Chapter 3
The winter was colder than they had expected. This land, so much further south than Norway, was bitten by frost as Norway never was. There is something in intense cold which is inhuman. When men are shut up together in exile by it, all that is bad in them is likely to crop out. It might have been worse but for the fortunate friendliness of the Skroelings. When scurvy appeared in the camp, their first acquaintance, Munumqueh (woodchuck) had his women brew a drink which cured it. He showed the white men also how to make pemmican, the compressed meat ration of native hunters, and how to construct and use a birch canoe, a pair of snowshoes, and a fire-drill. Gustav Sigerson died in the spring, and Nils was chosen captain. He and Munumqueh became great cronies, and exchanged names, Nils being thereafter known to his native friends as the Woodchuck, and bestowing upon Munumqueh the proud name of his grandfather, Nils the Bear-Slayer.
"It will never do for us to sit quiet here until Knutson returns," said Nils when at Midsummer nothing had been seen of the ships. "We shall be at one another's throats or quarreling with the savages." He had been inquiring about the nature of the country, and had learned that westward a great river led to five inland seas, so connected that canoes could go from one to another. Along this chain of waters lived tribes who spoke somewhat the same language and traded with one another. Southward lived a warlike people who sometimes attacked the lake tribes. Beyond the last of the lakes they did not know what the country was like. The waters inland were not troubled with the water-demon so far as they knew. Nils, Anders and Thorolf held a council and decided to explore the wilderness as far as they could go in the _Rotge_. It was nothing more than all their ancestors had done. Often, in their invasions of England, France and other unknown regions Vikings had gone up one river and come down another, and the _Rotge_, for all her iron strength, was no more than a wooden shell when stripped.[6]
They set forth, escorted by a flotilla of small canoes, on a clear summer morning, and found their progress surprisingly easy. Fish, game and berries were plentiful, the villages along the river supplied corn and beans, and though it was not always easy to drag the _Rotge_ around the carrying-places pointed out by their native guides, they did not have to turn back. It was a proud moment when the undefeated crew launched their "water-snake" as the Skroelings called her, on the shining waters of a great inland sea.
The journey had been a far longer one than they expected, and to natives of any other country would have been much more exciting than it was to the Norsemen.[7] They had seen cliffs a thousand feet high, cataracts, rapids, a multitude of wooded islands, narrow valleys where floating misty clouds came and went and the sky looked like a riband. But the precipice above Naero Fiord rises four thousand perpendicular feet, and the water which laps its base is thousands of feet in depth. The Skjaeggedalsfos is loftier than Niagara, and the mist-maidens dance along the perilous pathways of a hundred Norwegian cliffs. Nils and Thorolf agreed that the Wind-wife was right when she said that the country of the Skroelings was like Norway but had no end.
"The trouble is," reflected Nils as he set down the day's happenings on a birch-bark scroll, "that nobody will believe us when we tell how great the land is."
At the end of the fifth and largest lake they found people with some knowledge of the country beyond. It seemed that after crossing the Big Woods one came to great open plains where a ferocious and cruel race of warriors hunted animals as large as the moose, with hoofs and short horns and curly brown fur. This sounded like a cattle country. The lake tribes evidently stood in great fear of the plains people, but in spite of their evident alarm the Norsemen determined to go and see for themselves.[8] Leaving the boat with ten of their company to guard it they struck off southwestward through a country of forests, lakes and streams. After fourteen days they stopped to make camp and go a-fishing, for dried fish would be the most convenient ration for a quick march, and they did not intend to spend much more time in exploring.
It seemed to Nils and Thorolf that some mark or monument should be left to show how far they had really come. A small natural column of dark trap rock was chosen, and while the others fished, or made a seine after the native fashion, Nils marked out an inscription in Runic letters, which are suited to rough work. Not far from the place where they found the stone, and about a day's journey from camp, was a small high island in a little lake, the kind of place usually chosen by Vikings for a first camp. The stone, set in the middle of this island, would be easily seen by any one looking for it, and savages would not see it at all. When finished it was rafted across to the island and set up, the inscription covering about half of it on both sides. While Nils and several others were thus busy, the remainder of the party were trying the seine. They reached camp after dark to find their booths in ashes, and Nils with his men murdered a little way off, as they had come up from the Rune Stone.[9]
With fury and horror the Norsemen looked upon the destruction. It was all Thorolf and the cooler heads could do to keep the rest from attacking the first Skroelings they saw. But the mischief had been done, without doubt, by the unknown warriors of the plains, who had been perhaps watching their advance. They sadly prepared to return to their boat. But before they went, Thorolf paddled out to the island on two logs, while the others kept guard, and added some lines to the inscription on the stone.
They never saw their Vinland again. Knutson, finding the King fighting hard against the Danes, gave no further thought to the wilderness. Thorolf and a handful of his men finally reached Bergen; Anders stayed in Greenland. More than five centuries afterward, a Scandinavian farmer, grubbing for stumps in a Minnesota marsh, found overgrown by the roots of a tulip tree a stone with an inscription in Runic letters, took it to learned men and had it translated.
"8 Goths and 22 Norsemen upon journey of discovery from Vinland westward. We had camp by two rocks one day's journey from this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we returned home we found ten men red with blood and dead. AVM save us from evil. have ten men by the sea to look after our ship 14 days journey from this island. Year 1362."
NOTES
[1] Skal or skoal was the Norwegian word used in drinking a health.
[2] The description of the Norse galley is taken from Du Chaillu's "Land of the Midnight Sun," in which the construction of one which was unearthed at Nydam in Jutland is described (Vol. I. 380). The galley "Viking" built in Norway on the model of an actual Viking ship of the early Middle Ages, was taken across the Atlantic in 1893 by a Norwegian crew of fourteen, anchoring in Lake Michigan, after a voyage in which they had no shelter except an awning and cooked their own food as best they could.
[3] The question of the actual whereabouts of Leif Ericsson's booths and Thorfin Karlsefne's later settlement has never been positively decided. The Knutson expedition to Greenland is an historical fact. It left Norway about 1354 and returned about 1364. It is not positively known that Knutson attempted the rediscovery of Vinland, unless what is known as the Kensington Rune Stone is evidence of it. The writer has adopted the theory that he did take a party southward, landing at Halifax, and left a part of his men there, intending to return with more colonists; that on returning to Norway he found the country in the throes of war and abandoned any thought of further settlement, leaving his men to find their way back as they could.
[4] The Indian phrases and legends referred to as learned by the Wind-wife are Abenaki.
[5] According to historians the region along the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes was for a long time inhabited by tribes belonging to the great Ojibway nation. Their territory extended nearly to the western boundary of what is now Minnesota. Southward were the tribes later known as Iroquois.
[6] Accounts of the open galleys of the Northmen agree in describing them as small and light compared with the later decked ships. The open "sea-serpent" of forty-two feet, with her mast unshipped was heavier but not much bigger than the largest Indian carrying-canoes such as were used in the fur-trade, and these were taken from the St. Lawrence through the Great Lakes. Vikings landing in Europe were prepared not only to return by a new route but even to take their boats apart or build new ones if necessary.
[7] Bayard Taylor, visiting the Saguenay and the St. Lawrence immediately after a sojourn in Norway, speaks of his inability to be impressed as others had been, by the height of the cliffs and waterfalls of Canada, although fully appreciating the beauty of the scenery.
[Footnote 8: The Sioux or Dakotas, who occupied the Great Plains, were hereditary enemies of the Ojibways. In the Ojibway language one name for these Plains Indians indicated that they were in the habit of mutilating their victims.]
[9] The monument known as the Kensington Rune Stone was found near Kensington, Minnesota, and is fully described in the reports of the Minnesota Historical Society. It was the subject of many arguments at first. Well known authorities pronounced it a forgery, while other well known authorities declared it genuine. It was pointed out that the language used was not that of the time of Leif Ericsson, but much more modern; but later it was found that the inscription was exactly such as would have been written about the middle of the fourteenth century, when Knutson's expedition was in Greenland. Aside from the obvious lack of motive for a forgery, investigation showed that neither the farmer nor any one who might have been in a position to bury the stone where it was found had any knowledge of Runic writing. Moreover, if the stone had been a forgery it would seem that the forger would have used the name of some well known leader, whereas no name is mentioned. If Knutson had been with the expedition he would certainly have seen to it that his presence was recorded.
Otter Tail Lake, just north of the place where the stone was discovered, was one of the points marking the boundary between the Ojibway and Dakota country. The position of the runes on the stone is precisely what it would be if the inscription had been finished, or nearly finished, as a guide to future exploration, and the account of the massacre added as a warning.
A song commonly sung at the time of the Black Death contains the lines:
"The Black Plague sped over land and sea And swept so many a board. That will I now most surely believe, It was not with the Lord's will. Help us God and Mary, Save us all from evil."
THE NAVIGATORS
We were Prince Henry's gentlemen,-- His gentlemen were we, To dare the gods of Heathendom, Whoever they might be,-- To do our master's sovereign will Upon a trackless sea.
We were Prince Henry's gentlemen, And undismayed we went To fight for Lusitania Wherever we were sent,-- The stars had laid our course for us, And we were well content.
We were Prince Henry's gentlemen, And though our flagship lie Where white the great-winged albatross Came wheeling down the sky, Or black abysses yawned for us, We could not fear to die.
We were Prince Henry's gentlemen,-- Around the Cape of Wrath We sailed our wooden cockleshells-- Great pride the pilot hath To voyage to-day the Indian Sea-- But we marked out his path!
III
SEA OF DARKNESS
"Those things that you say cannot be true, Fernao! How do you know that the sea turns black and dreadful just behind those heavenly clouds? If there are hydras, and gorgons, and sea-snakes that can swallow a ship, and a great black hand reaching up out of a whirlpool to drag men down, why do we never see them here? Look at that sea, can there be anything in the world more beautiful?"
The vehement small speaker waved her slender hand with a gesture that seemed to take in half the horizon. The old Moorish garden, overrun with the brilliant blossoms that drink their hues from the sea, overlooked the harbor. Across the huddled many-colored houses the ten-year-old Beatriz and her playfellow Fernao could see the western ocean in a great half-circle, bounded by the mysterious line above which three tiny caravels had just risen. The sea to-day was exquisite, bluer than the heavens that arched above it. The wave-crests looked like a flock of sea-doves playing on the sunlit sparkling waters. Fernao from his seat on the crumbling wall watched the incoming ships with the far-sighted gaze of a sailor. Portuguese through and through, the son and grandson of men who had sailed at the bidding of the great Prince Henry, he felt that he could speak with authority.[1]
"Of course I am telling you the truth. You are very wise about the sea--you who never saw it until two weeks ago! Gil Andrade has been to places that you Castilians never even heard of. He has seen whales, and mermaids, and the Sea of Darkness itself! He has been to the Gold Coast beyond Bojador, where the people are fried black like charcoal, and the rivers are too hot to drink."
"Then why didn't he die?" inquired the unbelieving Beatriz.
"Because he didn't stay there long enough. And there are devils in the forest, stronger than ten men, and all covered with shaggy hair--"
"I will not listen to such nonsense! Do you think that because I am Spanish, and a girl, I am without understanding? Tio Sancho, is it true that there is a Sea of Darkness?"
Sancho Serrao was an old seaman, as any one would know by his eyes and his walk. For fifty years he had used the sea, as ship-boy, sailor, and pilot. His daughter Catharina had been the nurse of Beatriz, and he had brought coral, shells and queer toys to the little thing from the time she could toddle to his knee.
"What has Fernao been saying to thee, pombinha agreste?" (little wood-dove) he asked soberly, though his eyes twinkled ever so little. He seated himself as he spoke, on an ancient bench that rested its back against the wall just where the wind was sweetest. Under the fragrances of ripening vineyards and flowering shrubs there was always the sharp clean smell of the sea.
"He believes all that Gil Andrade and Joao Pancado tell him as if it were the Credo," Beatriz began, her words flung out like sparks from a little crackling fire. "He says that there is a Sea of Darkness out away beyond the Falcon Islands, where ships are drawn into a great pit under the edge of the world. And he says that ships cannot go too far south because the sun is so near it would burn them, and they cannot go too far north because the icebergs will catch them and crush them. If I were a man, I would sail straight out there, into the sunset, and show them what my people dared to do!"
Old Sancho was not all Portuguese. In his veins ran the blood of the three great seafaring races of southern Europe--the Genoese, the Lusitanian and the Vizcayan--and their jealousies and rivalries amused him. He had spent most of his life in the feluccas and caravels of Lisbon and Oporto, because when he was young they went where no other ships dared even follow; but he did not believe that the last word in discovery had been said even by Dom Henriques at Sagres, or the Mappe-Monde of Fra Mauro in Venice.
"Not so fast there, velinha (small candle)" he cautioned, raising a whimsical forefinger. "So said many of us in our youth. And when we had sailed for weeks, and all our provisions were mouldy or weevilly, and our water-casks warped and leaking so that we had to catch the rain in our shirts, we began to wonder what it was we had come for. The sea won't be mocked or threatened. She has ways of her own, the old witch, to tame the vainglorious. And 't is true enough," the old pilot went on with a quizzing look at Fernao on his insecure perch, "that sailors have a bad habit of doubling and trebling their recollections when they find anybody who will listen. I don't know why they do it. Maybe it is because having told a perfectly true tale which nobody believed, they think that a little more or a little less will do no harm. For this you must remember, my children,--that at sea many things happen which when told no one believes to be true."
"I would believe anything you told me, Tio Sancho," promised Beatriz, all love and confidence in her little glowing face.
"Ay, would you now? What if I said that I have seen a ship with all sail set coming swiftly before the wind, in a place where no wind was, to stir our hair who beheld it--and sailing moreover through the air at the height of a tall mast-head above the sea? And a mountain of ice half a league long and as high as the Giralda at Seville, floating in a sea as blue as this one, and as warm? And islands with mountains that smoke, appearing and disappearing in broad daylight? Yet all of these are common sights at sea."
"But is there a Sea of Darkness, verily, verily, tio caro?" persisted Beatriz. The old man shook his head, with a little quiet smile.
"I'll not say there is not. And I'll not say there is. I saw a Sea of Darkness on the second voyage that ever I made, but that's all."
"Oh, tell us all the story!" begged Beatriz, and Fernao silently slid from the wall and came closer.
"The commander of our ship was Gonsales Zarco, one of Dom Henriques' gentlemen. Years before he'd been caught by a gale on his way to Africa, and driven north on to an island that he named because of that, Puerto Santo (Holy Haven). So when he came that way again he stopped to see how the settlement that was planted there prospered, and found the people in great trouble of mind. They showed him that a thick black cloud hung upon the sea to the northwest of the island, filling the air to the very heavens and never going away; and out of this cloud, they said, came strange noises, not like any they had heard before. They dared not sail far from their island, for they said that if a man lost sight of land thereabouts it was a miracle if he ever returned. They believed that place to be the great abyss, the mouth of hell. But learned men held the opinion that this cloud hid the island of Cipango, where the Seven Bishops had taken refuge from the Moors and the Saracens.
"Certainly the cloud was there, for we all saw it, and when the Commander said that he would stay to see whether it would change when the moon changed, we liked it not, I can tell you. And when we learned that he was minded to sail straight into the darkness and see what lay behind it, why, there were some who would have run away--if they could have run anywhere but into the sea.
"But we had a Spanish pilot, Morales, who had once been a prisoner in Morocco, and there he knew two Englishmen who had sailed these seas in time past. Their ship had been lying ready to sail for France, when late at night Robert Macham, a gentleman of their country, came hurriedly aboard with his lady love whom he had carried off from her home in Bristol, and between dark and dawn the captain weighed anchor and was off. Then being driven from the course the ship was cast on a thickly wooded island with a high mountain in the middle, where they dwelt not long, for the lady died, and Macham died of grief. The crew left the island and were wrecked in Morocco and made slaves. All this was many years before, for the Englishmen had grown old in slavery, and Morales himself had grown old since he heard the tale.
"It was the belief of Morales that this was the island of which they told, and that the cloud which hung above the waters was the mist arising from those dense woods which covered it. The upshot was that the commander set sail one morning early and steered straight for the cloud.
"The nearer we came the higher and thicker looked the darkness that spread over the sea, and we heard about noon a great roaring of the waves. Still Gonsales held his course, and when the wind failed he ordered out the boats to tow the ship into the cloud, and I was one of those who rowed. As we got closer it was not quite so dark, but the roaring was louder, although the sea was smooth. Then through the darkness we beheld tall black objects which we guessed to be giants walking in the water, but as we came nearer we saw that they were great rocks, and before us loomed a high mountain covered with thick woods.
"We found no place to land but a cave under a rock that overhung the sea, and that was trodden all over the bottom by the sea-wolves, so that Gonsales named it the Camera dos Lobos. The island, because of its forests, he called Madeira. When we came back, having taken possession of the island for the King, he sent a colony to settle upon it, and the first boy and girl born there were named Adam and Eva. The people set fire to the trees, which were in their way, and could not put out the fire, so that it burned for seven years and all the trees were destroyed. And the King gave our commander the right to carry as supporters on his coat-of-arms two sea-wolves."
Beatriz drew a long breath. "Weren't you very scared, Tio Sancho?"
"Sailors must not be scared, little one. Or if they are, they must never let their arms and legs be scared. We knew that we had to obey orders or be dead, so we obeyed. I have been glad many a time since that I sailed with Gonsales and old Morales to the discovery of Madeira."
"What are sea-wolves?" asked Fernao.
"Like no beast that ever you saw, my son. They have the fore part of the body like a dog or bear, the hind part ending in a tail like a fish, but with hair, not scales, on the body; the head has a thick mane, and the jaws are large and strong. They are no more seen on that island, for they went there only because it was never visited by men."
"Did they try to drive the people away?"
"No; they do not fight men unless men attack them. But the settlers were once driven off Puerto Santo by animals, and not very fierce animals at that." The old pilot grinned. "They were driven away by rabbits. Somebody brought rabbits there and let them loose, and in a few years there were so many that everything that was planted was eaten green. The people who live on that island now have made a strict rule about rabbits."
The children's laughter echoed the dry chuckle of the old man. Then Fernao, unwilling to abandon his authorities,--
"But if the Sea of Darkness and the great abyss are not in the western ocean, why haven't they found out what really is there?"
"That, my son, is more than I can tell you," said Sancho Serrao, getting up. "I sailed where I was told, and I never was told to sail due west from Lisbon. But here is a man who can answer your question, if any one can. Welcome to my humble dwelling, Senhor Colombo! Shall we go into the house, or will you find it pleasanter in the garden?"
The new-comer was a tall man of middle age, although at first sight he looked older, because of his white hair. The fresh complexion, alert walk, and keen thoughtful blue eyes were those of a man not old in either mind or body. He smiled in answer to the greeting, and replied with a quick wave of the hand. "Do not disturb yourself, I beg of you, my friend. The garden is very pleasant. I have come on an errand of my own this time. Did you ever see, in your voyages to Africa or elsewhere, any such carving as this?"