streets of gold.

[Footnote 182: "Leifr var mikill madhr ok sterkr, manna
skoeruligastr at sja, vitr madhr ok godhr hofsmadhr um alla
hluti," i. e. "Leif was a large man and strong, of noble
aspect, prudent and moderate in all things." Rafn, p. 33.]

[Sidenote: Leif Ericsson's voyage, 1000.]

[Sidenote: Helluland.]

[Sidenote: Markland.]

[Sidenote: Vinland.]

Leif's zeal for the conversion of his friends in Greenland did not so
far occupy his mind as to prevent him from undertaking a voyage of
discovery. His curiosity had been stimulated by what he had heard about
Bjarni's experiences, and he made up his mind to go and see what the
coasts to the south of Greenland were like. He sailed from
Brattahlid--probably in the summer or early autumn of the year
1000[183]--with a crew of five and thirty men. Some distance to the
southward they came upon a barren country covered with big flat stones,
so that they called it Helluland, or "slate-land." There is little room
for doubt that this was the coast opposite Greenland, either west or
east of the strait of Belle Isle; in other words, it was either Labrador
or the northern coast of Newfoundland. Thence, keeping generally to the
southward, our explorers came after some days to a thickly wooded coast,
where they landed and inspected the country. What chiefly impressed them
was the extent of the forest, so that they called the place Markland, or
"wood-land." Some critics have supposed that this spot was somewhere
upon the eastern or southern coast of Newfoundland, but the more general
opinion places it somewhere upon the coast of Cape Breton island or
Nova Scotia. From this Markland our voyagers stood out to sea, and
running briskly before a stiff northeaster it was more than two days
before they came in sight of land. Then, after following the coast for a
while, they went ashore at a place where a river, issuing from a lake,
fell into the sea. They brought their ship up into the lake and cast
anchor. The water abounded in excellent fish, and the country seemed so
pleasant that Leif decided to pass the winter there, and accordingly his
men put up some comfortable wooden huts or booths. One day one of the
party, a "south country" man, whose name was Tyrker,[184] came in from a
ramble in the neighbourhood making grimaces and talking to himself in
his own language (probably German), which his comrades did not
understand. On being interrogate