pable 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
ro