EGEDE, HANS, the apostle of Greenland, from whose arrival in that country the Greenlandera date a new era, was by birth a Norwe gian. His father, a aorenskriver, or village judge, at Harstad, in the district of Nordlandene, in Norway, was the son of a Dane, the parish priest of Veater-Egede iu Sinlland, who waa the first of the family to asaume the surname of Egede, which he took from his parish. Hans Egede was born at Haratad ou the 31st of January 1686, atudied at Copenhagen, which, before the foundation of the University of Chris tiania, was the only university open to the natives of Norway ; and iu 1707, at the age of twenty-one, was ordained priest of Vaagen in northern Norway, and married a neighbour's daughter, Gertrude Reek, of the age of thirty-four. He had been married about a year when hia mind began to dwell on the circumstance which he had aeon mentioned iu a description of Norway, that formerly there had been Chriatians in Greenlaud, where now there were only heathens, aud he could not help considering with interest if it were possible that some descendants of the old Norwegians who had colonised the country might be living ignorant of the Gospel. Greenland had in fact been discovered and colonised, not long before the year 1000, by the Nor wegians settled in Iceland, who, conscious of the bad effect of the name of ' Iceland,' had taken care to give to their new, and still less attractive, discovery the seductive appellation of 'Greenland,' which bad probably a great effect in drawing to those coasts the emigration which might otherwise have set in to their third discovery, Vinland, supposed by modern northern antiquaries to be Massachosetts. The ' black death,' or destructive plague of the year 1349, and the attacks of the native Skreallings, or liequimaux, had put an end to the main or ' western colony' of the Norwegian? in Greenland, but in the time of Egede the eastern coast had been for some centuries almost inaccessible from Ice, and it was supposed by many that the ' eastern colony,' spoken of by the old Icelandic, writers, was on the eastern coast, and might therefore be still existing unknown to the rest of the world. Egede, after receiving some suggestions to this effect from a friend in Bergen, became so enthusiastic on the subject, that he wrote to the bishops of Bergen and Trondhjem in 1710, proposing an ex pedition to convect the Greenlanders; and on its striking him that such a recommendation would come with an ill grace from one who did not offer to undertake it himself, he made the offer,-supposing however, as be himself tells us, that as it was war-time, and the expe dition would require some money, the proposal would not be accepted. He received in reply a strange letter from the bishop of Trondhjem, frog, in which the prelate suggested that "Greenland was undoubtedly a part of America, and could not be very far from Coba and Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of gold ; " concluding that it was very likely that those who went to Greenland would bring home "incredible riches." Egede had made this offer, very oddly, with out acquainting his wife; and as soon as she became aware of it, by the receipt of the bishop's letters, she with her mother and his mother mulled Egede with such strong remonstrances, that, he says in his own account, he was quite conquered, and repulsed his folly with a promise to remain in the land which "God had placed him in." Matters remained in this state till some quarrels with a neighbour ing clergyman, and the trouble they occasioned, led Egede, " fishing," as he ray., "in troubled intern," to mention the project again to hie
wife, when he no longer found her so unwilling, and having obtained her consent he thought lightly of any other obstacle. So strongly were both their mind. now set on the undertaking that in 1717 ho threw up his benefice at Vasgen, and went with his wife and four children to Bergen to endeavour to found a company to trade with Greenland, which he considered an indispensable part of his plan for founding a nniseieo. Most of the merchants laughed at his project, and some considered him mad ; but just about this time Charles XII. of Sweden was killed at Frederik/child, when apparently on the point of con quering Norway, peace was restored, and Egede determined to lay his plans before the king at Copenhagen. Frederick IV. of Denmark, who had already in 1714 founded a college for the propagation of the Gospel, mot Egede back to Bergen with his approbation ; a company was formed, to which Egede put down his name for the first subscrip tion of 300 dollars, and finally on the 3rd of May 1721,.a ship called Haabet,' or 'The Hope,' set sail for Greenland, with forty-six souls on board, Including Egede and his family. On the 3rd of July, after a dangerous voyage, they set foot on shore at Baalsrevier on the western coast, and were on the whole hospitably received by the natives. The very appearance of the Greenlanders at once put a negative on the supposition that they were descended from the Northman, and their language, which it was now the missionary's business to learn, was found to be entirely of a different kind, being in fact nearly related to that spoken by the Esquimaux of Labrador. The climate and the soil were both harsher and ruder than the Norwegians had expected, and the only circumstance that was in their favour was the character of the inhabitants, which, though at first excessively phlegmatic, so as to give the idea that their feelings bad been frozen, was neither cruel, nor, as was found by further experience, unadapted to receive religious impressions. The natives however grew apprehensive when they found that their visitors built a house and Intended to stay out the winter, and they were encouraged in their fears by the Deitch captains who visited the coast for the purposes of trade. The Dutchmen, Egede remarked, did more trade in half an Lour with the natives than the Danes could emceed in doing In half a year, by the simple expedient of giving more wares in exchange and of better quality. For some years following both the mission and the factory had a hard battle for life. The settlers, unable to obtain soffielent food by fiehing and the chase, were entirely dependent on the supply of provisions sent them by annual store-ehips from Denmark, and when this supply was delayed, were reduced to short rations and the dread of starvation. On one occasion oven F,gede's courage gave way, and he had made up his mind to abandon the mission and return to Europe unless the provisions arrived within fourteen days. His wife alone opposed the resolution and refused to pack np, persisting in predicting that the store-ship would arrive in time, and ere the time had elapsed the ships, which had missed the COW, found their way, and brought tidings that rather than give op the attempt to Christianise Greenland, the king had ordered a lottery In favour of it, and on the lottery's failing had imposed a special tax on Denmark and Norway under the name of the Greenland Assessment.