned his daring prows into
that world of waters of seemingly illimitable width. But the route thus
laid out was far too long for the feeble commerce of that early day, and
various efforts were made to pass the line of the continent at some
northern point. The great rivers of North America, the James, the
Hudson, and others, were explored in the eager hope that they might
prove to be liquid canals between the two great seas. But a more
promising hope was that which hinted that America might be
circumnavigated at the north as well as at the south, and the Pacific be
reached by way of the icy channel of the northern seas.

This hope, born so long ago, has but died out in our own days. Much of
the most thrilling literature of adventure of the nineteenth century
comes from the persistent efforts to traverse these perilous Arctic ocean
wastes. Let us go back to the oldest of the daring navigators of this
frozen sea, the worthy knight Sir Martin Frobisher, and tell the story of
his notable efforts to discover a Northwest Passage, "the only thing left
undone," as he quaintly says, "whereby a notable mind might become
famous and fortunate."
As an interesting preface to our story we may quote from that curious
old tome, "Purchas his Pilgrimage," the following quaintly imaginative
passage,--
"How shall I admire your valor and courage, yee Marine Worthies,
beyond all names of worthinesse; that