ttract attention or call for comment in Iceland. This is rendered
somewhat probable from an entry in the "Elder Skalholt Annals," a vellum
written about 1362. This informs us that in 1347 "there came a ship from
Greenland, less in size than small Icelandic trading-vessels. It was
without an anchor. There were seventeen men on board, and they had
sailed to Markland, but had afterwards been driven hither by storms at
sea."[272] This is the latest mention of any voyage to or from the
countries beyond Greenland.

[Footnote 268: Laing, _Heimskringla_, i. 141. A description of
the ruins may be found in two papers in _Meddelelser om
Gronland_, Copenhagen, 1883 and 1889.]

[Footnote 269: Sometimes called Eric Uppsi; he is mentioned in
the Landnama-bok as a native of Iceland.]

[Footnote 270: Storm, _Islandske Annaler_, Christiania, 1888;
Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland the Good_, London, 1890, pp.
79-81.]

[Footnote 271: Storm, in _Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed_,
1887, p. 319.]

[Footnote 272: Reeves, _op. cit._ p. 83. In another vellum it
is mentioned that in 1347 "a ship came from Greenland, which
had sailed to Markland, and there were eighteen men on board."
As Mr. Reeves well observes: "The nature of the information
indicates that the knowledge of the discovery had not
altogether faded from the memories of the Icelanders settled in
Greenland. It seems further to lend a measure of plausibility
to a theory that people from the Greenland colony may from time
to time have visited the coast to the southwest of their home
for supplies of wood, or for some kindred purpose. The visitors
in this case had evidently intended to return directly from
Markland to Greenland, and had they not been driven out of
their course to Iceland, the probability is that this voyage
would never have found mention in Icelandic chronicles, and all
knowledge of it must have vanished as completely as did the
colony to which the Markland visitors belonged."]

[Sidenote: The Greenland colony attacked by Eskimos.]

If the reader is inclined to wonder why a colony could be maintained in
southern Greenland more easily than on the coasts of Nova Scotia or
Massachusetts, or even why the Northmen did not at once abandon t