Note 14 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

Doctor Wormius, who was famed for his great research in Northern antiquities, told Peyrere, that these savages, the aborigines of Greenland, inhabited one side of the bay of Kindelfiord, in the Western district, and that the Norwegians had a settlement on the opposite bank. When, then, the author of the Icelandic Chronicle said, that the Skrellings possessed all the Westerbygdt, he meant only the country to the West of this bay. A small party of Norwegians, who had passed over to the Western bank, were destroyed by the Skrellings. This caused the Viceroy of Norway, who is called judge of Greenland, to dispatch a ship with a large force to revenge this affront. But the savages, at the sight of this vessel, took to flight and concealed themselves in the woods and rocks; which occasioned Ivar Bert to represent the country as destitute of inhabitants.