r was evolved in
one of the world's most stimulating regions. Privation they must have
suffered, and hardihood and boldness were absolutely essential in the
combat with storms, cold, wild beasts, fierce winds, and raging waves.
But under the spur of constant variety and change, these difficulties
were merely incentives to progress. When the time came for the people of
the west of Europe to cross to America, they were of a different caliber
from the previous immigrants.

Two facts of physical geography brought Europe into contact with
America. One of these was the islands of the North, the other the
trade-winds of the South. Each seems to have caused a preliminary
contact which failed to produce important results. As in the northern
Pacific, so in the northern Atlantic, islands are stepping-stones from
the Old World to the New. Yet because in the latter case the islands are
far apart, it is harder to cross the water from Norway and the Lofoten
Islands to Iceland and Greenland than it is to cross from Asia by way of
the Aleutian Islands or Bering Strait. Nevertheless in the tenth century
of the Christian era bold Norse vikings made the passage in the face of
storm and wind. In their slender open ships they braved the elements
on voyage after voyage. We think of the vikings as pirates, and so
they were. But they were also diligent colonists who tilled the ground
wherever it would yield even the scantiest living. In Iceland and
Greenland they must have labored mightily to carry on the farms of which
the Sagas tell us. When they made their voyages, honest commerce was
generally in their minds quite as much as was plunder. Leif, the son of
that rough Red Eric who first settled Greenland, made a famous voyage
to Vinland, the mainland of America. Like so many other voyagers he was
bent on finding a region where men could live happily and on filling his
boats with grapes, wood, or other commodities worth carrying home.

In view of the energy of the Norsemen, the traces of their presence
in the Western Hemisphere are amazingly slight. In Greenland a few
insignificant heaps of stones are supposed to show where some of them
built small villages. Far in the north Stefansson found fair-haired,
blue-eyed Eskimos. These may be descendants of the Norsemen, although
they have migrated thousands of miles from Greenland. In Maine the
Micmac Indians are said to have had a curious custom which they may
have learned from the vikings. When a