Note 21 — Chapter I

According to the relation and opinion of those Greenlanders, that inhabit the gulf of Disco, in 69°, Greenland is an island, which they infer from the strong current that runs from the North, and keeps the ice open even into the midst of the sea: they will also tell you, they have spoken with people different from themselves on the other side of the ice, and hailed them. Their language, they say, is the same, but the persons different, so that a small strait only divides Greenland from America. The said straits are so narrow, that men on both sides can shoot at once one and the same fish. The continent farthest to the North is all covered with ice; the islands only uncovered, where rein deer, and also geese and other wild birds, are found in great numbers.