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of actual experience. Here he alluded to the saga
description of the barter with the natives for furs
and peltry, and the combat with them in which the
Norsemen were defeated. He maintained that it
was inconceivable that this account related to a clash
with the peaceable Greenland Eskimos. Moreover,
he felt that the old verses cited in these sagas
indicated that Norse voyagers had supposed that they
had visited the good Vinland of tradition, but had
not found its vaunted excellencies.
But the most reliable historical evidence to show
that the Norsemen had reached America was the
record of the Icelandic annals to the effect that in
1347 a small Greenland ship had been driven by
storms from Markland to Iceland.
He thought it remarkable that the discovery of
America, which had so many more natural
advantages than Greenland, should not have led to greater
results, but inferred that this must have been due to
the inadequacy of the Greenland population for
further colonization.
In closing his first lecture, Dr. Nansen declared
that although he felt obliged to give up the Saga
of Erik the Red as reliable history, he nevertheless
admired the literary skill with which it had been put
together,
A few days afterwards Professor Alexander Buggc
delivered a lecture at the University of Christiania,
in which he expressed the opinion that Nansen’s
lecture was of high merit; but at the same time he
could not approve of his main contentions. Nansen,
he said, seemed to have no faith in Leif Erikson, and
yet believed that men from Greenland had reached
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