THE Author of the present Volume was born in Denmark, on the 31st of January, in the year 1686. He was educated for the Christian ministry, and became pastor to a congregation at Vogen, in Norway, and appears for some time to have exercised the same functions at Drontheim, in that kingdom. In an early period of his ministry he was seized with a strong desire of making himself acquainted with the fate of the Norwegian families who had formerly been settled in Greenland, and of whom no intelligence had been received for several centuries. All the inquiries which he could make led to the conclusion, that that part of the coast where these settlements had formerly existed had been rendered inaccessible by the ice; and that the ancient settlers had been destroyed either by the effects of the climate or the hostility of the natives. But these unfavourable representations did not repress the ardour of Egede to embark in this perilous undertaking; and either to discover the old Norwegian settlements, or to form a new one, and to devote his life to the instruction of the barbarous and uncivilized Greenlanders in the salutary truths of the Christian doctrine.
He was a man of warm temperament, and mingled with such a portion of enthusiasm as does not readily suffer its exertions to be relaxed by difficulties, or the hopes which it has conceived to be extinguished by inauspicious circumstances. For many years he attempted in vain to interest the Danish government in the furtherance of the scheme which he had conceived. His memorials were disregarded, and his proposals were considered as visionary and impracticable. But at last Frederick IV, King of Denmark, issued an order to the magistrates at Bergen to make inquiries of all the masters of vessels and traders, who had been in Davis’s Straits, concerning the state of the traffic with Greenland; and, at the same time, to learn their opinion about forming a new settlement upon that coast. But the answer which they returned was not at all favourable to the wishes of our author, and the project seemed never likely to be accomplished.
After more ineffectual attempts, his perseverance at last triumphed over every obstacle; and he persuaded some merchants and others to subscribe some small sums, out of which he collected a capital of about 2000l. Of this inconsiderable sum he himself had furnished about 60l., which constituted his little all. With these slender means, which seemed totally inadequate to the undertaking, a ship was purchased, called the Hope, in which Egede was to be conveyed to Greenland, and to lay the foundation of the meditated establishment. But, in the spring of 1721, the Danish monarch, who had been brought to think more favourably of the expedition, appointed Mr. Egede to be pastor of the new colony, and missionary to the Heathen, with a pension of 60l. a year, and 40l. for his immediate exigencies.
Egede embarked for Greenland, with his wife and four small children, upon the 12th of May, 1721; and he landed in Ball’s River, in the 64th degree of North latitude, upon the 3d of July, in the same year. The company on board the ship consisted of forty persons. They lost no time in building a house of stone and earth, upon an island near Kangek, which they called Haabets Oe, or Hope Island, after the name of the ship in which they had made the voyage.
The conduct of Egede as a missionary deserves the highest praise. He conciliated the confidence of the natives, ministered to their wants, learned their language, and gradually introduced some additional rays of intellectual light into their minds.
“As soon,” says Crantz, vol. i. p. 286, “as he new the word kina, i. e. what is this? he asked the name of every thing that presented itself to the senses, and wrote it down.” But his children, by continually conversing with the children of the natives, learned the language, particularly the pronunciation, with much more facility than himself; and he was enabled to make considerable use of their proficiency in the vernacular tongue of the country, in promoting the purposes of his mission.
Upon the death of Frederick IV, and the accession of Christian VI, the Danish government, dissatisfied with the expense which the settlement in Greenland had occasioned, and the faint prospect which appeared of any adequate remuneration from the trade with that country, issued, in 1731, a mandate for the relinquishment of the colony, and the return of the settlers. But this zealous missionary resolved not to abandon the good work which he had begun; and though most of the settlers left the coast in the ship which had been sent to conduct them home, he remained behind with ten seamen whom he had persuaded to adopt the same determination. The Danish monarch, either sympathising with his constancy, or moved by his entreaties, assisted him with some supplies in the following year; and in the year 1733 he was cheered by the assurance that the mission should be more effectually supported, and the trade with Greenland more vigorously prosecuted than it had hitherto been.
When the advanced age, or rather the growing infirmities of Egede, which had been increased by the corporeal toils he had undergone, and the mental solicitudes he had experienced, no longer permitted him to continue his former occupation, his eldest son Paul became his successor in the mission. After an abode of fifteen years in this sterile region and inclement climate, he returned to Copenhagen in the year 1736. Though he had relinquished the mission, he was not inattentive to its interests; for he devoted much of his time, after his return, to the instruction of young missionaries in the language of Greenland. He also composed a grammar and a dictionary of that language, into which he translated the New Testament for the use of the mission and the benefit of the natives. He published the Description of Greenland, which is contained in the present Volume, at Copenhagen, in the Danish language, the year preceding his death, which took place in 1758[20].
A
D E S C R I P T I O N
OF
G R E E N L A N D:
Showing
THE NATURAL HISTORY, SITUATION, BOUNDARIES, AND
FACE OF THE COUNTRY;
THE NATURE OF THE SOIL;
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE OLD NORWEGIAN COLONIES;
THE ANCIENT AND MODERN INHABITANTS;
THEIR GENIUS AND WAY OF LIFE, AND PRODUCE
OF THE SOIL;
THEIR PLANTS, BEASTS, FISHES, &C.
B Y H A N S E G E D E,
MISSIONARY IN THAT COUNTRY FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH.
TO
HIS MOST SERENE ROYAL HIGHNESS
F R E D E R I C K,
HEREDITARY PRINCE, SUCCESSOR TO THE
CROWN OF DENMARK AND NORWAY.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST SERENE
ROYAL HIGHNESS,
AS I took the freedom most humbly to address to the King your Royal Father an account of the Greenland Mission’s beginning and propagation, which his Majesty with so glorious a zeal protects and encourages; so likewise, with the same most humble submission, I presume to offer to your most Serene Royal Highness this present survey or Natural History of Greenland; endeavouring by this means to insinuate and recommend to your Royal Highness’s favour and protection so pious an undertaking; because the poor Greenlanders have a right to claim your protection, as well as the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, and are in hopes of enjoying, one day, the greatest blessings under your happy reign.
This little Work cannot fail of a gracious reception from your Royal Highness, as it aims only at, and is calculated for, the honour of God and your Royal Family’s exaltation; the last of which wholly depends on and necessarily follows the first; for when the poor Greenlanders shall have learned to know and worship God as their Creator and Redeemer, then they will likewise learn to acknowledge and honour a Christian Sovereign as their king and ruler, through whose most Christian care and beneficence they have been brought to the knowledge of Salvation.
May the Kingdom of God daily increase, and be spread far and wide, under the government of your Royal House. May the word of God run swiftly under the sway of its sceptre, as it doth in the East, so also now in the coldest North.
That it may please Almighty God to make your Royal Highness’s name as the name of the great and mighty ones upon Earth; that he may establish and powerfully support the Royal Hereditary Throne, and place you as a blessing before his face to all eternity, are the hearty wishes and prayers of
Your Serene Royal Highness’s
most obedient,
most humble,
and most devoted
Subject and Servant,
H A N S E G E D E.
Copenhagen,
July 20, 1741.
