minds about it,
old as he was, and extremely fat. He had been a great traveller in his
youth, and was averse from exertion in these latter days, but he was
uncomfortable at home, with no wife in the house, and all his sons
holding the new faith. So he wavered until the last minute, and then
said that he would not go at all. Leif was not sorry.

He had a crew of five-and-thirty with him, and sailed his ship as near
to S.S.W. as might be. She ran for six days before a fair wind, and on
the afternoon of the sixth they made land on the starboard bow. There
were mountains with snow upon them, and much fog; but Leif said that he
would land in the morning, whatever kind of country it was. "It shall
never be said against me, as it has been against Biorn, that I travel
six days over the sea and leave the land I reach because it is not
Greenland," he said.

They found a good anchorage, waited the night through, and then rowed
off in their boat and ran her up on to the beach. It was a naked
country of broken rock and shale. No grass was to be seen, and hardly
any trees, except a few stunted silver birch. They walked inland for a
mile or more to where the snow began, and then saw, as it were, one
vast unwrinkled sheet of snow stretching upwards into a bank of cloud.
The ground was all scree of slate and shaly rock. They saw no signs of
habitancy, and few tracks of animals. Then presently they looked at
each other, and Leif laughed. "I think there is something to be said
for Biorn; but although this is a barren land there is no reason why it
should not have a name. I will call it Helloland, for such it is." [1]
Then they returned to their ship, and up-anchor, and away along the
coast, so far as that allowed, but always keeping a straight course.

They came to another land, lying low in the sea, and sailed in towards
it. Here also they landed, but on a shore of fine white sand, very
level towards the sea, but blown into hummocks, whereon grass grew,
towards the land. That was a flat country, and swampy, with trees so
far as they could see, in some places dense and in others more open;
but where the country lay open there were the swamps. "This country
pleases me more than the last," Leif said. "The least it deserves is
to be named. We will name it after its quality, and call it Markland,"
he said.[2]

But nobody wanted to stay there very long, and there seemed nothing
better to do than to get back to the ship ag