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have been to any other man insurmountable,— the climate, the savage ignorance of the peo­ ple, an unintelligible language, but all these difficulties were conquered by Egede. Elis zeal and humanity soon gave him popularity with the natives, in testimony of which the following may serve as an instance : In the year 1734, the small pox was intro­ duced to Greenland by a boy, from Copenha­ gen, who dying with the disease, communi­ cated the infection. It soon became a pesti­ lence among the people, equally unskilled in its nature and the manner of treating it. Of two hundred families who lived in a circle of ten or twelve miles around the Danish settle­ ment, scarcely thirty escaped, nor was the set­ tlement free from its fatal influence. In this calamitous situation many Green­ landers, when the fever began to attack them, sought safety among the Danes, and particularly flocked to Hans Egede, in whom their confi­ dence was most perfect. Ele received as many as his house could accommodate ; nor was this all. Elis wife and himself attended, cheered,