Egede preach, stirred up such trouble that his wife was glad
to go. She even urged him to, and he took her at her word. They
moved to Bergen, and from that port they sailed on May 3, 1721, on
the ship _Haabet_ (the Hope), with another and smaller vessel as
convoy, forty-six souls all told, bound for the unknown North. The
Danish King had made Egede missionary to the Greenlanders on a
salary of three hundred daler a year, the same amount which Egede
himself contributed of his scant store toward the equipment. The
bishop's plan had prevailed; the mission was to be carried by the
expected commerce, and upon that was to be built a permanent
colonization.

Early in June they sighted land, but the way to it was barred by
impassable ice. A whole month they sailed to and fro, trying vainly
for a passage. At last they found an opening and slipped through,
only to find themselves shut in, with towering icebergs closing
around them. As they looked fearfully out over the rail, their
convoy signalled that she had struck, and the captain of _Haabet_
cried out that all was lost. In the tumult of terror that succeeded,
Egede alone remained calm. Praying for succor where there seemed to
be none, he remembered the One Hundred and Seventh Psalm: "He
brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake
their bands in sunder." And the morning dawned clear, the ice was
moving and their prison widening. On July 3, _Haabet_ cleared the
last ice-reef, and the shore lay open before them.

The Eskimos came out in their kayaks, and the boldest climbed aboard
the ship. In one boat sat an old man who refused the invitation. He
paddled about the vessel, mumbling darkly in a strange tongue. He
was an Angekok, one of the native medicine-men of whom presently
Egede was to know much more. As he stood upon the deck and looked at
these strangers for whose salvation he had risked all, his heart
fell. They were not the stalwart Northmen he had looked for, and
their jargon had no homelike sound. But a great wave of pity swept
over him, and the prayer that rose to his lips was for strength to
be their friend and their guide to the light.

Not at once did the way open for the coveted friendship with the
Eskimos. While they thought the strangers came only to trade they
were hospitable enough, but when they saw them build, clearly intent
on staying, they made signs that they had better go. They pointed to
the sun that sank lower toward the horizon