Note 20 — SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF HANS EGEDE.

The Moravian mission in Greenland began in the year 1733. The brethren of this mission have two settlements or villages upon the Western coast. One of these, which is called New Herrnhut, is on Ball’s River; and the other, which is denominated Lichtenfels, is at the distance of thirty-six leagues from the first, and more to the South. Crantz says, that, at his departure from Greenland, four hundred and seventy Greenlanders were living at New Herrnhut in sixteen houses. The brethren themselves describe this place as a sort of green Oasis in a cheerless desert. “No one,” says one of the missionaries, “would expect to find such a pleasant place in such an unpleasant land. The country consists entirely of bald rocks, thinly interspersed with spots and veins of earth, or rather sand. But our house, area, garden, &c. look very regular and decent, and all the adjacent land round about the place, where once not a blade of grass grew in the sand, is now enrobed with the most beautiful foliage, so that New-Herrnhut may be called a garden of the Lord in a most frightful wilderness.” Crantz, vol. i, p. 162, 163. In p. 399, of the same volume, Crantz extols the soft beauty of this little Greenland village, compared with the rugged sterility around. “On the spot,” says he, “that formerly consisted of nothing but sand, nay, on the very rocks, grows now the finest grass, the ground being manured for so many years with the blood and fat of their seals. And when the Greenlanders live in their winter houses, one may see every evening, yea, throughout the whole night, a beautiful illumination, which is the more agreeable as the houses stand in two parallel lines, are of equal height, and have light in all the windows.”