Norsemen founded a regular settlement in Vinland, establishing there
a Christian community related to that of Greenland. Leif's brother,
Korvald, explored the interior in all directions. With the natives, who
are called "Skraelings" in the sagas, they traded in furs; these people,
who seemed dwarfish to the Norsemen, used leathern boats and were no
doubt Eskimos:

A stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock.

The principal settler in Vinland was Thorfinn, an Icelander, who had
married a daughter-in-law of Erik the Red. She persuaded Thorfinn to
sail to the new country in order to make a permanent settlement there.
In the year 1007 A. D. he sailed with 160 men, having live stock and
other colonial equipments. After three years he returned to Greenland,
his wife having given birth to a son during their first year in Vinland.
From this son, Snorre, it is claimed by some Norwegian historians, that
Thorwaldsen, the eminent Danish sculptor is descended. After the time
of Thorfinn, the settlement in Vinland continued to flourish, having a
good export trade in timber with Greenland. In 1121 A. D. according to
the Icelandic saga, the bishop, Erik Upsi, visited Vinland, that country
being, like Iceland and Greenland, included in his bishopric. The last
voyage to Vinland for timber, according to the sagas, was in 1347.

[Illustration: Map]

Professor Horsford, of Cambridge, Mass., finds the site of Norumbega,
mentioned in various old maps, on the River Charles, near Waltham,
Mass., and maintains that town to be identical with Vinland of the
Norsemen. To prove his belief in this theory, the professor built a
tower commemorating the Norse discoveries. He argued that Norumbega was
a corruption by the Indians of the word _Norvegr_ a Norse form of
"Norway."

The abandonment of Vinland by the Norse settlers may be compared with
that of Gosnold's expedition to the same region near the end of Queen
Elizabeth's reign. Gosnold was sent to plant an English colony in
America, after the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh's settlement at Roanoke
(North Carolina); and the coast explored corresponded exactly to that
which the Norse settlers had named Vinland, lying between the sites of
Boston and New York. He gave the name Cape Cod to that promontory, and
also named the islands Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth
group. Selecting one of these for settling a colony, he built on it a
storehouse and fort. The scheme, however, failed, o