d, for half a
century, been growing more and more dangerous. Precisely when or how it
perished we do not know. The latest notice we have of the colony is of a
marriage ceremony performed (probably in the Kakortok church), in 1409,
by Endrede Andreasson, the last bishop.[275] When, after three
centuries, the great missionary, Hans Egede, visited Greenland, in 1721,
he found the ruins of farmsteads and villages, the population of which
had vanished.

[Footnote 274: Laing, _Heimskringla_, i. 147. It has been
supposed that the Black Death, by which all Europe was ravaged
in the middle part of the fourteenth century, may have crossed
to Greenland, and fatally weakened the colony there; but
Vigfusson says that the Black Death never touched Iceland
(_Sturlunga Saga_, vol. i. p. cxxix.), so that it is not so
likely to have reached Greenland.]

[Footnote 275: Laing, _op. cit._ i. 142.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The story of the Venetian brothers.]

Our account of pre-Columbian voyages to America would be very incomplete
without some mention of the latest voyage said to have been made by
European vessels to the ancient settlement of the East Bygd. I refer to
the famous narrative of the Zeno brothers, which has furnished so many
subjects of contention for geographers that a hundred years ago John
Pinkerton called it "one of the most puzzling in the whole circle of
literature."[276] Nevertheless a great deal has been done, chiefly
through the acute researches of Mr. Richard Henry Major and Baron
Nordenskjoeld, toward clearing up this mystery, so that certain points in
the Zeno narrative may now be regarded as established;[277] and from
these essential points we may form an opinion as to the character of
sundry questionable details.

[Footnote 276: Yet this learned historian was quite correct in
his own interpretation of Zeno's story, for in the same place
he says, "If real, his Frisland is the Ferro islands, and his
Zichmni is Sinclair." Pinkerton's _History of Scotland_,
London, 1797, vol. i. p. 261.]

[Footnote 277: Major, _The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers,
Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the XIVth
Century_, London, 1873 (Hakluyt Society); cf. Nordenskjoeld, _Om
broederna Zenos resor och de aeldsta kartor oefner Norden_,