Thus the first cargoes homeward from Vinland to Greenland had been of
timber and of raisins, and of vine-stocks, which were not like to thrive.

And more. Beyond Vinland the Good there was said to be another land,
Whiteman's Land--or Ireland the Mickle, as some called it. For these
Norse traders from Limerick had found Ari Marson, and Ketla of Ruykjanes,
supposed to have been long since drowned at sea, and said that the people
had made him and Ketla chiefs, and baptized Ari. What is all this? and
what is this, too, which the Esquimaux children taken in Markland told
the Northmen, of a land beyond them where the folk wore white clothes,
and carried flags on poles? Are these all dreams? or was some part of
that great civilisation, the relics whereof your antiquarians find in so
many parts of the United States, still in existence some 900 years ago;
and were these old Norse cousins of ours upon the very edge of it? Be
that as it may, how nearly did these fierce Vikings, some of whom seemed
to have sailed far south along the shore, become aware that just beyond
them lay a land of fruits and spices, gold and gems? The adverse current
of the Gulf Stream, it may be, would have long prevented their getting
past the Bahamas into the Gulf of Mexico; but, sooner or later, some
storm must have carried a Greenland viking to San Domingo or to Cuba; and
then, as has been well said, some Scandinavian dynasty might have sat
upon the throne of Mexico.

These stories are well known to antiquarians. They may be found, almost
all of them, in Professor Rafn's "Antiquitates Americanae." The action
in them stands out often so clear and dramatic, that the internal
evidence of historic truth is irresistible. Thorvald, who, when he saw
what seems to be, they say, the bluff head of Alderton at the south-east
end of Boston Bay, said, "Here should I like to dwell," and, shot by an
Esquimaux arrow, bade bury him on that place, with a cross at his head