ULTIMA THULE;
OR,
A SUMMER IN ICELAND.

From a Photo.

DANISH FISHING COMPANY’S STATION AT BERUFJÖRÐ.

M‘Farlane & Erskine, Londⁿ. Edinʳ.

ULTIMA THULE;
OR,
A SUMMER IN ICELAND.

BY
RICHARD F. BURTON.
With Historical Introduction, Maps, and Illustrations.
VOL. II
WILLIAM P. NIMMO.
LONDON: 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND;
AND EDINBURGH.
1875.

EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY M‘FARLANE AND ERSKINE,
ST JAMES SQUARE.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.

ULTIMA THULE;
OR,
A SUMMER IN ICELAND.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PRESS—VISIT TO THE LATIN SCHOOL—LIBRARIES AND COLLECTIONS—GUNNLAUGSSON’S MAP—NOTE (NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY).

The first newspaper printed in Iceland began in 1775: in the catalogue of writers prefixed to the work of Uno Von Troil, it is called the Isländische Zeitung. This Islendingur, not long defunct, gained considerable reputation; the back numbers are to be found at the College Library. At present the island publishes three periodicals, of which two are printed at the capital. The first, which appears regularly twice a month, is called the Thjóðólfr,[1] an old Icelandic Christian name; and in 1872 numbered its twenty-fourth year. The sheets vary from one to two, according to the amount of news; the columns are double, the page is about 10 inches by 8½; the subscribers’ list shows some 1100, and the yearly subscription is $1, 2m. 0sk. The editor, Hr Procurator Jón Guðmundsson, a barrister, conducts it worthily, and with great intelligence; he is outspoken, but not factiously so. The Tíminn (Times) appears once a month; its politics are of the “Hlut-lausir,” lot-less, or neutral tint, which would have caused it to be ostracised at Athens; and there is some mystery about the editor, who is usually supposed to be Hr Páll Eyúlfsson, silversmith and cicerone. The third is the Norðanfari (Northern Traveller) of Akureyri,[2] the chief commercial station in the north. It usually comes out some twenty-six times a year in the full size of four pages, and at intervals with reduced proportions: matter is fearfully scarce during the four winter months, when there are no mails, and local subjects must be at a premium. As regards the sparring of rival journalists, it is, to quote Arlequin’s saying, “tout comme chez nous.”

The history of printing-presses in Iceland has been copiously treated. They were first established at the two bishoprics of Skálholt and Hólar; privileges were then granted to Leirá, Viðey,[3] and Hrappsey; and now there are two, in Reykjavik and Akureyri. The office at the capital is in High Street, where three men work the two presses and four cases: the folding machine has yet to be introduced.

The Icelandic Literary Society (Hið Íslenzka Bókmentafèlag) still survives: after passing through the usual phases, it is now loyal and respectable. Concerning the first, or Societas Invisibilis (Hið ósynilega Fèlag), established in 1760, ample information will be found in Bishop Pètursson’s “Hist. Eccles. Isl.” (pp. 339-342). The second (Hið Íslenzka lærdomslista fèlag), dating from 1779, is treated of in Mackenzie (chap, vii.): it admitted corresponding and honorary members. The third (Hið konunglega Islenzka lærdómslista fèlag) in 1787 became a Royal Society: it is interesting because it first treats of the sulphur mines and trade of Iceland in the reign of Frederick II. (1336-59); and the presiding genius was the celebrated Jón Eiríksson. This worthy, whilst under the influence of melancholia, committed suicide, a proceeding as rare amongst men of distinction in the post-Christian as it was common during the pagan times of Iceland. I inquired in vain about the savant’s bust, which was broken on the voyage to this island; my informants had only a hazy idea that the head had been returned to Copenhagen. A medallion of the great Scandinavian literato, now in the hands of Hr Sigurður Guðmundsson, shows him in profile, with protruding chin and brow, a nose worthy of Fielding, a long-tailed wig with ailes de pigeon, and a frilled shirt.

The fourth Royal Society of General Instruction in Iceland (Hið Konunglega islenzska Landsuppfrædíngar Fèlag) was established by Magnús Stephensen. The fifth, Vísinda og Upplýsingar-Stiftan (Institute for Knowledge and Instruction), was conducted by Björn Gottskálkson, when the press was removed from Hrappsey to Leirágarðar. The sixth, which actually exists (Hið íslenzka Bókmenta Fèlag), was founded by the celebrated Professor Rask in 1816, on March 30, which is kept as its birthday. The bye-laws were printed in Icelandic and Danish at Copenhagen in 1818: the Skýrslur, or annual report, first appeared in 1825.

The object of the Society is to publish and circulate, at the cheapest price, useful, standard, and also original books, together with newspapers and periodicals. Such literature is still a prime want in the country, and an enterprising publisher like Mr N. Trübner might do a “good stroke of business.” The two branches, Danish and Icelandic, choose their own executive every year, and keep separate accounts, which are blended in the general annual statement: the latter is published by Hr Bianco Luno of Copenhagen, in French and English, as well as in Scandinavian. The books are also printed at the metropolis, and sent out to the island. The magnum opus is the annual review, historical report, and magazine of general literature, classically called Skirnir, the Narrator, or Eddaic messenger of Freyr.

The Society numbers some 720 Fèlagar (members), besides a few corresponding and honorary, French and English, German and “American.” The subscription is $3 per annum. The Icelandic branch meets, besides extraordinary occasions, twice a year, in March and July; the latter is the Synod time, corresponding with our May meetings; and the venue is at the Priests’ Seminary for want of other room. The first president was Hr Ární Helgason; Bishop Pètursson has held it for twenty years, and it is actually tenanted by Hr Jón Thorkelsson, head-master of the Latin School. The rector, Hr Jens Sigurðsson, is the treasurer; Hr Páll Melsteð is secretary; and Hr Hálldór Guðmundsson acts librarian.

Formerly there was a high school at each bishopric, and a prime grievance of the island is that the two having been reduced to one, the northern and eastern provinces are put to uncalled for expense and inconvenience. Children learn the “four R’s” at home from their parents: hence the unalphabetic are rare, and some priests even refuse to marry them. At the capital both sexes may attend a preparatory school in Harbour Street (Hafnarstræti), till the age of confirmation, or fourteen. The cost is small, $8 per annum, but all the pupils, even those who come from afar, must live in the town. Besides the elements of knowledge, they learn history and geography, Danish and Icelandic, but neither French and English. Music is little cultivated, the piano is not unknown, but the singing is chiefly confined to hymns, and of these few are original. Dancing and gymnastics are equally neglected.

I visited the Supreme Court, a low building in the row north of the Landfógeti or treasurer’s office, under charge of the stiff old usher. The left room is for the town councils; the right for the administration of justice, as shown by the oval table, by four chairs within, and by two small tables and bench without the cross-rail. It would be hard to swing a cat, with anything like safety to the animal, inside this temple of Themis, and its mean proportions gave me satisfaction. The next move was to the Latin School, which has now taken the place of the Schola Bessastadensis. The highly uninteresting building, already collapsing in its twenty-ninth year, is approached by a bridge spanning the foul drain, and is fronted by a sloping, grassy lawn kept in decent order. The civil hall-porter acts cicerone. Turning to the left of the hall, where a big clock stands, we find the younger classes preparing for examination, a professor walking about to prevent “cribbing:” this is the written portion; the vivâ voce process will be conducted in the front hall of the first floor, where the Althing meets. It is a fair-sized room, with the royal portrait at the bottom opposite the entrance, fronted by a long desk of green cloth: the rest of the furniture consists of benches covered with green baize. The governor sits on the proper right of royalty, and the president of the Diet on the left. The last session (1871) was described to me as somewhat stormy, and the nays (neis) far outnumbered the yeas: the latter (já), when reiterated in excitement and pronounced yäu, sound somewhat comically, a manner of bark, yow, yow, yow.

There are two dormitories in which the little beds stand side by side. Everything is of the humblest description; even the ceiling of the professors’ sitting-room wants repair. A change to the capital has somewhat modified the excessive uncleanness which foreign visitors remarked at Bessastaðir, but there is still much to be desired.

In the Introduction I have given the details of the High School. The programme leaves little to be desired, but sensible Icelanders agree with strangers that the education is sterile and not “serious,” in the French sense of the word invented about 1830. The pupils learn a smattering of many things, but nothing thoroughly. This is doubtless the result of a social condition in which only superficial knowledge is at a premium: the same may be remarked in the United States and in the Brazil, compared, for instance, with Oxford and Coimbra, where students find specialties necessary.[4] The consequences of studying Icelandic and Danish, Latin and Greek, English, French, and German, are that very little can be learned. At the beginning of the century every priest could converse in Latin—I have now met many who cannot speak a word of it, and I have not met one who spoke it even tolerably. The useful cosmopolitan dialect has been exchanged for “modern languages:” similarly the Magyar now cultivates his own dialect, and has abandoned the Latin which, to him almost a mother-tongue, kept Hungary in contact with the culture of the West.

The pupils are hard workers and have excellent memories; they must chiefly, however, depend upon books, and the result is that whilst many of them collect a fair stock of phrases, and pronounce them remarkably well, they can hardly understand a word of the reply. Another and a severer charge is brought against the establishment. The dissipations of Reykjavik appear very mild to a dweller in European cities, but they are, comparatively speaking, considerable. Youngsters between the ages of fourteen and twenty-three easily learn to become boon companions, and to lay the foundation of habits which affect their after-lives. The professorial Hetæra being unknown, the students are apt to make any connections which present themselves, and intrigues with the “ancilla” sometimes end in marriage perforce. Thus the country clergyman or the franklin begins life burdened with a helpmate utterly unmeet for him; who neglects his house and children, who thinks of nothing but dress and “pleasuring,” and who leads him rapidly on the road to ruin, in a country where all domestic comfort and worldly prosperity depend upon the “gudewife.” Hence the old system of schools at Skálholt and Hólar, and even at Bessastaðir, is greatly preferred, and, perhaps, even now the seminary might with profit be removed to Thingvellir. Here it has been proposed to lay out a model farm, where the alumni could add agriculture to their pastoral acquirements.

About the age of twenty-three the Skóla-piltar, or pupils, become “students,” that is to say, B.A.’s. In order to enter the learned professions, especially the law, they matriculate at the University of Copenhagen, where they are housed and receive annual stipendiums of £15 to £20. They distinguish themselves by thrift and canniness, emulation, energy, and abundant application, when the place agrees with them. But often they suffer from the insidious attacks of a climate which even Englishmen would call rigorous; the comparative mildness acts upon them as tropical heat upon us, and in not a few cases they die of pulmonary disease.

Medicine may be studied at Reykjavik. The school is simply a room in the Hospital, and subjects for dissection cannot be had without a permission, which is generally refused. On the other hand, students have the benefit of lectures from thoroughly able men, Drs Hjaltalín and Jonassen. The course lasts from three to five years, and after an examination the Læknir (M.D.) may either practise in private, or aspire to become “physicus,” at some out-station.

Theological students attend the Priests’ Seminary at Reykjavik. It consists of two lecture rooms, fronting the sea, in Hafnarstræti, and furnished with chairs and black desks, a stove, and a list of lectures. The candidates who reside in the town are taught by the Lector Sigurðr Melsted and two “Docents,” Hannes Árnason and Helgi Hálfdanarson. The examinations take place in June and August; the former tests their progress in logic and psychology, the latter in theology, ecclesiastical history, exegesis, and canon law. The course lasts at least two years, and at the age of twenty-five, after the final examination, students obtain the degree of “candidat.” Some do not choose to be at once ordained, reserving the final step for later in life, but the material advantages of the profession in Iceland never allow it to lack recruits. The result of such a course is to saturate the mind with the Bible, learnt from translations and explained by the individual opinions of swarming commentators. It makes men “fall down and worship” (as the great Spinoza has it) “an idol composed of ink and paper, instead of the true word of God.” And when the superficial and ill-taught “divine” has to do battle with a polemical Catholic or a pugnacious Rationalist, the action generally ends in a ludicrous defeat. I especially allude to the late controversies with M. Baudouin, and the disputes with “Free-thinkers,” recorded by Professor Paijkull: the Great Book, or Commentary on St John, written by Candidat (Theologiæ) Magnús Eiríksson, is attacked by an “Old Pastor,” with an obsolete virulence worthy of the Inquisition.

I was introduced to Professor Hannes Árnason, the geologist of the Government College, who kindly showed me the collections of natural history. Of botany there is none, the hortus siccus seems to be generally neglected in the smaller museums of the world: the student must content himself with Dr Hjaltalín’s work, and the “Flora Danica,” of which a good, but untinted, copy is found in the College Library. Zoology is confined to a few stuffed birds.[5] The mineralogical collection is richer; mostly, however, it is a rudis indigestaque moles; the upper part of a chest will be labelled, and the lower drawers in most unadmirable disorder. Moreover, where the traveller wants only local specimens, they are mostly general; for instance, a small cabinet of fourteen drawers contains Germany.[6]

We then proceeded to the College Library, a detached building of solid construction, but suffering sadly from damp accumulating in the porous stone. In the big bluewashed room fires are neglected, consequently the books are damp and mildewed.[7] At the bottom, above a broken globe, is a votive tablet erected to an English benefactor, Charles Kellsall of London, who supplied funds for the building, and who left it a library, which, they say, has not yet begun its journey Icelandwards: there is none to Mr John Heath, who printed the Rev. Jón Thorlaksson’s well-known Eddaic paraphrase of “Paradise Lost,” and to whom the Icelandic Literary Society owes a heavy debt of gratitude.

The principal library is in the Dómkirkja, under the charge of Hr Jón Árnason, inspector of the Latin School—in Iceland, as amongst Moslems, the church is considered the natural place for the library. You open the Lich-gate, ascend the right-hand staircase, and a second dwarf flight leads to the greniers under the roof. When the sun shines, the slates are too hot for the hand: this keeps the collection dry; and the reader is disposed to enjoy it.

The library opens on Wednesdays and Saturdays between twelve and one P.M., when you are allowed freely to borrow after signing your name. The interior is not prepossessing. The total of the volumes may be 14,000; but the catalogue is still to be made. Printed papers lie about in extreme confusion, and “vieux bouquins” are so strewed and piled that you can hardly find what you want. Many of the sets also are imperfect, having been lost or stolen. The three large deal stands, and the shelves ranged against the higher wall, do not supply accommodation enough, and the single writing-table is always desert. The curiously-carved black press from the west, and the pulpit with the four evangelists rudely cut upon it, are interesting, but should be transferred to the Antiquarian Museum.[8]

The manuscripts are a private collection belonging to the librarian, Hr Jón Árnason. They number 226, but not a few of them are copied from Sagas, and other works already printed; this is often done in Iceland, where time is cheap and books are dear. A comparison of the state of Icelandic with that of Persian literature would bring out a curious similarity, resulting from similar conditions, mental as well as physical; and it is the more interesting when we consider the intimate blood connection of the two families. Hr Jón Árnason wanted £200 for his neatly bound collection, and it has, I believe, been sold in London.[9]

The Antiquarian Museum, two rooms fronting north, is upon the same floor as the Library, under the charge of Hr Sigurðr Guðmundsson, who, like Hr Jón Árnason, is unsalaried. The former, smitten in youth by love of art, has given his life to painting, and to the study of Icelandic antiquities. The sketch and plans of the “Skáli,” or ancient hall, and the plan of Thing-vollur in “Burnt Njál,” are productions of which he need not be ashamed. He usually makes the Hospital his studio; and he showed me some portraits which have the rare merit of representing the person, and not another person. Unhappily, it was his fate to lack the patron; a few years of youth spent like Thorwaldsen at Rome, where models are found, and where Nature inspires the brain, would have given warmth and life to a fancy frozen by the unartistic atmosphere of the far north.

The Collection, open at the same time as the Library, is in “apple-pie order,” and, though young and small, it promises a goodly growth. There is a catalogue (Skýrsla um forngripasafn Íslands í Reykjavík, i. 1863-1866, published by the Icelandic Literary Society, and printed at Copenhagen, 157 pages, octavo), to which addenda should be appended; the specimens, as well as the cases, also require numbering, for easier reference. It is to be hoped that my excellent correspondents, the late Dr Cowie and Mr Petrie, have so arranged the collections at Lerwick and Kirkwall that the Shetlands and Orkneys may not blush in the presence of Iceland. I shall describe this museum at some length in a note at the end of this chapter: here we are amongst the past centuries, and older life in Iceland is prominently brought before our modern eyes.

Through the kindness of Hr Jón Árnason, I managed to “interview” the venerable Professor Björn Gunnalaugsson, who, being now eighty-four years old (born 1788), partly blind, and very deaf—his wife also an invalid—rarely opens to strangers. He is a fine old man, with large prominent features, shaven face, long hair, with small hands, here very unusual, and thin knees, rarer still. His portrait, taken in middle age, with two wellearned decorations upon the black dress-coat, shows an unusually sympathetic figure.

Welcoming us kindly, the Professor sat in his stuffed chair before a little table, and I noticed that he swayed his body to and fro like a Moslem boy reading the Koran. We talked of his past life: he had forgotten the details, but he remembered the main points. After spending his youth in teaching mathematics and natural philosophy at the College, he resolved to map out his native island with theodolite, compass, and reflecting circle, and to this labour of love he conscientiously devoted twenty years, not twelve nor eighteen, as has been generally said. He was not very sure about his proceedings upon the Vatnajökullsvegr, the path north of the great south-eastern glacier, before his time considered utterly impracticable; and my curiosity was chiefly for this point. He mentioned his fellow-traveller, Síra Sigurðr Gunnarson, then a young man, who had just taken his degree. He believed that the march took place in July or August, but not after. Of the eight ponies, two were laden with hay, and they found grass at Tómasarhagi, north-west of the Vatnajökull. During his march, no volcano was observed, either in the glacier or to the north of it; and he seemed to have neglected tracing out the sulphur diggings.

When consulted about the Vatnajökullsvegr, Professor Gunnlaugsson strongly advised me to avoid it, as the animals would be exhausted before the real work of exploration began. The easiest attack upon the great glacier, he said, was from the north, especially when the polar winds were blowing, and thus travellers might penetrate to the centre without encountering the difficulties of the Klofajökull to the south. Altogether he was in favour of Berufjörð, the starting point. As the Danish steamer is bound, weather permitting, to touch at that port, I had thought when in England of making it my base; unhappily, the line was represented as too rugged for transit, in fact, impassable, whereas it is distinctly the reverse.

The Napoleon Book (p. 94) declares that Professor Gunnlaugsson began the wrong way by details instead of by an ensemble or general plan—a primitive style which would leave much of perfect topography to be desired. It forgets the preliminary trigonometrical labours of the Danish officers, detailed in the Introduction to these pages, and which left to Professor Gunnlaugsson only the task of filling in the already measured triangles. These meritorious men, as often happens, did the best part of the work, yet their names have well nigh sunk into oblivion. But what can we expect when politics and party-spirit enter into science?

NOTE ON ANTIQUARIAN MUSEUM.

The room first entered is divided into two by a glass case, containing the toilette of the past century, when dress, worth some $300, was an heir-loom, and when costume was purely insular; not as now, a mixture of Icelandic, Danish, and cosmopolitan. The Museum of Science and Art at Edinburgh contains some articles presented by the gentleman to whom these pages are inscribed; and M. de Kerguelen (1772) sketches a “lady of Iceland” intelligible only when the several items are seen. The case is surmounted by a rude portrait, with Latin verses, in honour of a certain Frú[10] Hólmfríðr: her hair is concealed by a white koffur or fillet wrapper, somewhat like that worn by the married German Jewess at the four holy cities of Palestine, and this is surmounted by the Hæltve, or travelling hat. The steeple-crowned broad-flapped felt is precisely the Pétasus of the old Greeks, and probably came to Iceland with the pilgrims of the Middle Ages. For the house there are skull caps in plenty, mostly black velvet and gold embroidered; some of them have flaps like the “Kan-top” of Hindostan, others show the rudimental crest which culminated in the Skaut-faldr.[11] This foolscap, built with a card-board frame, is then covered with linen; a thin plate of metal forms the crest shape, and the white material is stuffed with cotton, like the Húfa (pronounced Húa,= our hood). It is fastened to the hair by pins; and an outer band, spangled with a dozen silver-gilt stars, secures it round the brow, ending behind in a cravat bow and two ribbons, which hide the fastening. Finally, a deep fall or lace veil is turned back, passed over it, and thrown upon the shoulders, reaching almost to the waist. This Skaut-faldr is an excrescence, which deserves to be compared with the Tantúr, or silver horn of the Libanus, which was and is generally confined to married, though sometimes worn by marriageable women.

The other articles of dress are the Skirta (shift) of woollen stuff, worn next to the body: according to some authorities, the health of the people has been improved by cotton, which others deny. The Upphlutur is the long-sleeved bodice, or waist piece, with gold embroidered cuffs, and velvet stripes covering the seams. In modern days it is of velvet, brought from Europe. The Fat is a Wadmal petticoat, extending to the ankles, and of these articles sometimes two or three were worn for warmth. The outer one is copiously worked, and is faced by the coloured Svinta (apron). The Treja is a tight-fitting jacket, with chased buttons: the Hempa, a short outer coat, worn by men and women, buttoned over the chest, is wide at the bottom, about a hand’s breadth shorter than the skirt, and open at the flaps to show the embroidered petticoat. The Uppslög or cuffs are slashed; round the neck is a Hálsklútr (white cravat), a Háls-sikener, or cravat of purple silk; and for full dress Strútr, little black collars on the jacket neck, and Kragar, stiff hoops or ruffs of black embroidered stuff, which make the head look as if it were dished up. The terminations are Sokkar, coarse woollen stockings, and Skór, the Iceland papushes: finally, Kvenn vetlingar, rough gloves, protected the hands. The trimmings of the gowns, skirts, and petticoats are very handsome; nothing of the kind can be found in the present day; and the people have the lost art of cutting wool so as to resemble velvet-pile. The black dye is admirable; it is a fast colour, and lasts exceptionally long. According to the Custodian, it was made by steeping the cloth in dark mud, and then treating it with the juice of the arbutus (Uva ursi, Surtarlýng), our bear-berry and the cane-apple of Ireland. The modern toilette has been greatly simplified to the Skaut-faldr and bodice, the skirt of black broadcloth and velvet, embroidered with green silk, and the waist-belt, a poor filigree copy of old work. It costs £17 to £18, and might answer for a civilised fancy ball: the general aspect is that of a Circassian woman’s dress—in Circassia.

The ornaments, belts, buttons, bodices, chains, and rings, mostly heir-looms, are as numerous as the articles of dress: they are survivals of the time when people wore all their wealth. Some of the Hnappar (buttons), round and of worked surface, have one or more figures of the Crucifixion hanging to them. These are no longer made. There are Ermahnappr, silver-gilt buttons, for the sleeves,[12] and much larger, with clasps, for the waist; bodkins (Laufa priónar), ornamented with silver; Keðja, chains of sorts; Hálsfesti for the neck, and Herðafesti for the shoulder; rings of gold, silver and brass, one of them spiral and elastic; Nisti (bracelets), and Mallinda, velvet girdles, embroidered with silver. Some of the belts are plates of gold and silver, linked together, and hanging down in front almost to the knees. There is an immense demand for these curios: every stranger carries off some specimens of the old work, with which the owners are compelled by necessity to part: the country people would be buyers, not sellers. Modern imitations are made without any success at Reykjavik, but not elsewhere. You give German dollars to Páll Eyúlfsson, or to Hr Sigfusson, if the latter is sober, and they convert them into filigree work, which does not contrast well with the neat, plain jewellery of Norway, now becoming known in England. Needless in these days to warn strangers against counterfeits, the “Iceland snuff-boxes” of walrus tooth are mostly made in Germany.

Near the door is a quaint bird’s-eye sketch, dating from 1770, brought from the Borgafjörð Sýsla, and illustrating the dress of the time at a Bær,[13] or farm-house. In front of the buildings, which are all out of perspective, as if the painter had Chinese eyes obliquely set, stand groups of men and women, walking, riding, and working. The former have knee-breeches, and one of them not a little resembles in suit the portraits of Doctor Johnson. There are two sawyers, and others ply the iron-shod wooden spade, of which a specimen hangs in the room. The women, raking hay, or pumping, drawing, and carrying water in pails, bear the Skaut-faldr, now confined to Sundays and festivals. Another portrait of a woman (1772) wears a foulard round the head, instead of the skull cap or foolscap. A curious pencil sketch, probably copied from the original in the Skarð church, Breiðafjörð, shows Daði Bjarnarson (ob. æt. 68, A.D. 1643) and his wife Arnfrydur, both kneeling with cuffed hands: he wears a Skegg (beard), in cut and shape most like a tile, huge trunk hose, tight stockings, and shoes with big rosettes.

The same room contains a variety of domestic implements, especially worked tapestry: in another part specimens of large-meshed white lace are preserved. There is a bed, dating from 1740, box-shaped, but not so much as the modern: on the outer side the occupant and the clothes are guarded by rudely carved Rúm fjöl (bed foils) or planks, five feet long, still used here and at the Færoes. Being carpentered into the chamber-walls, the other side requires no such protection. Curtains shelter it from the cold: there are coverlets and a night-cap, in those days often used as a day-cap; and the outer corners are supplied with rude human figures. The mannikin at the tester holds a kind of candlestick, evidently to facilitate the practice, pleasant but wrong, of reading in bed. Upon the top of a press stands a lantern, with scanty glass, and woodwork rising flamboyant, or rather like green sausages, above it. All the rooms contain upright planks, grotesquely carved: these are lineal descents from the consecrated high seats of the heathenry, and in more modern times they were ranged round the hall, with hangings between. One of them shows a mermaid with pendent bosom and child; of course, desinit in piscem. The single chair has a tall carved back and inside the two doors are sets of ornamental iron work. The quaint-shaped knockers are purely Roman—they are still dug up in Syria.

The weapons, which date from A.D. 1050 to 1400, are represented by old spears and halberts. A good imitation Toledo blade, with sunk midrib; daggers and battle-axes, one of which was taken from under a heap of stones in the Vestmannaeyjar; chain armour, and a variety of large and small Bigones (hones), of smooth compact basalt, for cleaning and sharpening weapons. A saddle cloth, hanging against the wall, shows figures of various animals, tolerable tambour work, in the Persian style. There is a collection of iron, wooden, and bone stirrups, and sundry prick-spurs. The cups are interesting; and one of them, probably intended for a man and his wife, contains at least a quart bottle. The finest are made of walrus teeth (Rostungr, Trichecus rosmarus), the animal being often cast ashore in the north: poorer specimens are of horn. Here we find the material for the Guma Minni, or memorial bowls; the Guðfödurs Minni, or cup quaffed to God the Father; the Heilags Anda Minni, to the Holy Ghost; the toast to the Archangel Michael, a fighter like old Thor; the Mariu Minni, of the Blessed Virgin; and the Marteinn’s Minni, to Martin (Turonensis). The snuff-boxes are unlike the horns now used: one is an oval, with an upper plate of ivory and wood below, hooped round with brass, and containing a cullender, probably used for pulverising the leaf. Mangling seems to have been a favourite occupation; the hand articles (Kefli) are found in numbers: the roller is smooth; the upper stick is carved, and gaudily painted;[14] and the étuis are as numerous as the mangles. One case containing bobbins is fastened to an embroidery cushion; another bears date 1677. Some hold horn spoons, others razors, others buttons, and all are shaped like the inkstands of the East, and curiously but artlessly carved. There is a coarse plane for the carpenter. The weaver of rude cloth worked his sword-shaped shuttle of polished bone, yielded by the whale, whose ribs also supplied rafters, more expensive but more durable than wood. The mammal gave material for dice and draughtsmen played at Kotra (tables), and these are the nearest approaches to the “chessmen made of fish bones,” mentioned in old books. There is a specimen of the Langspiel (violin), and its horsehair bow, formerly so well known in the Scoto-Scandinavian islands.[15] This instrument has three pegs for strings, and seventeen frets, but no bridge: possibly it was played with the thumb, as the Barber of Seville is still wont to do. Uno Von Troil supplies it (p. 92) with six brass wires, acting strings; but I do not understand what his “symphon” is. Mackenzie sketches it, but shows the side instead of the face; and Hooker, drawing it from memory, draws it incorrectly.

The spoils of the Old Church are not numerous: they consist of two altar-cloths embroidered in colours; the altar stone from the Skálholt Cathedral, white marble, blackened above by use; an antique monstrance with a Latin inscription; and some fine enamelled and jewelled crucifixes, said to date from A.D. 1300: many of the stones have been picked out, but the eyes remain. There is also a rudely carved salmon, supposed to have been an ex voto.

In the same room stand two cases (unnumbered) containing finds from a grave opened at Baldursheim in the north, and supposed to date before the Christian era (A.D. 1000). Besides a few bits of rusty iron, serving for different purposes, it has a calvaria without front teeth, and with a large occipital projection like a woman’s. A third case, also from the same place, shows fragments of another calvaria, a large jaw and other bones, a small tooth-comb, and sundries. A fourth has horse-bits of bronze and rust-eaten iron, shaped like the modern, and huge spurs with and without rowels, now unknown in the island except to foreigners. A fifth and a sixth preserve fine old filigree buttons and gold brooches, larger than crown pieces, used as fibulæ for the breast and shoulders: they are said to be pre-Christian; and the Edda (Völundarkviða, 24) alludes to a curious ornamentation:

“But of the teeth
Of the two (children),
He (Völundr, or Wayland Smith[16]) breast ornaments made.”

And even in modern days maternal affection sometimes mounts a sucking-tooth in a ring. The necklace beads are very interesting; some are of jade, others of crystal, and others of amber. There is a long blue bugle, not unlike the Popo bead of West Africa, and the specimen which Mr Rattray found at Sáhib el Zamán (Cælesyria), and presented to the Anthropological Institute. Others are irregular tubes with green, red, and white upon black ground; the forms, and even the decorations, may be found everywhere, from the British Islands to the Arabian Desert. It is hard to say whence these articles came to Iceland, beads are indestructible as gums and cowries: of all ornaments they seem to have travelled farthest.

There are also two presses containing antiquities, presented by Mr Henderson, son of the well-known Icelandic traveller; the Lord’s Prayer in old characters, ancient annotations of music, and a document with the signature of the martyr (?) Jón Árason, “Biskup à Hólum.” The seal, printed on red wax, bore a crucifix with the bishop standing to the left: on the right was a mitre and a shield charged with a lily.

The most interesting parts of the collection to me were what have been contemptuously called in Scotland “chuckie stanes.” Strictly speaking, no pre-historic remains exist in Iceland: perhaps it is safer to say that none have yet been found. At present we must believe, despite the synecdoche of “Ultima Thule,” that the island, when colonised by the Irish monks, was a desert, and we must continue to hold this opinion until Mongoloid skulls or other remains shall have been discovered. The neolithic-stone age still endures in Iceland, as it does in the Brazil, not to mention other countries. Here almost every cottage, in places where iron is wanting, has a stone-hammer for pounding fish: it is a rounded ball of porous basalt about four inches in diameter, and bored through to admit a wooden handle. The general use of the article may convince students that the pierced celts and stone axes which, on account of easy fracture, were held to have been intended for worship or display, and, perhaps, for reproducing copper or bronze forms, might have been used for battle if not for work.

The stone articles in Iceland seem to be imitated from those of the outer world; and the similarity of type, extending from England to Australia, has not a little astonished anthropologists:[17] “Tant il est vrai,” says Sig. Visconti, “que l’esprit de l’homme, malgré la différence des siècles et des climats, est disposé à agir de la même manière dans des circonstances pareilles, sans avoir besoin ni de tradition ni d’exemple.” Hence the New Zealanders, as well as the old Icelanders, gave names to their ancestral canoes, their paddles, and their weapons. The steatite bowls might be from Minas Geraes: the material, according to the people, was supplied by the southern islands. On the other hand, Mackenzie (chap. ix.) found about Drápuhlíð, “a yellowish white substance, having a smooth, shining fracture; it may be cut with a knife, and appears to be steatite.” He also mentions (p. 428) friable, white and reddish-brown steatite, near the hot springs of Reykjavik. A truncated, tetragonal pillar of bluish soap-stone, with a square cornice and a shallow cup ending in a cylinder pierced right through, is somewhat mysterious: possibly it was used, and so local tradition asserts, as a portable font.

The basaltic specimens are: 1. Weaver’s weight bored for stringing; 2. Sinker for fish-net, with deep groove round the longer waist of the oval; 3. Weight, dating from 1693, shaped like a conical cannon-ball, and adorned with bands and bosses; 4. Circular quern-stone with hole through it; 5. Cone, with flat base, used to grind colours; 6. Rude ladle with broken handle; 7. Pierced stones for spindles, resembling the African; 8. Various hones, before alluded to; 9. Prismatic column with runes, taken from a tomb; and, lastly, what seems to have been a club or axe. Though made of the hardest and closest basalt, with broad ribs whose angles are now rounded, the specimen is imperfect: the handle, one foot one inch long, is partly broken away, and the head, four inches broad, lacks the edged part. Still it is the most valuable of the “ceraunei lapides.”

THE BASALT HAMMER. THE STONE WEIGHT.

The east room has a large central stand of four compartments. We especially remark: 1. The seals of ivory and bone. 2. An iron châtelaine to which hung a knife, a skewer, and a key, not unlike those we use for watches, but with the handle more rounded: it is inscribed I. H. S. 3. A diminutive “Hammer of Thor,”[18] with a magical character on the head which discovered thieves: the only other “Miölner” on the island belongs to a widow at Hofsós. 4. Buttons of horsehair from the mane and tail; they were still used by the Færoese in 1810. 5. Two specimens of the Lausnarsteinn, a flat, hard seed two or three inches in diameter, which here, as in Cornwall, was supposed, when drunk in infusion, to facilitate parturition: the superstition vanished when it was found to be not a magic bean but only a horse-chestnut thrown ashore, like the Dolichos urens and the Entada gigalobium, by the currents. 6. Onyxes and agates, called Nachturn-steinn (nature stones), which, being banded, were held to be charms, and prevented the owner losing his cattle, whilst the Oska-steinn (asking-stone) gave him all he wished. 7. A fine Christ, evidently from a crucifix; the blood is enamelled, and the work appears to be Byzantine.

Two cases to the east contain a few early types cut in wood, and one of them is devoted to those of Hreppsey. Only one letter of 1488 remains, and there are a few capitals used by Bishop Guðbrand at Nupúfell in Eyjafjörð. The drawers beneath protect old manuscripts written with decoction of willow-bark, or with the arbutus-juice which served as cloth-dye: the colour is well preserved. A glass box hanging to the western wall contains German coins, pottery, quaintly rounded silver spurs, and Bishop Guðbrand’s drinking-cup. Another and a similar case shows the only procession flag in the island; it is of faded pink silk, almost colourless, with a white linen cross and an edging of three lappets fringed with green and gold. There are also narrow webs for weaving ornamental cords.

Over the western doorway hangs an old lace bed-curtain, white, and well made. Scattered about the room are various articles—viz.: 1. A wooden plank with an epitaph dated 1755, and quite in the style of the “lying tombstone;” 2. Carved door-posts for the church or the house; 3. A large wooden chair, the arms ending in carved knights, whose horses are those of our chessmen; and 4. A beam, ten feet long, pierced with thirty-two holes—with such an instrument Penelope might have woven her web. There is also a specimen of the old Flekí, two or three boards thirty-two inches long by twenty-eight; it was drilled with holes pierced for snares of twisted horsehair, and anchored off some skerry with ropes, and stones or horse-bones. A decoy bird upon each instrument was useful to catch guillemots.

CHAPTER VII.
TOURISTS AND TOURS—GUIDES AND HORSES—HORSE GEAR, TRAPS, AND TENTS.

Presently the steamers left Reykjavik, and the torpid little community hybernated once more: it will awake and buzz for a while when the next mail comes. In the meantime—

“The skies they are ashen and sober,
The streets they are dirty and drear.”

The weather makes the faintest struggles, even in mid-June, to be fine, but a tolerable day appears always to exhaust its efforts, and to be followed by a violent break. The Reykjavik climate is essentially fickle, and the invalid can rarely neglect, till late summer, the warm overcoat of which the cicerone at St Petersburgh persistently reminds his charges. A bitter north-easter, with high cirri, and

“The shrieking of the mindless wind,”

remind us that we are in high latitudes. All the thoroughfares are deserted, and the houses are fast closed against the roaring, screaming blast.

We were the first batch of the year’s tourists, arriving, however, only one day before the “Diana,” which brought with it sundry others. Whilst I remained at the capital to continue my studies, Messrs B. and S. determined to “do” the usual trip as soon as possible. A five days’ delay, without books or some definite object, makes the headquarter village a purgatory to strangers. Most of them bring out an Eton Latin grammar, under the impression that, by its good aid, with a course of Matthæus Corderius, they will make themselves at home amongst the learned. But the English pronunciation is impossible, and too often a total neglect of the “literæ humaniores,” persistently distributed over long years, has swept away all memory of musa, musæ, and of hic, hæc, hoc. Consequently, second-hand Anglo-Latin grammars are cheap and plentiful at Reykjavik.

Those who would save time in travelling can hardly expect to spare their expenditure. My companions wisely called in the head guide, Geir Zoega, pronounced Sögha, and frequently simplified by the Briton to “Goat-sucker.” The classical Italian name (De Origine et Usu Obeliscorum, etc.) shows his origin, but the family has drifted through Germany, and, as his grandfather settled in Iceland, he has wholly thrown off the Latin aspect. A tall, robust man, with harsh Scotch features, high cheek bones, yellow hair, and blue eyes, in earlier days he would have been most useful to explorers; now, however, he has waxed rich: he is farmer and fisherman, cattle-breeder and capitalist, boasting of house, boats, beasts, and other symptoms of wealth. These may represent a capital between £500 and £700, and almost unincumbered by expenses—a century and a half ago the same fortune would fully have contented a master-cutler at Sheffield. Consequently, Geir Zoega will only engage for short trips, and, despite rumours of $15,000, he refused to accompany the two young “Counts d’Elbe,” who came with the intention of spending some six weeks in the interior. Having business of his own in the east, he undertakes the tourists as far as the Geysirs, but he positively refuses Hekla, forage being still wanting there. During the bargain he amused me by certain points of resemblance with the Syrian dragoman taking command of a party of youngsters: the same covered and respectful contempt of greenhorns, the same intense objection to innovation, the same unwillingness of experience to be guided by “bumptious” inexperience, contrast curiously with the pliability of the Italian courier or cicerone, who thinks only of his bill.

Finally, Hr Zoega agreed to supply a tent, absolutely necessary for the Geysirs, a change of horses for each rider, and three baggage animals, moyennant a total of $14 per diem—his own fee being a daily $5. Moreover, the travellers were to feed their nine beasts at the rate of a mark each per march. This confirms Mr Newton’s opinion that, on the whole, travelling in Iceland is not more expensive—perhaps he might have said much cheaper—than in most parts of Europe.[19] Yet we find Professor Melsted, an Icelander, describing his native land to Metcalfe as “the most difficult and expensive country in the world.” During one day on the Congo, I have been asked, for simple permission to pass onwards, three times more than the cost of a three months’ tour in Iceland.

Mr S. being a barrister, drew out a written agreement, which the guide signed: the precaution, however, is of little value, as the stranger is completely in the native’s power, and a threat to drive away the horses will bring the most recalcitrant Griff to absolute submission. If you turn off your leader, as a certain traveller did, he will assuredly sue you in damages at Reykjavik; and for one who cannot speak Icelandic, or at least Danish, to be guideless is to be cast naked upon a desert shore. It is only fair to say that Hr Zoega gave ample satisfaction, and we only regret the more that the deceitfulness of riches has spoiled a thoroughly honest and intelligent guide.

My companions found no difficulty in starting: the dilatory Icelandic movement, of which old travellers complain so loudly, is now a thing of the past. The weather improved, as usual, after they left Reykjavik, and there were only a few showers to gladden the peasant’s heart. The birds were hatching, so they did not shoot: the water, cold, and clear as crystal, wanted vegetation, without which even gold-fish cannot live, consequently there was no fishing. There had been scanty reason to complain of what the Brazilians call “immundicies”—the smaller animal creation—but a Neapolitan might have recited every morning the popular song

“Quando mi cocco a letto,” etc., etc.

They lamented only one thing, not having taken a pack of cards, or a cribbage board, to while away the long, slow hours of halt.

The next that effected his escape was a young painter, who came out for the purpose of sketching Iceland scenery, and who wisely chose the seldom-visited south coast. Thus he was able to imitate the Conte di Haga, che molto vede e poco paga; and all his expenses during forty-two days were limited to a couple of florins per diem. He resolved to buy ponies, and laid out £17, 10s. upon three, expecting after return to sell them for two-thirds of the outlay, whereas the usual hire would have absorbed $126. And he was successful. But travelling in this way becomes exceedingly slow, as the animals must be the first consideration, if at least they are to fetch anything like cost price at the end of the journey. He secured a guide, of whom more presently: the fellow at once became painfully familiar, “independent” would be the polite word, and stuck to his victim like a leech.

Captain J. and Dr S. of the Indian Army allowed themselves six weeks for a sporting tour, which was a dead failure. Unfortunately they fell into bad hands. Metcalfe advises the traveller to engage some student by way of interpreter; and I found it a good plan in the eastern country. Moreover, even at Reykjavik, good guides are procurable. But they lent a willing ear to a certain Helgi Magnússon of the Latin School, half-brother to an Icelander, who, after two years’ study at the Latin School of Reykjavik, went to England for the purpose of translating Icelandic documents, and managed, no one knows how, a good appointment at Cambridge. People here inquire if the great English university is so destitute of talent that it must come to Iceland. In reply, I can only plead British eccentricity; the same curious policy which made the late Colonel Sykes advocate the employment of the brothers Schlagintweit, when a dozen Anglo-Indian officers were as well fitted for, as they were ambitious of, being so employed. The following is Hr Helgi’s signalement: tall, spare, blond, and clean shaven, except the long mustachio, which is in the habit of being pulled. He claimed to know English, meaning he was able to pronounce articulately a few sentences; the answer, however, was an idiotic stare, and an ejaculated “No,” invariably introduced. He began by finding fault with everything, and by telling his employers that they must cook, make beds, groom, saddle, and unsaddle for themselves. Presently he scented English provisions—feeding amongst these people is all-important as to the Bedawín—and the discovery greatly modified his tone. They did not, however, come to terms; and he amused himself by doing all he could to hinder the tourists. The same worthy called upon us, proposing an exchange of sovereigns, not for our benefit, a form of annoyance recognised by previous travellers; he also brought a cow’s horn, very badly cut, for which he modestly asked a pound sterling.

THE “PRETTY GUIDE.”

After maundering about for several days in despair, the travellers engaged one Haldór Johannsen, a saddler, and certainly one of the ugliest saddlers in the world. He began by objecting to the English ropes, of which they had brought a store, and he could not travel without Iceland gear, which stands about as much work as twisted straw. He proved himself a perfect Mark Tapley on the road; but, on his return from the first trip, he so abandoned himself to the cultus of Bacchus that he could not be re-employed. This party lost time and money in purchasing nags, at first they were asked £10 for animals worth at most £4. They bought, after weary bargaining, three animals, for £7, £8, and £9, and the consequence was that two out of three came to grief. They also brought out a very extensive “kit,” which they flattered themselves would readily sell after return to Reykjavik—it fetched the liberal sum popularly called “half nothing.” They made two trips, one to Hekla viâ Krísuvík, and the other to Surts-hellir, praised the fishing, and found the shooting a farce.

As will be gathered from the following pages, the Icelandic Fylgimaðr (“fugleman” or guide) is still in a rudimentary stage. He is apt either to lag behind like the African, or to gallop ahead like the Gaucho of the Pampas, utterly reckless of his charge. He is sure not to be cunning in those details of country which save so much time and which, ignored, so often lead to grief. As a rule, old paths have been broken up by weather, and only those on the spot can know the later lines: when, therefore, you see the least doubt, engage a temporary assistant for a few marks, which are not wasted. He has one great merit: his language is not foul, and he does not “exhort the impenitent quadruped” with the emphasis of his brother bipeds elsewhere; he believes that swearing will cause his tongue to become black-spotted. In point of conservatism he is a Hindu; wain-ropes will not move him from settled “use and custom.” Those I found of most account were Páll Eyúlfsson, Sigurð Jonasson, who accompanied Lord Dufferin; Einar Símonsson, and Bjarni Stefansson, the two latter speaking a little English.

And now to add a few remarks about Iceland ponies,[20] concerning which gross exaggeration prevails: one traveller, who is generally remarkable for sobriety, would ride them “over the ruins of Westminster Abbey.” The origin of the horse, as of the man, is Norwegian; these “norbaggers” reminded me of the little hay-fed nags of the Continent, and of Wrangell’s Siberian travel. In Scandinavia, however, breeding has done something, here nothing. No signs of an indigenous horse, like the zebra-shaped Hipparion of Europe, Asia, and America, have yet come to light, but the old bones dug up in several parts of the island show a much larger animal. The “troops of wild Icelandic horses, which shift for themselves even in the severest winters, when they perish in large numbers,” is a traveller’s dream, like tales of wild camels. Traces of the pony breed are found in Ireland and the Scoto-Scandinavian archipelago, not to mention New Forest; the Asturiones, or small mountain-ponies, which were so called, says Sir James Ware, because imported from the Spanish Asturias, waxed scarce during the end of the last century, and now they are well nigh extinct. The sheltie of Hjaltland has been wrongly derived from Iberian blood: it is also becoming rare, and, curious to say, though enjoying a much milder climate, and a comparatively plentiful forage, it is more stunted and of lighter build than those in the more barren north. The Orkney “garron” was an admirable animal, and, pur sang, like the old Norman, which I have seen in the “haras” of Abbeville, fine-limbed and high-spirited as an Arab. The common “garron,” a mixed breed, was short and ugly, but an excellent roadster, like the Tartar Yábú, which we have allowed to become obsolete in India: ten years ago it fetched £5; the race has been ruined by breeding for size, the sires being big hammer-headed stallions from Aberdeen. The Færoese, unlike the Icelanders, have sold off all their best animals, and it is hardly fair to judge from the refuse. I would back against any Icelander, a New Forest pony or a Maharatta “tattoo;” and my Kurdish Rahwán at Damascus would have knocked the wind out of any in the island.

It has been shown that the total of horses in 1871 was only 3164 over the number assigned to 1804. The reason is not hippophagy, which is almost unknown, but which might have been practised with advantage save for an obsolete superstition: as a rule, also, those classes are most particular about their diet who can the least afford it; and the obsolete Mosaic Code, so well adapted to its day and latitude, has not yet been exchanged for the sensible omnivorous system of China. Thus, it is now said, while horses are eaten in France, they eat us up in England. The three commandments issued by Christianity to her proselytes were, “Marry only one wife, expose not your children, and feed not on horse-flesh.” These were accepted by all parts except the southern coast, where hippic meat, like the Giftessen (arsenic-eating) of mountainous Styria, ensured a good complexion; and it is well known that in the Far West men prefer “three-year-old mustang” to bison or common beef. But Hrosseitr became a word of reproach, and Iceland gave up what was supposed to be unhallowed flesh offered to idols; the horse being, as in the Aswamedha of the old Hindus, a great and ceremonious sacrifice. The Devil always “scratches his writing on a blighted horse’s bone;” the heathen swore by the “shoulder of a horse and the edge of a sword;” and the horse’s head formed a “nithing-post” of peculiar efficacy. The truth is, that the Icelander wants every blade of grass and hay for his cows and sheep; he, therefore, either “traded off” his colts, or cut their throats and sold their skins. Under the influence of a ready market, breeding will again be resumed.

The export was caused by the rise of prices elsewhere; the New Forest nag advanced, for instance, from £5 to £12. But the Icelander has had the sense to part with inferior animals, jades fit only for the knacker and the kennel. He has a curious idea that ponies used in the English mines are first blinded, like decoy singing-birds upon the shores of the Mediterranean.

In 1770 the horse fetched $3 (rixdollars, say half-crowns). During the early part of the present century Mackenzie and others paid $6 where we now disburse pounds sterling. In 1862 a picked animal sold from $12; this price, in 1864, rose, as has been shown, to £5, 5s. a head. The Consular Report of 1870-71 says, “The price for a good horse averages at present from £2 to £4.” During my visit, the mean sums paid by the steamers were £3 to £4. Baggage ponies for travellers commanded £5 to £6, and good riding-nags £7 to £9. Perhaps no article in Iceland has run up so rapidly as horse-flesh, and the resident feels it as well as the traveller. This, however, is, as I have shown, probably a provisional grievance; and, despite the inconvenience, the trade is perfectly legitimate. Happily for Iceland, no class corresponds with our small fund-holder, who is in a fair way of finding life in England impossible, and who must disperse, like the large British colony of small rentiers in Paris, when income became stationary and outlay became imperial.

Henderson (i. 19) and other travellers make the “Hross”[21] average from 13 to 14 hands. If this be true they have fallen off since the beginning of the century, which is improbable as the degeneracy of peaches recorded in “Gil Blas.” Baring-Gould says 14. I should lay down a high average between 12 and 13: out of a number which were measured the shortest was 10·3; and only one in a dozen barely reached 13. The curious fact that the climate least fitted for the horse, and the land where it fares worst, produces larger and stronger animals than the southern islands, can be explained only by the superior size of those first introduced. After a time the eye becomes accustomed to the stunted stature, at least when not contrasted with a tall rider. The best specimens are shaped somewhat like the Suffolk “punch,” with big barrels, thick necks, and short, stout legs. They have round noses of the Norman type, bearded chins, well-opened eyes, ears short and pretty, erect manes, and the square box-head which appears in the classical horse of medals and statuary. The strong points of the fubsy little animals are the manes and tails; the former even when hogged conceal the crest like a lion’s crinière, and if not cut would hang to the knees; the latter would be ornamental but for the local fashion of thinning them at the roots, and of tying up wisps of hair in small knots.

The horse in Iceland is an inevitable evil, the climate being too cold to breed mules. The beasts show many signs of falling off besides size, and we should wonder if it were otherwise. Stallions are allowed freely to run with the mares; and the evil of inbreeding is exaggerated by the small number—sometimes a parish will not have more than one. In the classical days of Iceland men rode entire horses, and a favourite festal pastime was a fight: the Hesta-thing (“horse meeting”) suggests the champion camels which bite each other at Smyrna. It seems to have been a brutal custom, as the animals had to be flogged, like the older sort of Chinaman soldier, to the fray; what a contrast with the Indian “man-eater,” which safely faces a tiger! The Sagas also mention racing as a popular amusement: this, also, is apparently obsolete, at least I never saw it. Stallions are now considered too fierce for general use, and yet, like all the animals in the country, they will be found exceptionally free from vice: mares also are rarely ridden, and the people tell you that they are incapable of hard work, of course, an utter prejudice; in fact, geldings, as with us, are the rule. The Arab, it is well known, mounts the mare because she has more endurance and is less given to neighing at times when surprises are intended: the Spaniard preferred stallions, and to show his contempt for the Ishmaelite, put the jester and the buffoon upon the mare—this custom has prevailed throughout South America, though its origin is now forgotten, and “Yeguas” are still slaughtered in thousands for their hides and fat. And there are superstitions about marks and colour which remind us of complicated Arabian system; for instance, a horse marked with a cross will never drown you.

The effect of promiscuous intercourse appears in wall-eyes, locally called “glass-eyes,” which are painfully common, and in coats of many colours, fit only for the circus. The noble bay, chestnut, and iron-grey are rare: many are skewballs, and the piebald, which in Texas would be called “Paint,” and in the Brazil Jardim (a garden), are perhaps considered the best. Some writers declare that the white are most esteemed, and the black least—I found both exceptional as in the Arabian breed. The foals often wear long fleecy coats, and here the renowned Mr Barnum might have bought many “woolly horse,” real, not manufactured; but whether the few would have lasted in the latitude of New York, deponent sayeth not. Of course they are hardy and sagacious from mode of life. In winter none but favourites are stabled and fed on hay; the others are left out to fare as they best can, on the refuse of the cows and on offals, such as fish bones and heads.[22] At last, when it becomes a matter of life and death, the poor brutes are put under shelter, and fed with a few handfuls of fodder. On the other hand, they are perfectly free from the dire cohort of equine diseases produced by the close and heated stable.[23] Like the sheep, they thrive upon the many and plentiful fuci that line the shore; a similar necessity teaches the horse in the interior of the Brazil to paw open and eat the cactus flesh. Thus the price is nearly all profit to the breeder. During the cold season Icelanders ride very little, if at all: where the snow is deep and hard they use sledges and rough-shoe their nags. They are ready for travel in early June, although I was told the contrary in England by those who should have known better; but the razor-backs at this season require carefully-padded saddles. From that time they get into better condition; they are best in July, but in August again they are soft and blown out by too much green meat. All are shod, and very badly shod; the stones are sure to injure the frog, and Arab plates would be a great improvement. The only remedy known for sore backs and saddle galls are cruel setons in the breast: the Raki of Syria and the Caxaça of Brazil, applied when the saddle is removed, would prevent much of this evil, but spirits are too precious for “uso esterno.” The ears are cut off, not to prevent the Pasha impounding them, but as a mark; and the nostrils are slit with the silly idea of improving the wind. They never see grain, which they must be taught to eat, and salt is not regularly served out to them. From perpetually licking one another’s skins, they supply fine specimens of Œgagropiles, the light and polished balls of hair, the Tophus Ovinus of Norway, so commonly found in the stomachs of Brazilian cows. Broken wind is common, and cow-houghs are the rule.

The domestic animals of all countries bear testimony to the character of their owners: reason, or the result of a developed brain, acts and is acted upon by instinct, or the imperfect brain produce, the two being different in quantity, not in quality. Man and beast learn to resemble each other much after the fashion of Darby and Joan: the servants of menageries, like those of mad-houses, become peculiarly brute-like, whilst animals educated by men have an unspoken language which it is not difficult to understand. In Iceland the horse has learned much from his master. The hardy and hard-working little brutes are, like other quadrupeds and bipeds too, curiously headstrong and self-willed. Their obstinate conservatism is offended by anything savouring of innovation: I tied a bell to the leader, and he showed his resentment by all the pettishness of a spoiled child; as a rule, they appeared rather frightened than pleased by the music so attractive to the Spanish mule. Each has his own peculiar likes and dislikes: one shuns the puddles, objecting to wet feet, another avoids rock, and all hate loose stones: the lazy tread in preference upon the tops of the grassy mounds, bog-trotting like humans; and these are the least safe; others step in the hollows, as the trusty Brazilian mule in the “caldeirões.” They resemble the riders in their dislike to beaten paths, probably from experience of cracks and holes; they will at times resolve to go no farther, and they have been known to stand in the same position until killed by the cold. Upon bogs and swamps they seem to feel the surface, to walk with the head down, and noses depressed, smelling the ground. They change pace and swerve, as if starting, when they come upon crevasses, with a suddenness and an agility which has unseated many a traveller; and like mules and asses, they are unwilling to part company—another sure sign of ignoble blood. Those over nine years old are much preferred, because more prudent and experienced: they are even better when nearly double that age, and they live from twenty to twenty-five years.

The best roadsters are natural pacers (Skeið hestar, or Vakur-hestar), moving like the camel and the elephant, two legs on one side, instead of traversing: this is the well-known Paço, introduced into Southern Europe by the nearer East. Many have a false amble (að valhopa), cantering with the forehand, and bog-trotting behind: this the people like because it easily covers six miles an hour. They are utterly untrained to trot and canter (að stikkva); consequently, all go false: I cannot but think the trot proper a purely artificial pace; in the so-called wild horse it serves only to connect the walk and the canter, and it is never kept up for long distances. This does not apply to the amble or shuffle of the Barb and his American descendants: the former was driven to this specialty by the necessity of raising the forelegs to clear rough, thorny ground, and the peculiarity has been artificially developed. If you attempt to make them back, they will probably, like Argentine animals, tangle their legs and fall; few are accustomed to leap, and the smallest ditch makes them spring like buck-jumpers when put to it. They might be expected to prove surefooted, yet systematic tripping and stumbling on easy ground are inveterate evils; the people blame the rider when the pony breaks its knees, and the arms ache with the exertion of holding the brute up. I once tried, for experiment, giving my nag its head upon a tolerable road, and it came down with me three times in a few hours’ march: my military saddle, however, was unusually heavy; and, of course, increase of weight requires exceptional animals.

It is a good plan for the first day or so to use spurs, which, as I have said, are now all but unknown to the people. The only instrument of punishment is a whip with short handle and strap, the latter always coming off, and if this be absent the animals become utter slugs. The comfortable traveller brings with him an English whip, and the long thong is very useful for driving. Education is confined to making the animal stand still when the reins drawn over the head are thrown upon the ground: the custom is general throughout Australia and the Argentine Republic; and I should recommend it to cavalry where the thongs are not always liable to be wet and dirty; they are great at climbing mountain-paths and hopping from rock to rock; they ford rivers well, walking crab-wise with heads up stream, and in the “scour,” violent shallow water, they kneel to their work. The worst footing for them is the boulder-paved bed. If they happen to fall in fording, the best way is to slip off on the current side, to hold the rein firm, and to steady one’s self by pommel or cantle till the shore is reached. Those taken to England soon sicken under change of diet and climate; some have done well as ponies for children, and I saw a neat pair driven at Edinburgh.

There is an art in riding these little mustangs, and an Icelander will get more work and better pace out of them than a stranger. Of course the slowest gives the rate to the caravan, and this will sometimes not exceed three miles an hour—making the journey an écœurante corvée. All assure you that they never kick; you hear the same in the Argentine Republic; you believe, and sooner or later you are kicked: two Englishmen of my acquaintance suffered in the flesh, and an Iceland pony suddenly did its best to knock out my teeth. Rearers and bolters are rare, and I saw only one biter; the people are not brutal to their beasts, but only careless. Temper never shows so much as when they are loaded; the worst are the riding animals, which lose all manners, apparently feeling insulted by the proceeding. They will never keep Indian file like mules, they rush past one another, bumping and striving to destroy the traveller’s traps; if a load happens to become loose or to shift on one side, there is a grand scene of plunging, of lashing out, especially at pots, kettles, and kegs, and of running away till everything is strewed on the ground. About evening when hunger becomes imperious, and especially where forage appears, they wax wild as antelopes.

“Omnis commoditas sua fert incommoda secum;”

but this is an inconvenience worse than anything that I have seen, even when travelling with half-broken Brazilian mules.

The people boast that their shaggy, long-backed, short-legged poodles equal the noble blood of Arabia, cover 100 miles a day, and carry 300 lbs.—Uno Von Troil says 400. The Thingmannaleið, the recognised march to the Althing, however, is from twenty to twenty-five English statute miles, and I have found 100 lbs. to be a full baggage-load.[24] By proper management, the Lest (caravan) may be pushed on at a pinch some thirty-five to forty miles a day, but every third march should be followed by a halt. On one excursion we allowed three rests in twenty days, but the nags did not recover for many a week. They must not start before ten or eleven A.M., after they have had a good morning feed. They are allowed to drink when and where they please, but only after the chill is off the water. The Icelander seeing a fresh, green grazing, generally dismounts to let his animal have a bite and stretch its limbs, like a dog fresh from sleep. A careful man will walk up and down the heaviest places. About three or four P.M. there is usually an hour’s halt and, during the summer, as the nags suffer greatly from the sun, night-travelling, if we can so call it, where all appears one night and one day, is the rule. Straying is also an inveterate evil, especially in bad weather; the hobbles are rotten cords or withers fastened by bits of sheep’s shanks. Side-hobbling must be attended to; if only the forehand is tethered or knee-hobbled, the beasts have learned by practice to hop as fast and as far as kangaroos, and they will easily waste the best part of an afternoon. Like the Norwegian nags, they are exceedingly fond of rolling in the sand, and consequently the saddle suffers. The shoes should be inspected after every march; in the country parts they may generally be replaced for $1 the pair.

Icelanders ride from the days “when they first see the blood upon their teeth;” their foot gear and the nature of the country incapacitate them from walking, yet with our shoes they would soon learn to climb well. There is a fashion in these things. The Mamlúk Bey would never cross even the street except upon his mare; and the Brazilian church-goer will send many miles for his horse to ride the same number of yards. A walker in Iceland is a low fellow, like the “Zalamah” of Syria. The islander mounts as often on the wrong side as not—of course every cavalry-man should be trained to do the same. His long back and short legs make him a curious contrast with his dwarf monture, and apparently he is easily dislodged—I have seen men come off even when the animals are only bogged. Another element of grotesqueness is the perpetual hammering of the unarmed heel against the animal’s ribs; this “devil’s tattoo” keeps the feet warm, and the horses will lag without it, as the Egyptian Fellah wakes when his water-wheel ceases to creak and groan. The effect is an indescribably loose and shambling seat.

Although cavalcades look tolerably well from afar, individuals are ungraceful and unhandy riders compared with the Gauchos: an Englishman observed to me that the latter will do in the dark what would puzzle the former in the light. The general seat is somewhat like the English, a kind of juste milieu never adopted by purely equestrian races. The Eastern horseman, take the Tartar for a type, sits his horse with “crumpled legs,” as if upon a chair. The Western, that is to say, the peoples of the New World, without exception, stand, as it were, upright with legs apart, riding by balance alone. The Oriental style was probably suggested by the greater steadiness of aim, with bow or gun, obtained by rising upon the shovel-iron stirrups clear of the animal’s back. The Occidental seat was evidently the result of long weary marches over monotonous prairies and pampas, and it never leads to rupture like our cavalry seat; riders carry little weight, and their waists are not tightly buckled down so as to press upon the part most likely to give way.

It is a spectacle likely to be remembered, the shoeing of Iceland ponies by the farrier, who is almost always unprofessional. Five men, without including half-a-dozen spectators and advisers, bodily engage in the task; one holds the cruel twitch, two hang on to the several limbs, one or two hold up the hoof, and number five plies the hammer. And the result is that in travelling you must always expect your animals to be pricked.

The traveller should take out with him a comfortable pony bridle, if he intends to ride far. An Iceland bit is horrid to look at, but the long, heavy mass of brass is never cruel; the chain is not tightened, often, indeed, it is absent, and sometimes a bit of cord does duty. Happily for the horses, they have no curbs, and I have many a time wished that we in England could unlearn the use of them, or rather learn to use them only when required. Nothing more unpleasant than to see both sexes in Rotten Row worrying their animals into perpetual fidgets, and making them throw up their heads like giraffes on the run. And this is not confined to Hyde Park: at Edinburgh I saw an escort of one of our best cavalry corps so pulling at their curbs, that every charger seemed to be upon wires. A light hand is not given to every rider, but all can spare the mouth by using the snaffle.

Upon the whole, I should say, hire your nags. Buyers no longer sell for a song, as the foreign horsedealers are ready to pay fairly for good animals; yet besides the risk of being jockeyed—and in the matter of horseflesh the Icelander is quite the peer

“Of a Yorkshireman hippodamoio”—

the owner, as has been said, will be obliged to travel slowly, and he will incur additional troubles where the inevitable amply suffice. Tolerable riding beasts (Rið hestar) may be hired for $1 (= 2s. 3d.) a day, and baggage-animals (Puls or Klifia hestar) for four marks. The hire should be paid after return. The guide is sure to take the best, in order to whip up stragglers, and he will be the more careful of his monture if he be its owner. Formerly, dogs trained to bark and to keep the Indian file straight, always accompanied caravans: now they are rare and dear. The use of the Madriña, or bell-mare, is utterly unknown—what does Henderson mean by making the Arab’s bell-camel go last in the line instead of first? An extra baggage-animal, besides remounts, is always necessary: the day of the Hesta-kaup is long past when you could exchange a lame or tired-out animal at any farm-house.

The Iceland saddle (Hnakkur), well stuffed and provided with a sheepskin, can be bought at Reykjavik at prices varying from $15 to $50, but the old campaigner will prefer a roomy old English hunting saddle, duly prepared for “razor backs.” The woman’s saddle (Söðull) costs from $40 to $80: it is a kind of arm chair, fronting the near side, and covered with brass ornaments: the feet are supported by a piece of board; and the whole affair is very dangerous—M. l’Abbé Baudouin saw a woman drowned when crossing a not very rapid river by the fault of her riding gear.[25] The lower classes ride à califourchon like the hautes et puissantes dames of the old noblesse de Campagne, and roll off like bundles of old clothes. However unseemly, the straddling style is ever the safest, and I should strongly advise the seat en cavalier in countries where the side-saddle might lead to accidents. The form of riding should be that of the Libanus, with a long arm and a short bridle, always ready to hold up the animal, but never attempting to check it. And those disposed to vertiges should look at the bank, never at the fast-flowing water.

The baggage will be a perpetual trouble. I deposited at the rooms of the Anthropological Institute a specimen of the Klifberi (crook-saddle), the Klibber of the Shetlands, with its pegs of reindeer horn, so useful for fraying everything they touch. This article will cost the stranger $3 to $6. There is, however, a modern and improved form, which is far worse; the arch, banded with iron, rises some five inches above the animal’s back, and effectually destroys whatever rubs against it. If the people could be induced to adopt the Otago pack-saddle, used by the transport trains in the Abyssinian expedition, and commended by Messrs Freshfield (Caucasus) and Stanley, it would be invaluable. I also exhibited specimens of ropes with horn circlets, for making fast the luggage; they are expensive as useless, and $3 buys a very small supply. Finally, I showed the popular “namdah” of the island, two heavy slabs of turf, not unlike a very thick mat: they are the fibrous roots of the buck bean or marsh trefoil (Menyanthes trifoliata), in books called Hor-blaðka, but here known as Reiðinga-gras. The damp heat produced by this article acting upon chafes causes back-sores, which are sometimes fatal: the Færoese smoke and chew the leaves of the “Bukka Blaa” as tobacco, and hold that in infusion they cure scurvy. In the pagan days of Iceland, strips of buck-bean turf made a yoke under which criminals were compelled to walk; and when two men swore brotherhood or foster-brotherhood, they passed through an arch of three long sods, whose ends were attached to earth, and whose centre was raised by a spear.

The Iceland box is very like that which old-fashioned Brazilians use for mule travel: it admits wet; it readily falls open; and, when tourists are numerous, it is not easily found at Reykjavik. Mr Shepherd, of North-West Peninsula fame, had a model pair made by Silver & Co., which own but one disadvantage—being “un-Icelandic,” the guide will object to load them. One writer sensibly advises travellers to pack up and to roll everything down the staircase; if the cases stand this test, they may be passed with approval. Still everything will by degrees be smashed and spilt: cartridges will be crushed or shaken loose; salt and sugar will be mixed; oil and spirits will swamp books and flies; and collections of botany and geology, unless inspected every day, will be lost or damaged; strong tins will be crushed like paper; even cast-iron would not be safe. The scene on unpacking for the first time after a march is “a caution:” Iceland in this matter reminded me of Blá-land (Blue Land, i.e., Blackland), where the ingenious negro managed to split a Papin’s Digester, making me “marvel how.” Saddle-bags are hardly fair to the ponies, and carpet-bags and canvas-bags being strange luxuries, will be stowed away over the boxes, and will be worn through by the hide-lariats which assist the rotten woollen ropes. Though bred to loading from his childhood, the Icelandic guide has neither the skill nor the appliances of the Iberian or Brazilian “Arriero;” anything like a miscellaneous load will at once be shaken off by the rough jog-trot of the ponies; the girths break, and the halts for reloading become hourly, and even bi-hourly. There are two ways of conducting a caravan: one is to drive the animals loose (að reka hestar), the other is to lead them (leiða hestar í taumi, i.e., in team); the latter is generally done by the care-taker (Lestamaðr) when approaching the farmhouse-tún, and halters are fastened to tails in a way that would surprise a Syrian thoroughbred into the height of misbehaviour. This “cringing,” as Shetlanders call it, is also the tether for short halts, and it proves effective enough, as they can only wheel round in a narrow circle—vicious withal.

The traveller will find a tent necessary in the interior, but only on account of the rain. During their September excursions, when the farmers ride considerable distances to collect sheep from the distant pastures, they camp out like Bedawin: as amongst the Canadian Indians, this change from the superheated atmosphere of the house grows a plentiful crop of colds, rheumatisms, and lumbagos. When they travel with baggage, they carry tents like miniatures of the East Indian “pál,” and the large inmate rising from the minimum of space suggests a “Jack in the box.” Two uprights, four or five feet high, are connected by a cross-pole of five to six feet, and over this frame is thrown the cover of coarse white Wadmal, braced by cords at the edges. The flaps have small holes for wooden pegs, generally three behind, and the same number on each side; when these are lost, stones and turf (Siberian fashion) do duty for them. Goods not likely to be injured are piled outside as a “break-wind” and, even when the fore-flap is closed against rain, two men will stow themselves away inside. My friend, Mr Robert Mackay Smith, kindly lent me a little bell-tent, which had already seen service in Iceland, and which proved uncommonly useful. A mattress is usually held a necessary, but I found a Syrian Postín of black sheepskin spread upon a caoutchouc, by far the most satisfactory article. The traveller, however, must beware of “waterproof blankets,” which are sadly apt to belie their name in an Iceland “shower.”

Writers who know Oriental travel only by books are fond of finding reflections and resemblances in the far north; the differences, however, are far greater, and the general likeness is soon destroyed by the details. The horse, the tent, the bivouac, and the desert are salient points of similitude; the want of life, of colour, and of picturesqueness, the main accident of the East, soon break the spell. And the traveller in Iceland will miss many things of which he has read, as the “kiss of peace,” the pulling off boots, etc., by the daughters of the house, and the parting salute by way of good night. These things may survive on the rarely visited south coast; on the beaten tracks they are of the dead past—at least I never saw a trace. Civilised coarseness and polite vulgarity have made Icelanders deny that the custom of public undressing ever existed: they are wrong to be ashamed of it. The removal of muddy boots, wet stockings, and drenched garments, without any sense of the “sho’king,” was a sign of innocence; the action was without any sense of impropriety, even as the primitive matrons and maidens of St Veran thought it uncivil to leave the room before the guest was fairly in bed.

CHAPTER VIII.

EXCURSIONS ABOUT REYKJAVIK—THE ISLANDS—THE LAUGAR OR HAMMAM—THE SOUTHERN LAXÁ OR SALMON RIVER.

The weather appears to be that of the Inferno-circle, especially rich in—

“La piova
Eterna, maledetta, fredda e greve.”

However, we take heart of grace to visit the islands. A boat is readily found at the Bridge-House pier, the centre of industry. Here are knots of fishermen, who might be in Leith, save that they are a wee bit rougher; and the stout young women labouring with coals and rolling up barrels of spirits, reminded me of the Teutonic emigrants to Rio de Janeiro, where each one would girth double, and probably weigh treble, the average Brazileira. At times there is a lively scene when ponies are shipped, an operation managed very rudely, not to say brutally: the animals are dragged or driven down the slimy, slippery plankway, and are forced to spring into the nearest barge; they are accustomed to ferries, but not to this kind of embarkation, which barks the shins and wounds the hind legs. At times a little animal is jostled off the narrow gangway, but instead of falling or leaping down, it clings like a cat with the forelegs, and holds on long enough for men to run down and catch it in their arms. The most amusing scene was when an Englishman inflated a waterproof cloak, the Halkett-boat, and another, taking in hand two apologies for paddles, began a series of astonishing gyrations. All Reykjavik flocked to the pier, possibly under the stimulus thus poetically recorded:

“Pull him out! pull him out! he fell from yonder boat,
We shall either get a sov’reign or a one-pound note.”

They were disappointed, however, for the Britisher gallantly held his own, and taught the spectators “a thing or two.”

A few minutes of sharp sailing placed us at Engey, meadow-islet, the central of the three largest which defend the Rade of Reykjavik. It projects to the south-east, a long spit of loose rocks, covered, as usual, with fucus[26] and seaweed: here two huge ravens are hung up as scarecrows to keep off their kind, and to frighten away the great Erne or cinereous eagle (Falco albicilla): this determined enemy of the eider duck sometimes haunts the Laxá mouth. The “beneficent palmipède” is about two feet long, and weighs 6-7 lbs.: it swims the water gracefully as a swan, and is a strong and straight-flying bird, giving excellent sport: the drake’s plume is silver, tipped with jet; the duck is much more modestly clad. The Æðr has a good time of it in Iceland. Their homes are, like those of olden commerce, the islets near the coast; they will not build, as some travellers have related, in inland lakes, and they are rarely seen ashore, preferring damp rocks, where they can feed on seaweed and insects. From its haunts dogs and cats are carefully excluded. No salute must be fired at Reykjavik for fear of frightening “somateria mollissima.” The drake is sometimes poached after the breeding season in August and September: I never tasted it, but should imagine that the flavour must admirably combine fish and sea tang. The people declare the flesh to be excellent eating, worth all the other game put together, but fine and confiscation of the offending weapon await the poaching gourmand: the amende is a rixdollar per shot, and if the offence be repeated, confiscation of the gun. How we longed to see this happen to our Cockney friend!

The landing-place is the normal natural pier, a horrid mass of slimy, slippery boulders near a small curing establishment, whose rich aroma made us hurry frantically past, kerchief over nose. Here the islet is a strew and scatter of cods’ heads, cods’ bones, and cod’s sounds: they would be the best of compost if systematically used. Hopping from hillock to hillock of fishy grass, we reached the large and prosperous-looking farm-house, which occupies a domed rise to the north-west. The owner, Hr Christian Magnússon, was superintending his eider-down: he lives too near Reykjavik to ask us within his doors.

We then walked over the tussocky ground to the west, where the warm exposure has special attractions for the brown mothers. Our companions were troops of noisy peewits and terns: the former are spoil-sports, as in the Brazil, where I have often been exasperated into giving them the benefit of a barrel; and the latter, here termed Kría (plur. Kríur), whence our “Cree,” sweep down upon the intruder in resolute style, screaming furiously, and sometimes administering a vicious peck. Possibly Sterna hirundo knows that its egg is delicate food for man, and becomes a winged Timon accordingly. In places these birds seem to have fled the sea, and are found hovering over the fields in search of food: they should not be shot, as they serve to keep down the earth-worms, and here the lumbricus is a pest, as in the Færoe Islands. Poultry would be useful for the same purpose, but it causes trouble, and is seldom seen in the interior. It will be remembered that the ancient Britons kept fowls only “voluptatis causâ,” which some understand “for the sake of cock-fighting.”

Travellers describe the eider as a very wild bird in winter, but a mere barn door during the summer season, so tame that, like the frequenters of the gull-fair, Ascension, or of the Lage near Brazilian Santos, it can be taken up with the hand. We found that they scurried away from us, uttering a hoarse “crrr,” and only one showed mild fight in defence of her flappers. Nor did we see more than a single monogamous duck in each nest, despite the reported Mormon arrangements, strange if true. The usual number of eggs was two, proving that the first lay had been plundered; three was not, four was, rare. At this time (June 12) a few hardly-fledged ducklings appeared, and some could just follow the mother’s flight. The old ones teach their young the art and mystery of swimming, by leading them to the shore, bearing them on their backs a few yards out, and slipping from under them—a process which the tutor of my childhood unconsciously imitated. The nests, which are always near water, for facility of feeding, are built in hollows, like dwarf arm-chairs, or the old fur-cap of Istria: in the centre is a thin saucer-shaped lining of brown, grey, or mouse-coloured fluff, exceptionally unclean. About mid-July all these matrons will become frisky, gadding about the Fjörðs and river mouths.

Another pleasant excursion is to Viðey (wood-holm), the largest and easternmost of the three great breakwaters. In some thirty-five minutes we ran before the stiff breeze to the little landing-place, a hole in the Palagonite rock. As we approached the islet, it appeared double, connected, like the defunct Siamese twins, by a band which was bright green with grass, and which carried a few wild-looking sheep. We had seen M. Gaimard’s atlas, and we had read of the “beautiful pillars of basaltic lava,” but we did not find them. The formation generally is that of Arthur’s Seat: in places the stone is sub-columnar; here and there it is quaquaversally disposed, the effect of lateral pressure, and in most parts it can hardly be distinguished from the amorphous. The basalts on the south of the island, and adjoining the remnants of a crater to the west, are best worth seeing, but again—bad is the best.

A rough path leads to the tall wooden-barred gate and weather-cock which defend the property of good Magnús Stephensen, Chief Justice of Iceland, the friend of “Baron Banks,” and far-famed for his hospitalities in the olden day. Though travellers say that he rented it from the Crown, he was the owner of the islet which still remains to his family; and about 1820 he died at the satisfactory age of eighty-two. The house is a large and substantial building of stone and lime, with ten windows facing the south, a counterpart of the smallpox hospital at Laugarnes. The characteristic remnant of the monastery, which was founded in A.D. 1226, is the chapel to the west of the mansion, a solid box of rough basalt, squared only at the corners, with rude arches over doorway and windows; the dwarf “campanile,” a shed perched upon the roof, shelters three bells. In the massive red door was a huge iron key, which may date from the days of the ghostly owners. The roof is supported by heavy solid rafters, and the furniture is older and more ornamental than usual; the benches are carved, and the colours are the tricolor, blue, red, and green.

As in many country churches, the tall pulpit stands behind the humble altar which Lutheranism in Iceland has not reduced to a table, but converted into a safe for priests’ vestments. The confessional still lingers in the shape of a tall-roofed chair, like that of a hall porter; it is now used by the Prófastur (archdeacon) when he makes his visits, but the people no longer confide their sins to the ecclesiastical ear. Metcalfe (p. 317) seems to think that Icelanders are shrieved before they communicate. The only “Reformed” remnant of the old Catholic custom is the practice of seating the expectants round the chancel, when the parson exhorts them in set phrase to repent their sins, and to amend their lives. They do so, or are officially supposed so to do, and absolution duly follows.

We looked into the western room of the old monastery where the printing-press was wont to work; the rubbish lay in admired confusion, almost as bad as the sacred hill-town of Safet can show, after parting with its typographic reliques to the curious and the collectors of Europe. The owner, lounging about, hands in pockets, prospected us more carefully than courteously. Here the neighbourhood of Reykjavik is not the only cause of inhospitality: the son of the old Chief-Justice was notoriously unhappy in his family; and the heir to the “antiqua domus” is locally famed as an animal, in the French and Spanish senses of the term. So we wandered over the island, much to the confusion of the terns and sheep, and enjoyed a charming bath in the sea to the north: the walking was foul as usual, the swamplets have not been drained, nor have the grass tussocks been levelled during an occupation of a thousand years. Of course, in Wood-isle no wood exists, but near a farm-shed upon the western half there is an eruption of turf-stacks, which show what has become of the name-giving growth.

The tract behind and about Reykjavik is an epitome of Iceland, which we can see in a day’s work; it admirably combines the quaking bogs of Ireland with the Pantanaes of the Brazil, the rock-slides of the Kasrawán and the metal domes and boilers of the Haurán.

“God made the country and man made the town” is a poor poet’s sentimental say, which has passed into a truism, whilst every traveller knows its falsehood. The country wants the hand of man almost as much as the town does. Hereabouts, where the surface lies comparatively unbroken, the absolute absence of trees gives the dreariest impression. We do not feel the same want amongst the labyrinths of serrated ridges, where the vapours break like seas in the morning, and which are transfigured by the evening mists into glimpses of purple and golden glory; nor amongst cataracts, “tumbling in a shower of water rockets” over the perpendicular strata of basaltic rock; nor when fronting the inverted arches of the Fjörð-mouths, where the sweeping lines of mist and cloud are worthy the inspired pencil of Gustave Doré. And, though throughout the island there is not one spot which “smiles with corn,” the stretches of bright green pasturage, with spangled flowers, relieving the blackness of the trap, serve passing well in the artistic eye to take the place of cultivation. In these places we escape from the eternal black and white, white and black, which sadden the eye in the interior.

The lakelet south of the capital drains large bogs and peat-mosses at its upper or inland end. It is poor stuff, which, however, like that of the Brazil, burns without chemical treatment, and it contains, as in the Færoe Islands, large quantities of birch trunks and bark, proving, if proof were wanted, that the land was not always bare of trees. Although the first colonists found the country wooded from the sea to the hills, here, as elsewhere, first colonists regarded a tree as a personal and natural enemy, to be annihilated with fire and steel. Consequently the land became bog, the centuries deepened and added to it, and now it is absolutely irreclaimable. Under the blessing of St Blazius, however, it supplies the people with fuel. The turf-digger uses a rough instrument, a straight bar of wood, with a side projection for the foot, and shod with a crescent-shaped iron: it is the toysker familiar to the Shetlanders.[27] The material is stacked in early June, and by September it is ready for use; almost every family has its own turbary, where a fortnight’s hard work would collect an ample supply for the whole year. Yet the absence of fire is one of the characteristics of the Icelandic farm-house, in which the people prefer to “pig” together for animal heat, like the lower creation, rather than take the trouble of cutting, stacking, and carrying in their peat. But here probably inveterate custom perpetuates what arose from simple indolence.

The Landnámabók (De Originibus Islandiæ Liber), corresponding with our Domesday Book and the Book of Joshua amongst the Hebrews, tells us that in A.D. 1231 the plough was drawn by oxen and slaves. The Aryan implement, never invented by the African nor by the “red man” of the Western Hemisphere, is now simply impossible. The surface is either quaking bog, where man is easily mired and “laired;” or covered with runs and boulders of basalts and lavas, porous and compact, grey, brown, red, and black; the grey being of course the oldest. This has never been cultivated, and probably never will be. The grass land reminds you of a deserted country churchyard. Many of the warts which garnish it are originally formed like “glacier tables,” those pillars of ice bearing tabular rock, which protects their bases whilst the sun melts the surrounding matter. The scattered boulders keep the lump firm, whilst the ground about it is washed away: mostly, however, the tussocky warts are formed, as on the Irish bog, the Scotch moor, and the flanks of Ben Nevis, by the melting of spring-snows and the heavy rains which carry off the humus from the sides; and they show us on a small scale the effects of weathering upon hills and mountains. The water, here and in the bogs and peat-mosses, is a “gilded puddle,” rich in diatomaceous silica and iron: as in parts of Ireland, it readily converts adipose and muscular tissue into a saponaceous matter like spermaceti, and it forms the “precious medicine Múmiyá” (human fat) once so highly valued for fractures and pulmonary complaints.

These warts are exaggerated by the treading and grazing of cattle in the depressions. Not a few travellers have asserted that the people, forgetting that grass grows perpendicularly, leave the knobs in situ, because a curve affords more surface than a plane. To a similar prejudice, also, they attribute the use of the toy scythe, which shaves round the lumps, wasting much time, and exposing the precious crop to be destroyed by rain or snow. The real cause, of course, lies much deeper. Firstly, there is the want of hands; secondly, there is the expense of day labour; and thirdly, a man must be certain of tenure before he is justified in undertaking such a task as levelling the surface of his field. The turf must be carefully removed from every knob, the latter must be planed away with the hoe, and lastly, the grassy covering must be replaced: after a few years the snows and showers will require the operation to be repeated. Meanwhile, the result is a short thin turf like that of England, but exceptionally springy to the tread, as if it had no solid foundation—in fact, something like a water-bed. A little top-dressing brings out a goodly crop of grass, and although we must despair of seeing even oats and rye, yet roots like potatoes and turnips might become much more common than they are. But then—the landlord would raise the rent.

A favourite walk with foreigners is to the Laug (pronounce Lög), the reeking spring, lying about two miles from and nearly due east of the town. The only bathing-place, especially on fine Sundays, between church-time and dinner at two P.M., it is the haunt of many washerwomen, and yet, during the last millennium, no attempt at a decent path has been made. You leave the town by the Krísuvík, more properly the general eastern, road, passing the fine new prison, which is rising rapidly from the ground: the exceptionally thick walls are made of hewn and unhewn trap, with an abundance of imported lime, blackened by basaltic sand. There are apartments for the officials, and ample accommodation for all the criminals in the island; indeed, if the interior only equal the exterior, its superior comforts may act, it is feared, like our old transportation system, and offer a premium for breaking the law. On the right, you leave the Skolavarða,[28] or school mark, so called because it was built for the College. This “observatory,” as foreigners call it, is a two-storied building, ascended by two sets of double ladders: the view from the green-painted hatchway which defends the opening above lays the land before you like an embossed map. The lower story is foul in the extreme, and there are scandals concerning the uses to which it is normally put. The wooden building of old charts has clean disappeared. No place could be worse adapted than this for an observatory, at least, if magnetic instruments are to be used. The French expedition found that the surrounding volcanic rocks gave the most discordant results, for instance, 2° 32´ to north, and 11° 15´ to south, upon the same rhumb. M. Lottier (p. 35) offers the following comparison of magnetic declinations:

He remarks that the first is probably correct on account of the care with which the site had been prepared, two granite blocks having been laid down upon the hard ground below the turf. The second was vitiated by a huge coulée of lava; the third by the looseness and Plutonic nature of the soil, whilst at Selsund the Hekla massif, distant only a mile to the north-east, must have exercised a disturbing effect.

Striking to the left, we pass the detached farm-houses, and hit the shingly and rocky margin of the shore, which here and there shows heaps and scatters of sub-columnar basalt. Presently, after treading the pebbly bank and stony tracts, well garnished with mud, we reach the mouth of the little stream, or rather the place where it should mouth. Here, as on many parts of the coast, where not protected by islands to windward, or where the rock does not come down to the water’s edge, a high bank of sand and shingle is thrown up, and retains the water in pools of various extent. Mostly, these basins are briny, being affected by the percolating tide which ebbs and flows regularly inside: they explain the presence of the upper bog; the matted roots of the vegetation prevent free drainage; and the want of slope would probably render even deep-ditching ineffectual.

We cross the streamlet higher up, and ascend the right bank, where walking is better than on the left, wondering the while that during so many centuries of use the feet of the washerwomen have not worn a way. Here at length is some sign of life. “The lady-hen sings to the riv,” as the Shetlanders say of the lark, but her carol is at the gate of a milk-and-water heaven. The curlew and the whimbrel scream their wild lay in the lower air; the snipe rises with a peculiar twitter; the snippet bathes where the water is warm; the water-rail (rallus) courses before us; the true sandpiper (tringa), accompanied by a purple congener (T. maritima), with brown back, white waistcoat, black colours extending over the eyes and crest, with long red beak and legs, forages busily for food; whilst waterfowl, including the ubiquitous eiders, male and female, float lazily off shore. In many places the sandpiper behaves like the Brazilian João de Barros, alighting before the traveller, and apparently enjoying the fun of narrow escapes.

A number of ponies, awaiting transportation to the mines of Great Britain, were grazing about, and bolted as we drew near. The few cows, almost all hornless, had small straight bodies, and large udders, which are said sometimes to give from ten to twelve quarts of milk per diem, and 3000 per annum; the proportion of butter being 1:16. Wretched bullocks, not weighing more than a Syrian donkey, were fattened for foreign markets: surely the roast beef of Old England never appeared in meaner form. Presently they will be lashed to ponies’ tails, and afford much amusement to the gamins of Reykjavik by springing over the little drains with such action as the Toro at Ronda attempts the barricades. The ewes, dull-yellow, straight-eared, and thin-tailed, some with coats, others sheared, or rather plucked, in Shetland parlance “roo’d,” were at a distance to be mistaken for goats; in June most of them are accompanied by lambs, singlets or twins, looking extra innocent. They yield a couple of quarts of milk per diem, or about fifty per annum, and their fat is said to contain an unusual proportion of stearine. Merinos have been tried, and to them many people attribute the dreadful scabies which has raged since 1855. The goat, once so common, is extinct in this part of the island, at least I never saw a specimen in Iceland: this destructive animal could not have been much at home where there is so little wooded land; and it was proscribed for climbing upon the turf roofs, and doing other damage. The happy mean has been hit by Istria, which issued laws in early ages de capris non tenendis, and which now allows goats only in the wildest and stoniest parts. It will be a fortunate day for the Libanus and Syria generally when the graveolent there falls into like disfavour.

The comparatively fertile banks, clothed with the Lecidea Lindleyana grass, shows us, for the first time, the pretty Icelandic flora in full bloom; and the general effect is yellow, as that of Palestine is red: this arises from the large proportion of buttercups (Icel. Sóley) and dandelions. The properties of Leontodon taraxicum in hepatic disease, either as coffee or as salad, are here quite unknown; the Icelanders call it Unda-fill, and the Færoese Heeasolia. Its flowers are used in the southern islands for yellow dye, and the leaves are eaten in spring: after that time they become bitter. There is an abundance of golden liverwort (Parnassea palustris) and cross-worts (galiums) of many kinds, locally called Maðra and Kross-maðra; of Alpine saxifrages (S. hircula and oppositifolia), of azaleas (A. procumbens), pretty red flowers, loved by sheep; of lilac-tinted butter-worts; and of the yellow ranunculus, common in the Pyrenees and Alps. The wild thyme (T. serpyllum), which preserves a strong perfume, whilst the four violets have lost it, is termed Blóðlýng by the people, and, mixed with other leaves, is extensively used in ptisanes to “thin the blood.” An orchis, an equisetum with small stiff leaves, and a “fox grass,” as the fern is locally named, faintly remind us of the tropics—ferns always have this effect. Very familiar to the eye are the daisy (in the Færoes, Summudaar), the white chickweeds (Stellarium and Cerastium vulgatum), locally called “Musar-eyra,” (mouse’s ear); the forget-me-not (Kattar-auga), which flourishes everywhere; the white cardamine (C. pratensis); the common bitter cress, which Icelanders call Hrafna-(pron. Hrabna) klukka, or raven’s bell; the other pretty little crucifers, and the rhododendron (laponicum, Icel. Kalmanstúnga), with a delicate red flower. The Iceland heath (Erica vulgaris) here becomes a valuable plant: the people say that sheep cannot die where it abounds, and they use it with peat and brushwood to smoke their meat. The geranium (G. silvaticum) is common, especially the malva, known as Ljons-kló or-löpp (lion’s paw), a name evidently given by those who had never been presented to King Leo. The Fífa, or cotton-grass (Epilobium or Eriophorum polystachion), with bright white pods, which extends from Iceland to South Germany, and which fattens sheep in Dumfriesshire, will haunt us in every swamp: it is a much maligned growth, and it serves to make the bog far more solid and less like a rolling carpet than the “Serbonian” feature otherwise would be. The less familiar plants are the crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), eaten by Corvus in Scotland before the grain is ripe; the red cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idæa), which mostly affects the hills, and is preserved for pancakes; the grass of Parnassus (Icel. Mýra-sól-ey); and a moonwort, rare in the British Islands.

The deep, narrow ditch winds through the plain, with bulges here and there, which make good bathing-places: what little steam there is, generally courses before the wind down the valley. The old centre of ebullition is denoted by a small green mamelon or tumulus on the right bank, supposed to be the site of a large spring once boiling: hereabouts poor, brown, and fibrous peat is stacked, and on week-days it is the meeting-place of a dozen Baðkonur (washerwomen),[29] of all ages, from grandmother to small girl. A baylet in the right bank shows the present focus of ebullition, though a little below, on the left side, the water above a dwarf rapid is scalding hot: at the former, the thermometer (F.) readily rises to 175°, and soon cools down stream. Higher up again the little ditch, coloured with bog iron, and with strongly chalybeate taste, is icy cold: as at the celebrated Snorri’s Bath, all degrees of temperature can here be combined, and whilst one hand is parboiled, the other is chilled.

The water after traversing heated substances, evidently pyritic, effervesces from a bottom of dark-grey mud; and when the stone is exposed, we find heat-altered bazalt covered with a whitish incrustation, silica, the chief ingredient, being deposited in a gelatinous state. There is a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, so commonly remarked in dormant springs, and the offensive presence should recommend it to skin diseases, especially where the Sarcoptes scabiei is present. From the muds and deposits of these waters none of the rarer earths, like yttria, glucina, and oxide of cereum, have been found, though traces of cobalt occur: lime and magnesia abound; manganese, iron and silica, soda and sulphuric acid, also exist in considerable proportions. Dr Murray Thomson has carefully analysed the produce of the Laug.[30] Eels are mentioned by travellers, but we never saw them: in the lower course there are shell-less snails and a variety of worms (pupæ?).

Broken bottles and fragments of the “Constitutionnel” show the favourite place for bathing: formerly here, as at Thingvellir, a wooden shed was set up; now every inch of it has disappeared. It is no joke to dress and undress in the raw high east winds and the bursts of storm, but the exceptionally healthy nature of the climate asserts itself under these unpleasant circumstances. As there are traditions of a French sailor having died of pleurisy after a bath, common prudence would suggest a sunny afternoon. The amount of refreshment derived from the “Hammám” is immense. Strangers in Iceland often attribute to other and less cleanly causes the sudden eruption of Lichen (misnamed Tropicus) or prickly heat, the nettle rash which the Danes call “Red Hound:” it seems to be as common about the poles as throughout the tropics, and many of my English acquaintances suffered severely from it in Iceland without recognising it.

From the bath we walked over the stony bog to the nearest Bær, which is generally deserted: it is occupied by the caretakers of the Laugarnes Hospital. The two-storied whitewashed house is built of irregular and unsquared basaltic blocks: the frontage is south of west. Each of the two floors has three windows, and the wings two on the east and west, but none to the north. Formerly the episcopal palace, it was last occupied by Bishop Steingrímur Jonsen: the present dignitary has always preferred the town. It has now been converted into a smallpox hospital: two patients died there this year (1872); since then, as no cases have come in, the doors are locked, and the attendants are engaging themselves elsewhere. In olden times it was connected with the town by a chausée, a causeway somewhat like the remains of the Saracen, miscalled Roman, roads which cross the flat country south of Damascus. Bad as it is, the fragment teaches a useful lesson—never, if possible, to quit an Iceland road. “Follow the highway tho’ it winds,” say the Tartars.

A Scotch gentleman, well-known in Iceland as a firm and hospitable friend to Icelanders, proposed to buy Laugarnes for a summer residence, to pay $3000, and, moreover, to conduct the water in tubes to Reykjavik, where it might lead to a habit of Russian baths. Unhappily, it belongs to a company, or rather to half-a-dozen proprietors, who have added Klepp, the adjoining property: they showed their unwisdom by asking $4000 for the original estate, and now their terms fluctuate, according to chances, between $8000 and $14,000.

From the Hospital we follow the shore to the Laxá River East. On the way there is a deposit of very light blue-grey hydrate of iron, cellular and globular, and rich in water, and phosphorus: it is supposed to result from the decomposition of titaniferous iron, contained in the underlying dolerite. Close to the sea, and conspicuous to those who sail by, is a classical spot, the Haugr, howe or cairn of Hallgerða, the fair-haired with the thief’s eyes. That lady, so famous in Iceland legends, virtually murdered three husbands; the last was the “peerless Gunnar,” who, some years before, had slapped her face. She lived upon this farm, which she inherited from Glum, her second victim; she died in A.D. 996, and she was buried with all the honours of her rank. The tumulus always remains green, doubtless a token of Heaven’s approval bestowed upon one of the strongest-minded of her sex. Should Mary Stuart succeed in being sanctified, the abominable Hallgerða surely has a chance: at present she is known to local fame chiefly from the beauty of her locks, which hung down to her waist. She is one of those women in history whom one would like to interview.

Another tract of stone and bog led us to the Laxá River, which discharges into the usual broad Fjörð, fronting Viðey, and bounded on the east by the low, chapelled point of Gufunes (screw naze). The name, often written Danicè Lax[31] (salmon) Elbe or Elve (river), is common in the island, which may contain a dozen Laxás: there are four near Reykjavik, each distinguished by some local affix. Henderson erroneously calls it Hellirá, river of caverns, from the many holes in its lava bed; others prefer Hellurá, river of slabs: so Newfoundland was first called Hellu-land. The classical term, however, is Elliðaá, from the ship “Elliði,” which Ketilbjörn Gamli (the old) caused to be dragged through river and lake. It rises in the Elliða-vatn (Ellwich-water), a circular lake with tuff walls, showing an extinct volcano: this place, about one hour’s ride south-east of Reykjavik, is a famed place for picnics, and is much affected by men who go a-fishing. The stream, or rather torrent, rushes fiercely between tall and rocky banks, flares out at the mouth, and finds rest in the broad bosom of Reykjavik Bay.

Presently we reached the salmon ground, which is now but a shadow of its former self, doubtless the result of “barring” with weirs, traps, dams, and nets. Until the beginning of this century it was held by the Crown, and tradition declares that sometimes 3000 head, with a maximum weight of 40 lbs., were taken in a single afternoon. It was first rented to Hr Scheele, a Danish merchant at Reykjavik, and was afterwards sold in perpetuity to the father of the present Hr Th. A. Thomsen. The sum mentioned is $1200, a poor bargain for the local Government, as the yearly revenue is said to be $1000. The owner has placed six common box weirs, with crates, allowing the fish to work up stream, but not to return; and stone dams, which are removed before the ice sweeps them away in autumn—salmon and trout here spawn in October. They might be placed a little higher up for the convenience of the fish, but at any rate they are better than the standing nets, with which a Scotch contractor “barred” the very mouth of the river.

I saw the boxes opened about mid-July; but rain had been scarce, and the whole take was 15 salmon, the maximum being 5 lbs., and the average under 4 lbs.: we heard, however, that some weeks before, one box had yielded 63, and the six a total of 179. They are readily sold in the town for 22 skillings per lb., and in the country the price falls to 12 or 13. By an arrangement with Hr Thomsen, the traveller might be allowed to fish for salmon and trout in the lower stream, and in the upper waters he can so do gratis. At the same time he must keep well out of the owner’s limits, or there will be work for the lawyers.

CHAPTER IX.

FURTHER AFIELD—ASCENT OF THE ESJA AND THE SKARÐSHEIÐI—THE HOF OR HEATHEN TEMPLE OF KJALLARNES.

Right opposite Reykjavik rises an interesting block of mountains. Bearing due north is Akrafjall, bluff to the sea and sloping with a long dorsum inland; it is the western steeple of the long Hvalfjörð, one of the many digitations, carved by wind and water in the western coast. The eastern is the Esja, which means a “kind of clay;” some travellers miscall it the Esian or Essian, with the definite pronoun suffixed,[32] and sounding much like “the Alcoran” to an Arabist. The southern flank of this precipitous buttress, gashed with deep ravines and still spotted and streaked with snow which will not disappear before mid-August, lies north-east and across the baylet of Reykjavik: in fine weather it looks as though you could see a man upon the summit. Between the two pilasters of the inverted arch, forming the apparent bound of the far vista, is a third, a smaller and a more precipitous block, Skarðsheiði—heath of the col[33]—with five buttresses, waxing whiter and whiter as they leave the warm western aspect. The view is fine albeit somewhat sinister, and you miss it like removing from the Chiaja to the interior of Naples. All this, we must remember, is only a corner of the great south-western Fjörð, whose northern limit is the Snæfellsjökull and whose southern is the Skagi (point) of Suðrnes: it is called Faxafjörð, from Fax,[34] the Scot, who believed it to be the estuary of a mighty stream; the same kind of mistake gave a name to glorious Rio de Janeiro.

The eastern or inland view from Reykjavik on a fine day is not less picturesque. The clear cut basaltic line of mountains, here and there broken and jagged, stretches from north-east to south-west. In the former direction it appears a mural range, in the latter the blue wall breaks up into detached features, the regular cone of Helgafell, or holy hill, the pyramid of Keilir, “the wedge,” so well known to sailors, and the four hillocks called the Trölladyngjur,[35] or giantesses’ bower. Again this feature reminds me of the Jebel Haurán, and we shall find it beautifully displayed from the several mountain-tops.

On June 12 I set out with Major B. and Mr S. to try our prentice-hand upon the Esja. The vehicle was a two-oared boat redolent as usual of fat, fin, and feather; the hour was 6.45 A.M., and the north-easter was biting cold—at this season travellers should prefer post-meridional excursions, as the afternoon wind, during fine weather, invariably shifts to the genial west. The terns and the large Iceland gulls were hurrying home to the several islands, each showing the economical value of early birding.

After adding prospects of Geldinga Ness, Therney, and Lundey to our repertory, and covering in two hours the six miles’ sail, we landed at the usual place on the northern bank of the dwarf Kolla Firth. It showed farm-houses scattered around and a few fishing craft carefully drawn up; a very necessary precaution when the tide is going out. On the left was Esjuberg, where Örlýgr Hreppson, converted by Patrick, Bishop of the Hebrides, built the first Christian chapel, and dedicated it to St Columbkille, Apostle and Thaumaturgus of the Picts. Farther off lay another farm upon the site of the celebrated pagan temple known as the Hof of Kjallarnes—we shall visit Keel-ness by and by.

It is perfectly true in Iceland that

“The sea is wet as wet can be,”

but we cannot say that

“The land is dry as dry.”

Throughout the lowlands Nature, organic as well as inorganic, seems never to be free from moisture: like tropical man it always sits in a damp skin.

Having hauled up our boat we crossed the moss towards the great gash in the hill-flank, the Caldera, so conspicuous from Reykjavik; as usual the ground was shaky bog, and in places like an exaggerated Turkey carpet. The cause is that the shore, formed either of shingle or of vegetation decayed to humus is, as we have seen, higher than the interior, and the people content themselves with dykes for roads, and with trenches never deep enough for thorough drainage. We passed two small farms composed of the normal dwelling-places, stables, byres, and outhouses; plans and elevations of these abodes have been given by every Icelandic traveller who has used pencil as well as pen. Suffice it to observe, that throughout Iceland the dwelling-place, like the “skip,” has seen better days, and that both are now hopelessly degenerate.

At the second farm lived the guide, who was absent in the fields, and we vainly attempted persuading the sailor lad, a regular “lazy,” to accompany us with the provaunt-basket. An English youth would have been delighted with the chance of a climb, but these fainéants about the capital, timid and apathetic, will do nothing for sport or adventure, and move only when need drives.

After forty-five minutes’ walk we entered the great gorge, which discharges a shallow stream, winding in many veins over its broad and rocky wady: it must be a furious torrent during the thaws of spring. We should have crossed it and ascended a sharp, rocky, zigzag on the right-hand jaw, but we had no reason to regret the error, as the deep section gave us an excellent view of the Esja’s internals. The formation of the mountain is still a disputed point; some hold its base to be basaltic pierced by more modern trachyte, whilst others believe in the greater antiquity of the trachyte. As will be seen, when travelling to Mosfell, or south-east, we found trachyte on a level with the Esja’s foundation and, when coasting along the western flank, we saw Palagonite sandstone, dyked with trap, and underlying as well as overlying the later igneous formation. The sequence, therefore, appeared to be Palagonite, trachyte, and trap. On the Kollafjörð also there is a line of carbonate of lime running from north-east to south-west, and strongly affecting the water: hence it is judged that Iceland spar may be found there.

After a few minutes we came to a place where the gorge was split by a tall chine of rock, and where overfalls and deep inclines rendered the two beds impassable. We climbed up this hogsback, remarking, as others have done before and since, how dangerously brittle is the rubbishy stone which comes away in large fragments under the foot. The same observation constantly occurs in travels through Greenland and Spitzbergen, and the cause is doubtless that which strews the upper heights of the Libanus and Anti-Libanus with natural Macadam—fracture by alternate expansion and contraction. In Iceland, moreover, the débris lies in dry heaps, loosely attached to the surface and not based upon or secured by vegetation or tenacious humus, while the sharp angles of the material produces many a rocking-stone. Hence large masses giving way readily beneath the tread, somewhat surprise the inexperienced. We then fell into a long stiff slope of rock and yellow humus, puffed up under the sun; there was an abundance of water stagnating even on the sharpest declivities, and doubtless percolating from the snow strips above. Where the surface was tolerably level, rough grasses upon which a few sheep were grazing were sprinkled with mosses and with raised patches of bright green studded with pink flowerets (Diapensia), faintly resembling the huge Tabbán pin-cushions of the Hermon. Animal life appeared to be exceedingly scarce.

Presently the guide, who had followed us, was seen crossing the left-hand or western ravine, and only his Iceland shoes enabled him to do so. Of course, he wore gloves, for what reason we could not divine, except to keep his unwashed hands white; and his alpenstock was an iron stick, some three feet long, with a ring at one end and a half barb at the other. He waddled like an ant-eater when showing his vigour by spurts of running up and down, and his bent and affaissé form was a considerable contrast to that of the mountaineer generally. He was like his brethren, the very rudiment of a guide, utterly disregardful of the guided; and in case of difficulty or accident, we expected him at once to skedaddle. When he whooped “ho!” it was the screech of a sea-fowl.

Arriving at the stiffer part of the ascent, about 2400 feet above sea-level, we should have bent to the west towards the largest patch of snow, where the angle is exceptionally easy. But our guide followed us with African docility, as we bent eastward under the tall scarps of submarine trap, which from Reykjavik appear to stand up like a wall. There were several couloirs to cross, mostly slides of icy snow: in August they will appear like broad yellow gutters polished by frost. Here we picked up specimens of red jasper, crystals of lime, and stones whose drusic cavities were charged with calcaire.

Then began the climb up the crest. The stairs, about eight or ten feet high, run with tolerable regularity, whilst breaks here and there allow easy ascent: at the base is kittle débris, where falling blocks may be expected. However hopeless may appear these trap walls, whose copings, straight and regular as if built by man, form the characteristic feature of maritime Iceland, they are generally climbable by creeping along the ledges below the several grades till gaps offer an opportunity of swarming up to the higher tier. If, however, a profile view shows that these traps dip instead of tilting seawards, the normal disposition, attempts will be in vain. Cryptogams were thinly scattered over the blocks; lichens appeared to be rare, and the mosses had not revived from the winter burning—as regards muserlogia there is still much to be done in Iceland.

After a walk of three hours, we stood upon the level summit,[36] about 3000 feet above sea-level, and the ascent was according to the rule of the Alpine Club, a thousand feet per hour. Here rose a number of Varðas or old men. We crossed a dazzling névé, following the guide, who probed as he went on, for here as elsewhere,

“The snow o’erlays
The hidden pits and dangerous hollow ways.”

I narrowly observed its behaviour. The ground about it was so soft and slushy that even stones would not support our weight, and the shallow edges were icy-hard, the effect of increased evaporation. On sloping surfaces the same effect is caused by pressure, like squeezing a snow-ball, and gelufication is prevented by the little runnels which the sun sets free to trickle down the gorges. The material was glacious rather than flaky or niveous, and promised firm foothold. We have read of travellers sinking to the shoulders, especially in the snow of August, but it is doubtful if this ever takes place above a certain altitude, especially in dry weather, when Iceland snow wastes away in the wind like camphor.

The “raking view” from the summit was a fair physiognomical study of treeless Thule. To the north the mountain is a mere section, a shell with perpendicular falls and steep steps of loose stone, which demand rope ladders. Before it the lowlands fall to the Hvalfjörð, beyond which the Akrafjall dorsum slopes inland, or to north-east, till suddenly arrested on the other side of the smooth green sea-arm by the five buttresses of the sister formation, Skarðsheiði. The latter looks as though a few hours, instead of two days, would reach it; and our friends at Reykjavik showed their belief in the wondrous transparency of the atmosphere by trying to detect, with their opera glasses, our small bodies creeping up the slope at the distance of at least six direct geographical miles. At Quito, under the equator, a horseman’s white poncho may, according to Humboldt, “be distinguished with the naked eye at a horizontal distance of 89,664 feet, and therefore under an angle of thirteen seconds.”

Turning southwards, we found the Esja summit flanked to the east by three regular buttresses, like artificial earthworks, with stepped projections and horizontal lines of the whitest névé. Farther down were couloirs filled with a brown snow, in lines too steep for crossing. The highland before us reminded me of the Paramos or deserts of the Cordillera, and the view generally was a wondrous contrast with European ideas of spring beauty. The lowlands at our feet were sprinkled with lakelets and tarns, the Vaud and Soe of Norway, the largest being the Hafravatn and the Elliðavatn. The formation of the Fjörðs lay in panorama, a network of fibres and threads converging to form a main embouchure; whilst the several bays had those hooks and “sickles” of sand, which the “Rob Roy” canoe places in the Sea of Galilee, but which my lamented friend Tyrwhitt-Drake and I were not lucky enough to find. We have already remarked this wealth of “oyce” in the Scotch firths, and Elius Corvinus declares the same to be the case in Dalmatian streams:

“Danubio et Nilo non vilior Ombla fuissit
Si modo progressus possit hebere suos.”

From south-east to south the prospect is bounded by the snow-dotted Hraun or lava-run, which in places appears as two parallel ranges. It completely hides the Thingvellir Lake, but in far distance, peeping over the summit to the east, rises the bold and rocky head of the arch-humbug Hekla. The range terminates to the south-west in Laugarfell, a buttressed crest like the Esja, beyond which the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago floats in little lumps below the cup-shaped horizon. The eye rests with pleasure upon the Helgafell cone and the pyramid of Keilir, perfect as the pigmies of Egypt: this shape is common in Iceland, and forms the best of land and surveying marks. Beyond the long, thin point of Reykjavik (Seltjarnarnes) and its scatter of volcanic islets, the dwarfed projections of Skagi and Reykjanes fine away into mere streaks of black upon the pale blue sea. Presently a cloud came over the sun, and the cold air warned us to keep moving. Ugh! how raw it was; the wind seemed to pierce every joint in our harness. We descended by the picknicker’s path, showing the unnecessary trouble we had taken: the line ran between the great gorges or rather rents in the flanks, which gave excellent sections of the interior, stratified beds of newer red and older grey-blue lavas remarkably distinct. At the foot of the mountain the thermometer, placed in reflected heat upon the snowy ground, showed 82°(F.), hardly to be expected in Iceland.

Reaching the guide’s house, we were kindly received by his wife, who gave us coffee, biscuits, and excellent milk, which mixed with Korn-schnapps, even the “water-bewitched” of Reykjavik, is a most satisfactory beverage. We dropped a rixdollar, by way of being “delicate,” into a child’s hand. Two months afterwards, our cicerone wrote to Geir Zoega that he had guided (unbidden be it said) three Englishmen up the mountain, and had given them coffee, etc.; that his fee was $3, whereas they had left only $1 with a servant girl, from whom he could not take it. This little trait—one of many—would not be worth quoting did it not show that the unsophisticated age of the island has, in these parts at least, passed clean away.

It speaks volumes for the excellence of the climate that next morning no one, even after ten months of London life, complained of stiff muscles. We had been baked, chilled, and baked again, yet there was not a trace of “cold catching:” the latter, to resident foreigners, is not unfrequently the result of the glacier winds, but they never seem to adopt such simple precautions as a hareskin or a Manus Dei (poor man’s plaster).

A most interesting part of the Esja mountain is the north-eastern section, where two regularly-shaped cones of golden colour, sharp towering in the milky blue air, attract the eye from Reykjavik. They are conspicuous in snowy caps, which they long retain, whilst the basalts and the dark Palagonites assist the thaws. I was anxious also to inspect the head of the celebrated Hvalfjörð, to ascend Skarðsheiði, and to call upon the Reverend Thorvaldr Bjarnason, who had hospitably invited me to Reynivellir, his parsonage. The excursion took place about mid-July, but I again sacrifice the unity of time to that of place. My companion was Mr Martin Chapman, of New Zealand, now domiciled in the Temple: we had already made the trip to Hekla, and his good gifts as a traveller, his energy and his imperturbable good temper and sang froid, made him an excellent companion. We again secured as guide Páll Eyúlfsson, of whom more presently. Each had a remount, and a single baggage animal was judged sufficient.

We set out merrily by the eastern road, through a country now familiar to the reader, and soon covered the four miles between the town and the ford of the Laxá (Elliðaá). On the way were many signs of glacial action, grooving as well as slickensides, caused by the friction of two rock surfaces: the ice-dressings which I had last seen on Arthur’s Seat are everywhere around Reykjavik. At Hr Thomsen’s farm, Ártún (river “toon”), we left the inland or Geysir road and turned towards the sea. About Leiruvogr (mud bay) and the mouth of the Leiruvogsá the floor was of trachyte, which appeared even in the stream-beds: the material was heat-altered and discoloured by oxides. The little black church of Mossfell (moss-hill), a common name in the island, was the half-way house; and thence we rode up the Svinadalr (swine-vale), to the white pass of Mó-skarða hnjúkr, also called Há-hnjúkr. Here, after travelling three hours and forty-five minutes, we dismounted and prepared for the ascent.

On our left hand was a rough tooth, or aiguille, a conspicuous object rising perpendicularly from the rapid slope: the lower ground was the usual mixture of bog, moss, and water. This was soon exchanged for an angle too steep for vegetation; yet even on the summit, we picked scattered flowers, and the peculiarity of Iceland in the eyes of an African traveller again repeated itself. Here we find not only genera abnormally numerous compared with species, but also no change of growth from the tropical to the temperate and the polar, as, for instance, on Camarones Mountain. The same flora everywhere appears, the paucity of vegetable corresponding with the poverty of animal forms: only in the upper regions it is of course dwarfed by height and by the comparative thinness of the aqueous vapours which screen the lowlands; and for the same reason it grows and dies later in the year.

The surface of the mountain was purely trachytic, but the one material was Protean in shape and colour. The prevailing tints were red and golden yellow. We recognised the slate of Hekla and the heat-altered material near the great Geysir. As we neared the summit the metal became flaky, like the limestone of the Syrian mountains. After forty minutes of rough climbing over slopes of rubbish—the smaller it was the firmer it proved to the tread—we reached the apex, about 2000 feet above sea-level: like the western Esja, it had the sharpest face to the north, and the crest was a saw, a spiked arête, palisaded and bristling with teeth and jags like the many-bladed knife of the cutler’s shop.[37]

Returning to our horses, we descended one of those staircases of earth and stone now so familiar, and fell into the valley of a northern Laxá, called for distinction, “of Reynivellir” (the sorb-apple plains). The surface, so fair to sight, is swampy, despite its main-drain, and must be traversed by earthen dykes. The lower part is protected to the north by the Reynivallaháls (neck of Reynivellir), and to the south by the Miðfell (mid-mount) and other outliers of the Esja. Here many houses are scattered about; we recognise the sweet scent of hay; and the dock-fringed plots of potatoes and cabbages look exceptionally flourishing. In winter all freezes, but as the grass never protrudes from the ice, however shallow, the neighbouring farmers visit one another on skates, which are those of Europe generally.

At eleven P.M. we reached the parsonage, which showed three gables pointing southwards, and a fourth to the east. A cart and a wheel-jack gave signs that improvements were not unknown. The hour was unusual for calling, but Iceland knows nothing of these fine distinctions: the house dogs bayed the alarm; the host awoke the household; and, before turning in, we supped comfortably at the parsonage.

On the next day Síra Thorvaldr could not accompany us, having service to read. The only son of a widow, he entered the Church at her desire, but his heart is book-hunting at Copenhagen, and, as his Sanskrit volumes show, his delight would be Orientalism. But what can be done so far from the haunts of learning? and at thirty-four he sees life gradually slipping away from him. Meanwhile he takes pupils, he farms, he flirts with botany, and he refreshes himself by an occasional visit to Reykjavik. He kindly gave me a copy of the Reykholtskirkjumáldagi, the Authentic Inventory of Reykholt Kirk, facsimile’d by the Icelandic Literary Society:[38] the three specimens bear no date, but the Sagas fix the time between A.D. 1143 and A.D. 1222.

About ten A.M. we were en route and, worried by swarms of flies, in forty minutes we walked up the great ugly prism, Reynivallaháls, whose winding way was hardly visible from below. The summit is dotted with Vörður, to guide travellers and church-goers through the snow. The descent turned eastward, and showed us in front the familiar forms of the horned and snow-streaked “Súlur,” the massive umbo of Skjaldbreið, and the white dome of the Ok Jökull: to the left (north) was Skarðsheiði, veiled in clouds. The lower gullies, where the heavy cold air settles, condense their columns of warmer air into clouds, which simulate water-spouts: at times these vapours, wonderfully resembling smoke-pillars, have been mistaken for a rain of erupted ashes. At our feet lay the head of the Hvalfjörð, looking unusually picturesque in the still, blue air. Great double buttresses pushed peremptorily from behind. The Múlafjall (mull-hills)[39] and Síldarmannafjall (sillock-fisher or herring-catcher’s hill) are separated from Reynivallaháls and from each other by Botnsdalr (bottom-head dale), and by two green vales, Brynjudalr, where the brindled cow was once lost. The river-like surface of the firth was exceptionally tranquil, and a dwarf islet, shaped like a Strasburg

THE “REYKHOLTSKIRKJUMÁLDAGI”,

(INVENTORY OF REYKHOLT KIRK) AND TWO OTHER DOCUMENTS

DATE BETWEEN A.D. 1143 AND A.D. 1222.

pie, rose from its own reflection. There were other islets, and boats, and eider-ducks temporarily separated a mensâ et thoro, screaming “crees,” peewits, plovers, and the usual accidents of a firth-view in Iceland.

At the foot of the descent we struck the Fossá farm, and rode along the northern counterslope of the Reynivallaháls. The path ran over swamp and rock; it was the malus passus of the whole line, but by no means dangerous as described by Geir Zoega. Fortunately the tide was out, and we easily forded the mouths of the Brynjudalr and Botnsdalr; on our return we exchanged the bad line for two long detours rounding the forked head of the firth. We then ascended to a farm situated under the Thyrill, or egg-kipper, the stick for whipping eggs, milk, or porridge. This remarkable feature forms the westernmost head of the Síldarmannafjall, and resembles nothing so much as two towers flanking the gateway of a giant’s castle, built after the fashion of Normandy; the superstructure is basalt, and time seems to have tilted it a little awry, as if the proprietor had long been an absentee. This Thyrill takes its name from the mountain gusts which hurl men from their horses, threaten caravans with destruction by frightful whirlwinds, and raise sheets of sea-water high in the air, tearing them to pieces like snow. To look at the peaceful innocent scene we could hardly imagine that it ever lets angry passions rise, or that it had been led to the excesses and atrocities described by Ólafsson and Von Waltershausen.[40]

The farm-people leaned against the walls, sunning themselves like Slavs under similar circumstances; there was no want of church-goers riding to and fro, and generally the travellers were more civil than upon the beaten paths. Iceland mostly reverses the rule of the world, the country folk being less amiable to the stranger than the town folk. From the Thyrill to the Ferstikla farm, a distance of an hour and a half, there are two paths. The short cut lies along the shore of heavy dark sand and rocky points of black basalt studded with white shells; the porous material is in parts full of almonds of lime, hence the white coating which we here observe, as in the Wadys of the Haurán. The inner line is the usual mixture of warty surface, swamp, stone, and shaking bog. At Ferstikla, where a path strikes north for Reykholt, we found some grass and rested the ponies.

A couple of hours finished the ride. We turned left, over a shallow divide, the Ferstikluháls, whose northern counterslope is wooded with birches fully two feet tall, yet hardly equal to the task of pulling us from our saddles. We then fell into another Svínadalr (swine-dale), with three lakes disposed north-east to south-west, along the southern base of Skarðsheiði, and drained by another Laxá. There was no lack of farm-houses, a sight which cheered the nags whilst floundering through the deep mud-bog. A guide whom we had engaged pro tem., pointed to the cone of the Blákoll, a comparatively low formation to the right; but the vaunted mountain with its stepped bluffs is everywhere easy, and “climbing for climb” always suggests to me the African’s “drinkee for drunk.” After a pleasant but very slow ride of seven hours, we made, at 7.30 P.M., the Skarð farmlet. After the muggy morning with a “rain-sun,” followed by a chilly evening which threatened a down-pour, we were not sorry to be lodged in the cow-house of a “Sel”[41] and to sleep upon sweet-smelling hay, far preferable to the animal heat of the foul cubicula.

This day we have passed over the Iceland terminus proposed by the Danish telegraph line. Despite the fearful whirlwinds, described as capable of breaking “tegulas imbricesque,” and the rocky bottom of the Whale Firth, it is perhaps the best; it is absolutely free from icebergs (Fjall jakar), floes, and field-ice (Hellu-ís): Arctic ice appears in the Faxa Fjörð and about Reykjavik only about once a century, the last time being 1763. Here the bay-ice is reduced to a little brash-ice and shore-ice, which are of scanty importance. It is a lee-land defended by the south-western projection and by the north-western digitations from the berg-bearing currents; and the bottom, until the Hvalfjörð is reached, appears to be sand and mud. As Forbes remarks, there is no “eligible spot” for a station between Portland (Dyrhólaey) and Reykjanes; whilst the submarine volcanic line of rocks, the passage of steamers, and the shallows of Reykjavik, render that port impossible. The Vestmannaeyjar again are too far from the capital, and the east coast is simply not to be thought of.

The project is part of the “north-about line” of Atlantic telegraph, as opposed to the “south-about,” viâ the Cap de Verds, St Paul’s Rock, and Brazilian Cape St Roque. Many of us remember hearing it ably advocated some dozen years ago by Colonel T. P. Shaffner of Louisville,[42] Kentucky, who took it up in 1853; travelled to Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland; advertised, expended time and capital, canvassed, obtained concessions from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and published and lectured before the Royal Geographical Society, in order to raise a fund of £400,000. The time was propitious. The first attempt of 1857-58 had broken down after sending some 400 messages: in 1860 the longest sub-aqueous circuit was 750 miles. No. 2 cable (1863), carried by the “Great Eastern,” had also failed; and Mr Faraday objected his “retardation” and “return currents,” even to an air-line of a thousand miles. The bankruptcy of Transatlantic telegraphy was therefore confidently predicted; nor was it believed that any section of 2000 miles could possibly be made to last. Presently, by way of a practical jest upon scientific hobbies and croakings, the third cable (1866) succeeded: then came the Valentia-Newfoundland in the same year; and lastly, in 1868, the Brest and New York, or French line. Now (1872) a fourth is talked of, and the next half-a-dozen years may see another half-dozen.

Colonel Shaffner, who is well remembered in eastern Iceland, proposed to cross the Atlantic by four stations, none exceeding 700 miles—namely, Scotland to Færoes (225-250), to Iceland (240), to Greenland (600-700), and to the coast of Labrador (510); a maximum total of 1700, afterwards reduced to 1645 miles. The project, however, contained two elements of unsuccess. Firstly, it proposed an air-line from Djúpivogr (east coast) to the capital: I do not know what my friend Dr Rae, who was sent to inspect the route, reported; but the universal opinion of Icelanders is that no telegraphic communication of the kind could resist a single winter-storm, not to speak of earthquakes and eruptions. “How repair the damage?” they ask: “how even carry the posts?” The second objection, the state of the ice about the Greenland coast, was perhaps even more fatal. Thus the scheme gradually fell into oblivion, not, however, before it had done right good service in exploring Newfoundland—a very paradise for anglers, where trout weigh 6 lbs. and where salmon sells at 4 cents. The persevering Danes still cleave to a connection with Iceland, and that is why we saw the gun-boat “Fylla” on her surveying cruise.

On the next morning, as the peasantry rose at three A.M. to ted their hay, we began preparations for ascending Skarðsheiði (scarf-gap-heath) by observing the aneroids.[43] Rain evidently threatened, as at A.M. 7.15 we attacked the slope of débris, green only where two trickling streamlets played hide-and-seek under moss and stones. After an hour’s walk we reached the first ridge, and found in front of us a broken plateau about 2000 feet high, with five lakes and ponds distributed at different altitudes: the waters are all sweet, percolation taking the place of drainage. On our right rose a tall precipitous wall of receding steps, which at a distance resemble string courses and stories. The precipice is streaked with couloirs, very well disposed for falls and cannonades of rocks: high up there are two broad Palagonite bands in the trap, which may sometimes be seen from Reykjavik. Our guide the farmer did the honours of the echo.

We now circled to the north, winding round the grim wall, up and down ridge after ridge of moraine-like débris, and over moss-clad boulders, among which we occasionally sank up to the knees. Here the most conspicuous growths were reindeer moss and Fjall-grös (“mountain grass”), the Lichen Islandicus, of which Felligrath sings:

“Old, even in boyhood, faint and ill,
And sleepless on my couch of woe
I sip this beverage, which I owe
To Guper’s death and Hecla’s hill.”

In Iceland I never heard—as old travellers relate—of its being dried, put in bags, beaten, and worked into flour by stamping. Usually it is boiled, and eaten with barley like burghoo, or it is infused in milk, as cacao and maté sometimes are: it gives a light tinge of green, and a very pronounced mucilaginous flavour. The simple old days used it as coffee, but it could not stand its ground against the intruder which arrests the waste of tissue, as well as warms the blood. “Iceland grass,” however, is still valued at home as a jelly for poitrinaires; and the last time I saw it was on the Campo-grosso or Dolomite mountains of Italian Recoaro (Vicenza).

After a second hour we reached the north of the bluff. On our left hand was a red and cindery mound, the Stellir,[44] justly famed as a landmark for sailors: ahead, and to east, rose the detached Skessuhorn, which seemed to present no difficulties: it was not till our return that we heard it described as a local Matterhorn, often attacked, but attacked in vain, and still awaiting its vanquisher. Turning to the right, we worked up the quoin by a passage between stone walls of Nature’s make, and in another half-hour we climbed up the stiff slope of decayed trap. Our guide required some little management: he pointed in alarm to the mists rolling up from the north, with a cruel rush of cold air, and though the line was marked with stone-men, he ejaculated “Thoka!” (fog). “Lost in the mists” is often a conclusion to a “tale of Iceland’s Isle.”

The summit of Skarðsheiði, about 3000 feet above sea-level, resembled that of the Esja, and afforded a view quite as extensive, though not now so novel. To the north, under our feet, ran the winding Hvitá and its outlying waters, draining to the Borgarfjörð, here a grisly “spiegel,” dotted with black reefs. North-eastwards lay the bare sulphurous grounds of Reykholt (reeky hill), while far to the north-west, bounding the north of the Faxa Fjörð, the knuckles of Snæfell and the caldrons popularly known as Katlar, the kettles, formed the land horizon. Southward the view ranged clean over Reykjavik, and showed the easiest route to Skarðsheiði: this would be by boat to Saurbær, north-east of Akrafjall, whence a walk of five miles places the traveller at the Skarð farm.

The ascent and descent had occupied four hours: we then mounted our horses, and returned before night to Reynivellir.

A delightful morning (July 23), when the air was so fine, so clear, so bright that

“It seemed a sin to breathe it,”

a morning when one really would have been sorry to die, sent us to bathe at the Reynivellir brook, regardless of slugs and snails, moths and flies. The Reverend left, after a copious breakfast of mashed salmon, with a promise to meet us on the road. He had just lost a parishioner. Since July 11th there has not been a shower, and the sky was that of Italy for a whole fortnight. This abnormally fine weather is equally fatal to the very young and the very old: seven or eight deaths had just taken place at Reykjavik, a large proportion out of an annual average of sixty; and three successive days saw three funerals: the causes are “pituita,” malignant catarrh, and influenza.

We were threatened with a mal pas, and again found it remarkably good. From Reynivellir the path ran down the Laxá valley; and where we crossed the stream, it was clear as crystal, and abundant in trout. Here, again, turf has invaded lands once forested; and now we look in vain for a specimen of the sorb-tree, which named the parsonage. Chemin faisant, the Reverend lectured us upon the botany of his native vale. The Dutch or white clover (Smári)[45] flourishes: that red-headed cannibal the Lambagras, moss-campion or dwarf catch-fly (Silene acaulis), which rises upwards of 11,000 feet on the Swiss Alps, here prefers the drier soils. The lower lands are covered with the Gúnga-gras (“bag grass,” Bursa pastoris), everywhere common, with the meadow-sweet (Mjaðurt = οἰνομέλι, Spiræa ulmeria), which yields a yellow dye, and a grateful perfume in hot weather. The pride of the plain is the thrift or sea-gilly-flower (Statice armeria), with downy stalk and pale pink heads, which the people call Geldingahnappar, “gelding,” that is to say, wether, “button.” The richer and damper grounds are grown with the marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), the Solia or Solveia of the Færoes, here called Lækja-sóley or hóf-sóley, from its hoof-shaped leaf; cattle will not eat it, save as a pis-aller; the small green flower-buds when pickled resemble capers, and the inflorescence lasts from early May to the end of summer. It is a congener of the carnivorous Caltha dionæafolia. There is an abundance of the Engja-rós, eyre or meadow rose (Epilobium augustifolium), forming a pink carpet—there are many rosaceæ in Iceland, but roses are deficient, as in the southern hemisphere, only one having been found;[46] and the traveller must not expect to find the beautiful little “Ward” of the Libanus. Another common growth is the leguminous Um-feðmingsgras, “holding grass,” the tufted or creeping vetch (Vicia cracca), whose cirri fasten upon neighbours; hence the Færoese call it Krogyogras, from Kroya, to cling. The solitary Andromeda hypnoides, a small creeper, with heather-like white flowers, acts lily of the valley. We are again reminded of Syria by the chamomile-like Baldursbrá (Anthemis cotula), whose snowy petals suggest the White God,[47] Baldur the Beautiful, and whose circular yellow centre assimilates it to the solar orb—it is too bad to call it “stinking camomile.” The common sorrel (Rumex acetosa, locally known as Valla, or Korn-súra) is a social plant that prefers the neighbourhood of farms, and flourishes in newly-manured túns: the other species are the kidney-shaped mountain sorrel (Oxyria reniformis) and the sheep’s sorrel (R. acetosella). In the more southern islands, where the root gives a red dye, the leaf is said to grow a foot and a half long; it is used to flavour bird soup, and is eaten with meat. An anti-scorbutic, pleasant withal, it should here be used every day, as tomatoes are in the southern United States; but if you advise the Icelander to correct his blood with sorrel, he will probably reply that it is food for cows.

After an hour’s ride, including the inevitable short cut of wrong path and turning back, we reached the Miðfell farm, which faces cosily west, and is backed by its little range of trap so degraded that it seems to be forming humus. Fronting it is the Miðfellsvatn lakelet, which drains the north-eastern Esja: it swarms with the Sílungur trout, but there was no boat for the convenience of fishermen. Whilst the Reverend went to his funeral, we sat upon the grassy warts, and enjoyed the view of Snæfell, bluish-white in the flickering air. The thermometer stood at 86° (F.) in the sun; and the ghost of a mist tempered, like the glazing of a master-hand, the raw colours and rough forms of the scene. The prospect suggested Tempe, not the grisly defile of reality, but the picture painted by poets—Greek Greece and Syrian Syria contrast wonderfully with the features which naturally form themselves in the northern mind. We argued that a couple of pleasant summer months might be spent at Miðfell, but that such æstivation would involve building a fishing-box and stocking it with friends.

Not the least picturesque part of the prospect was the cavalcade of some thirty men and women returning in Indian file from the funeral. At last, wearied with waiting, we rode up the ugly rough ravine of Eilifsdalr, and turned to the right between the Esja and its northern outlier, Eyrarfjall. The latter showed sub-columnar and fan-shaped basalt in the foundations, with Palagonite, here yellow, there dark, overlying and underlying trap, whilst striated rocks everywhere appeared. On the left hand, or under Esja, were mounds mightily resembling moraine:[48] they were probably formed by the streams of frozen mud which carried with them boulder fragments, and either strewed them upon the plain or swept them out to sea. The most conspicuous of the natural tumuli, and crowned with a stone, is called, ‘Róstuhóll,[49] “battle holt,” or, as Hooker has it, “duel hill:” here Búi Andriðsson, for whom see the Kjalnesinga Saga, kept his foes at bay, and slew half-a-dozen with a sling.

We then forded the streams, and crossed the nasty swamps and the stony patches of the brook which flows to the Hvalfjörð. Farms were scattered everywhere about the sheltered valley. After two hours and a half of slow progress, we were joined by the Reverend, who, gallantly mounted, rode straight as a fox-hunting parson of the last generation, and we soon reached the ladder of red and green lavas which overlooks the firth. The immediate banks show the feature locally called Melarbakki,[50] horizontal lines bare of earth, regular as if heaped up by man, and generally with inclines too stiff to retain vegetation. We shall see the feature well displayed at Borðeyri and Grafarós. In Canada, and New England also, where the snow covering, which prevents radiation of heat, is blown away by winds, and the ground is frozen for a depth of two feet or more, the surface remains brown and barren throughout spring and summer.

Here we dismounted to collect the “Yaspis,” for which the place is famous, and which we had found scattered over the Esja range. The colours are bright red, blue, and blue-green, often prettily striped and branched; the sharp edges cut like obsidian, and the whole appears as impure opaque masses of quartz. According to Dr Hjaltalín, it remarkably resembles that of Hungary, and the dark spots upon the surface are oxide of copper, copper glance, or argentiferous copper. Zeolites were abundant, so were almonds of lime in basalt; chalcedonies, milk-white, red, yellow, green, and dark-brown, passing into cachalong and grades of chalcedony and quartz, “cloisonnés” with crystals of carbonate of lime, and superficially clad with capillary mesotype. We often heard in Iceland of the noble opal, which might be expected in a volcanic land—as at Aden, there are whole sheets of it, but none is noble. The Færoese consider it to be a transition between zeolite and chalcedony: I was told of fine specimens found there, but failed to see them.[51]

We then trotted merrily past Saurbær (sour mud or dirt-farm; perhaps farm of Saur), and were shown the Tíða Skarð (tide or hour col), so called because the congregation riding to mass could be seen when an hour distant. The path along the shore was tolerable, and we had to dismount only at a single swamp. After a total of four hours’ slow progress from Miðfell, we reached the main object of our journey, the celebrated Hof of Kjalarnes (Keel-ness), in the Kjósar or “choice” Sýsla. It was the great place of assembly in the south-west, and the chief of the twelve provincial “Things” before A.D. 928, when the Althing was removed to the confiscated estate of Thingvellir. We expected interesting ruins after reading of “Kialarness, remarkable for the remains of a Hof or idolatrous temple erected towards the close of the ninth century” (Henderson, ii. 3). The Crymogæa of “Arngrim Jonas” speaks with admiration of two Hofs in the north and south of the island. Each had an inner sacellum, or holy of holies, where the victims were ranged in semicircle about the idol-altar (Stalli): the latter was plated with iron, for protection against the pure, flint-kindled fire, which, as in a Parsee temple, perpetually burned there: it supported a brass bowl (blót bolli) to contain the blood, sprinkled with the blood-twig (blót grein) or asperges upon the bystanders. There hung up, likewise, a great silver ring, which they stained with blood, and which whoever took an oath on these occasions was required to hold in his hand. The “Baugr,” we are told, weighed two ounces, and was at times worn by the priest: it possibly symbolised Odin’s magic “Draupnir,” made by Brokkur, most skilful of the dwarfs. Till late years a specimen was to be seen at the Reykjahlíð churchlet. The “oath on the ring” was taken by dipping it in blood, often human, and by saying, after the solemn adjuration of heathen old Scandinavia, “So help me Freyr and Njördr, and that almighty Áss!” (ok hinn almáttki Áss, i.e., Thor);[52] and Norsemen of rank were buried with the Armilla sacred to Odin. “In one of these temples there was also, near the chapel, a deep pit or well into which they cast the victims.”

Mallet, and other trustworthy authors of his day, assimilated the ancient Scandinavian places of worship to those of the Persian Guebres and the old Teutons, who would not offend the gods by immuring them, or by roofing them in, which is not correct. The Hof was an enclosed building, whilst the Hörg, in whose centre stood the huge sacrificial stone, was open above. The Scandinavian temple, even that gold-plated wonder of the North, the fane of Thor at old Upsala, was nothing but a long wooden hall to contain the worshippers, with a sanctuary at one end, the true Aryan Estika,[53] where the “Blót,”[54] or pagan sacrifice, was performed by the priest or pontiff (hof-goði). The same was the case with the Kjalarnes temple, a rough timber building, burnt by Búi Andriðsson, the slinger.

The situation is right well chosen for effect. This Hof stood at the base of a stony land-tongue separated by swampy ground from the iron shore, lined and faced with diabolitos, or cruel little black rocks. Opposite sleeps the tranquil bay of Reykjavik, backed by its picturesque blue hills—a veritable Sierra, the backbone of this part of Iceland, all cones and pyramids, notches and saw-like teeth, resembling the sky-lines of El Safá. To the right is a rough rise of lava pushing out jagged points, and to the left towers the Esja pile, with its network of dykes and slides, an extinct Vesuvius faced by white cliffs. Farms and hay-fields are scattered about, probably occupying the same positions which looked upon the ancient heathen gods, with whose departure prosperity left the land. There is not a trace of the building, but the pasty-faced peasants showed us, below the rise, a bit of deep swamp covered with marsh-marigold, and this they called the Blót-Kelda, or victim well—possibly where men and beasts were sacrificially drowned.

After inspecting this humble marvel, we shook hands with the Reverend, and took boat for Reykjavik, where we arrived at 9.30 P.M.

I afterwards was shown the traditional site of the Thór Hof near Stykkishólm; and the utter absence of sign made me neglect to visit that of Vopnafjörð, whose door was translated to the church, the Hörg, at Krosshólar; and the fane of Goðaborg, with its sacrificial stone where “David of the wilderness” dwelt. In 1770, Uno Von Troil (Letter XVI.) offered a tempting list of northern antiquities, some of them possibly pre-historic or proto-historic.[55] But except in cairns, tumuli, and the kitchen-middens mentioned in various places, especially that near Snorri’s bath at Reykholt, I should expect little yield even from the spade.

The older Edda (Sigrdrífumál, st. 34) speaks of cairns—

“Let a mound be raised
For those departed;”

and we shall pass not a few during our journeys. It would be interesting to know if any of them have the long adit, the vestibule, and the separate chambers for the dead, which are characteristic of the Mongolian tomb-temples, and of which a splendid specimen is found at Maes Howe.

CHAPTER X.
NORTHWARDS HO! TO STYKKISHÓLM AND GRAFARÓS.

Part I.—Stykkishólm.

We are very anxious to leave this

“Tivoli del mal conforte,”

where,

“O piove, o tira vento, o suona a morte.”

The “Jón Sigurðsson,” Captain Müller, ran into Reykjavik on June 26, and next day we set out to prospect Hafnafjörð, the Haven Firth, distant two bays south of the capital. Threading the now familiar islets, we doubled the beaconed point of Suðrnes, and passed Bessastaðir, Besse or Bear-stead, a place not undistinguished in island story. It was built by the turbulent and traitorous “Herodotus of the North,” Snorrí Sturluson, grandson of Sæmund the Wise, born at Hvamm, in A.D. 1178, and author of the “prose Edda;” he died “in his shoes”—murdered as was the custom of the day. Long years afterwards the place of “Meister Petz”[56] became the Latin School, and now it belongs to a congenial soul, Hr Grímr Thomsen. Followed Garðar, also on the Alpta-nes (swan-ness) peninsula, where a fringe of farms

R. F. B. delt.

SNÆFELLSJÖKULL FROM THE NORTH.

and houses, each with seven gables or more, ranged in line, not massed together, fronts the faint-green land, and prospects the glaucous northern seas. After a couple of hours, which covered two Danish miles, we steamed down a deep and sheltered sinus, facing the north-west, with double entrance: here a red buoy made us independent of pilot; the tides inflow by the south and race round and out to the north.

The scenery of Hafnafjörð, which Scotchmen compare with that of Scalloway, is peculiar and somewhat grotesque. Like all the south-western parts of Thule, the formation is a hopeless lava-field, bristling with shrublets and patched with green: the outline of frontage consists of points divided by bays of dark-grey sand, and the habitations are perched between the knobs and turrets of the several Hrauns, old and new. The land is comparatively level, backed by a veritable Sierra—the dorsal spine of this part of Iceland—jagged, notched, and vertebral, extending from north-east to south-west. Four brigantines and a lugger were anchored in the clear water, off the five pierlets, the usual planks and caissons, that denote the corresponding comptoirs, one patch of building to the north, another to the south, and a third at the bottom of the bay, whilst an extensive farm-house rose from a dorsum of green, the Hval-eyri or whale strand.

Whilst the steamer discharged her salt and iron pans, we hailed an old, blunt-snouted punt, and paid for the service two marks: the latter process evoked a stare of surprise and a vigorous shake of the hand. I note this proceeding because it is not unusual on the coast of Iceland; it certainly distinguishes the boatman from his hateful brotherhood in more genial lands; especially on the “Hesperian strand.” We landed at Flensburg, about the bottom of the bay, the establishment of Hr Johnsen, and walked round to the buildings on the north. All are timber, coloured grey or black, with white windows and slate roofs; each flies its flag, Danish or Norwegian. The latter belongs to the Bergen Company, which has lately taken the place of the Scotch house at Reykjavik, with branch agencies here and at Stykkishólm and Seyðisfjörð. At a little bridged stream women and boys were busy with the corpses of cods, cutting gills, tearing out gullets, splitting bellies to their ventral fins, extracting livers and sounds, and tossing the trimmed carcases into heaps—they were jolly as Italian peasants at the Vendemmia. Some of the lads were fishing with sinkers of stone, floats of driftwood, and bait of cod. Beyond the stream a new road to Reykjavik was being made, by blasting the lava—as will be seen, it is much wanted. On the north of the bay we inspected the remains of Hr Sivertsen’s dry dock, which looks like a line of groins to keep the shore in situ. A couple of eaglets were shown for sale; they had lately been taken from a crag in the lava-run to the south-east: the chickens, hardly six weeks old, were about the size of Cochin fowls; their skins showed bare through the growing plume of grey and dark-grey, contrasting with the bright yellow cere, and they opened threatening gapes at the stranger. The price had lately risen to £3, whilst ten shillings a head were asked for the fierce little graveolent foxes.

As usual we had time for a walk inland to the Varða, or landmark, bearing magnetic east of the ship, and distant about thirty minutes: I was anxious to see the behaviour of the lava. Travellers in Iceland everywhere speak of vast outpours which, instead of showing any decided point of origin, appear to have sweated from the soil. They especially quote the lands about Mý-vatn and Krafla, where the contrary is the case: the same has been observed in other volcanic countries, e.g., by Mr Porter in Syria; by Messrs Tyrwhitt-Drake and Palmer in Moab; and by those who have studied the Quito platform. Here, however, we distinctly traced three craters, and it became evident that the mouth which discharged the oldest torrents may have been obliterated by subsequent eruptions. The principal lava-bed[57]

From a Photo. M^c.Farlane & Erskine, Lith^rs., Edin^r.

HAFNAFJÖRÐ, WHICH OUGHT TO BE THE CAPITAL OF ICELAND.

Vol. II, Page 88.

showed in section a shallow dome between two lateral fissures, where contraction of the edges, and perhaps a less solid foundation, had caused the sides of the stone-river to fall away and form dwarf “Gjás,” or longitudinal rifts—we shall see the same action on a grander scale at Almannagjá. The dorsum was broken by sharp edges, the tall crests of split and splintered blisters, the bubbles of the earth where lava overflowed wet ground; coils like tobacco-rolls and ropy corrugations, ripple-marks and plications, showed where the hardening clinkers had been compacted together, and everywhere yawned tunnels and caverns. Yet the field was crossed by a horse-path.

The normal high shingle-bank of the shore formed an inland bog, and the result was a subtending lagoon, as usual without outlet. Farmlets were scattered about, all apparently on made ground. There was a tolerable turbary haunted by whimbrels and loud-voiced terns; the lava-fields belonged to the Snjotit-lingue, snow-flake or snow-tit (Emberiza or Plectophranes nivalis); to the Stein-depill or wheat-ear (Motacilla ænanthe); and to the Máriátla or Mary-bird, the white wag-tail (Motacilla alba). The three latter were exceptionally tame, and like Joâo de Barros in the Brazil, amused themselves by flirting with the unfeathered biped.

I have described Hafnafjörð at a greater length than it perhaps deserves. Here not a few travellers have declared that the capital of Iceland should be, and undoubtedly it will become the sole place of export for the Krísuvík sulphur-fields. The harbour is exceptionally safe, sheltered from all winds: the climate is better than that of Reykjavik; and the sky is often clear when heavy clouds invest the northern heavens. But unless ground is made, there is little or no building room. On the other hand, for an exporting port, Hafnafjörð is perfect. In the early sixteenth century the British corsairs, numbering some 360 souls, had formed a regular colony at Haven Firth—let us hope that the complaints of Christian II. will not call for renewal, when the English miner shall spread himself over the land.

As the sun fell towards the horizon the air became cool; the thermometer on deck showed 58° (F.), and the day gradually assumed a worn and faded look, like a maiden when the sun breaks upon a ball. Before midnight we were once more at Reykjavik, to start north on the next morning.

The “Jón Sigurðsson” (det Islandske Handelssamlag’s Dampskib) belongs to a Norwegian company, who bought her at the high price of $60,000. An iron hull, her draught is 9 feet, her tonnage 460, and her horse-power 80, which can be raised to upwards of 100: she must burn 12 tons of coal during the twenty-four hours to average less than 8 knots, and this combined with cheap passages prevents her paying.[58] Her good point is the possession of two donkey-engines, the simple Cornish, with 6-inch stroke, which do all the work. Her accommodations are not complete; we occupy the seven sofas in the aft saloon, and of the four cabins three are taken by the officers, including the agent. Broad, tubby, and high out of the water, she catches the wind with her “gawky” telescope funnel, a survival from the days of Watt; she has little sailing power, and she is hardly safe off a lee-shore; in August she was beaten back when attempting to make the Færoes.

The want of punctuality again is a serious disadvantage to “Jón.” The departure will be fixed for any hour between six A.M. and two P.M.; you will be hastily summoned on board at nine A.M., and yet not start till noon. There are stated hours of feeding, but they are not regular enough for passenger ships; and provisions, as well as liquor, often run short, because the “restauration” is not obligatory. The delays are ever recurring; covered lighters being unknown, and rye, with other perishable goods, cannot be landed during rain. Again “Jón” is over-officered. Besides captain and two lieutenants, we carry double engineers who speak English; an agent and commissaire; steward, stewardess, and assistant steward. The commander, A. W. Müller, is a young lieutenant of the Norwegian navy, which wisely allows its unemployed officers to take charge of postal and passenger steamers. We find the advantage of this arrangement in every part of the establishment. The brasses are bright; the decks are washed; the “squeejee” is used; the offices are clean, and even the spittoons are garnished with fresh heather; whilst the natty little steward and the white-clad cook are pleasing contrasts with the state of affairs on board English craft of the same kind. And we were all charmed with Captain Müller, whose bonhomie and obliging disposition made every passenger right sorry to part with him.

June 28.

Steamed out at seven A.M. under Italian skies, and over seas smooth as mirrors, which promised ample enjoyment of this day’s “lion,” Snæfellsjökull, capping the northern land-arm of broad Faxa Fjörð. As we crossed the Hvalfjörð-mouth, the lay of the land suggested a mighty leaf; the water-line being the midrib, with Esja and Akranes representing the up-turned sides. On the south-western slopes of Skarðsheiði, we were shown the streamlet and farm of Leirá, “Rivière de la Vase,” which once owned the printing-press; and beyond the broad Borgarfjörð (burg firth)[59] lay the low alluvial flat Mýra Sýsla. The unromantic name, “mire county,” becomes ridiculous when Mýra-maður (mud-man) is applied to the dweller: the comical wrath which it excites reminded me of Varnhagen’s indignation about the Corcovado or Hunch-back mountain of Rio de Janeiro. Far over the fen-tract, streaked by its three main streams, appeared a suggestive prospect: the long perspective of Jökulls; Ok (the yoke), Geitland’s and the northern Skjaldbreið, not to be confounded with the “Broad Shield” on the road to Hekla: this chaos of ice-deserts and volcanoes was ranged in long dorsa, dish-covers, or antediluvian Twelfth-cakes, flattened at the summit, backed by pearly mists of their own growing, with crests rose-tinged by the sun, and feet streaked with transparent blue shadows. In vain we strained our eyes to catch a sight of Baula, the cow, pronounced somewhat like (the land of) “Beulah;” its pale-grey trachytic columns, though 3000 to 3500 feet high, were hidden by intervening buttresses: even Eld-borg, the “Tower of Fire,” though quite near the coast, refused to show its grand circular crater and flanks too steep for snow. Here begins the northern Skarðsheiði, which, passing through the Hnappadals (button-dale) Sýsla, anastomoses with the broken cones called Katlar (the caldrons), and with the great Snæfellsjökull, the Snebels Hokell of Pontanus, and the “Western Jökull” of our maps. The long thin tongue of land, mostly trachytic, has been mightily exercised by the fire below. Here, upon a naked Tenerife, rises a tall grey cone, fronted by a little extinct volcano, flushing angry red; there a wall of brown lava is built upon a base of ruddy cinders and scoriæ, which have assumed the natural angle. It is a land of chimneys and spiracles rising from cinders and other rejectamenta; of Öl-keldr or “ale” (mineral) “waters;” of cascades, silver fibres dashing into kieves of snow; of jagged sugar-loaves and saddle-backs; of craters either whole or half torn away; and of Klettar or precipices stripped of the snows which encompass them.

Our attention was directed to the Búða-klettar, or cliffs of Buðir, the celebrated centre of eruption which sent forth the Búðarhraun; and at their base, ending the Jökullháls, the long ochraceous slope that falls from the eastern ridge-flank of Snæfell to the settlement of Búðir (the booths), far-famed for chalybeate springs. Huts for invalids have been run up at this well-known “Kur-ort,” but the accommodation is described as rough in the extreme. A little westward again, showing its basaltic pillars, lies “Stapi,” the steeple-formed rock, a local Staffa, suggesting memories of Fin M’Coul.

All eyes now fix themselves upon Snæfellsjökull: as the break of the sea upon the shore told us, it rises within three miles, and the accidents of weather, though apparently determined to conceal the calotte of snow, combine to form an admir-

R. F. B. delt.

SNÆFELLSJÖKULL FROM THE SOUTH.

able setting for the imposing scene. The clearness of the heavens had gradually changed to light mists, which hung mid-way upon the hill-sides: whilst “mackerel’s-back” flecks the upper air, woolpack, growing from the snow wreaths, forms dark-grey columns, perfectly simulating a burning coast, and puffy white cumuli cast a shadow distinct as if drawn by a painter’s hand. About one P.M. the northern breeze becomes a south-easter, bringing with it a decided freshness and a few drops of rain. The brown and dun coloured cirri, before floating high above the wool-pack, now girth its middle, and there is a grand contrast between the here and the there. Around us a few cats’-paws fan the waters, which, under the lee of the land, stretch smooth as oil, and the air is mild and kindly. In the upper regions rages and roars “Satan’s weather;” the cloud chariots rush forward in solid line against the wind, dashing and clashing as they course and career over the battlefield of virgin snow; they are torn to pieces by the artillery of the Storm-Fiend; the troops whirl away in headlong flight, veiling now one cusp of the crater, then another. The westerly peak is connected by a deeply-gashed synclinal slope, a kind of broken saddle-back, with the eastern horn, or rather horns, which appear in the shape of a “Thríhyrningr,” while below them, on the oriental outline, a star of jetty basalt shines radiant in the dazzling white. Below the western peak also the binoculars show a broken quoin, a long, black dyke, and a multitude of dark dots protruding from the névé, as if men were ascending. The apex has never been reached, and we at once see the reason why: it is—

“Like a jagged shell’s lips, harsh, untunable;
Blown in upon by devils’ wrangling breath.”

M. Gaimard declares the eastern pinnacle to be “frisée comme des têtes de choux-fleurs:” it appeared to me umbrella-shaped, with under ribbings of frozen snow. M. Jules Verne was not so happy as usual in making “Sneffles” an entrance for Arne “Saknussemm;” nor could we learn anything about “Scortaris.”

The southern front below the névé is a steep incline of contorted lava; and a multitude of “hornitos” and parasitic craters, apparently fallen in or choked up, run down almost to the water’s edge, where they form a wall of contorted and caverned layers. Above the cliff a gentler slope has a faint tinge of rainbow-green; and the steeper acclivities are bare, red and yellow, brown and black. As we hugged the shore, I carefully looked for the snow-drainage, and saw none: had there been any, the sea-scaur must have shown it. Henderson rightly reports the general belief that the water set free by the sun passes by underground tunnels to the sea; and, all along this peninsula, the people hold to subterranean connections. But the explanation somewhat savours of the Congo Yellala (rapids), where the mighty mass of the upper stream, “above the ghauts,” is supposed to pass through an invisible channel. Herðubreið afterwards taught me that Palagonite allows no surface drainage in the dry season; and this I hold to be the true explanation of a remarkable phenomenon often seen in Iceland.

So striking a feature as Snæfell, whose shadow may be traced in the air, could not fail to engender a variety of tales and legends. Some declare, with the old Sagas, that it is within sight of Hvítserk in Eastern Greenland. Certes its height (4577 Danish feet) is very far from affording a vision ranging over 200 direct geographical miles; but here we are little more than a degree from the Arctic circle, and it is hard to limit the magic powers of refraction.[60] When the bishop declared that it was unassailable by reason of “Dominus Bardus Snæfellsás, cujus sine auspiciis mons Snæfell vix, ac ne vix quidem, superari potest,” he alluded to a superstition still preserved. In Hitárdalr,[61] farther east, is shown a huge feminine face carved in stone, and said to represent Hít, the Ás or guardian goddess of the dale: a “Plutonic affection” exists between her and Bárð or Snæfell’s Ás, whom Mackenzie calls a tutelar saint, and whom Charles Forbes uncivilly converts from Dominus to demon. He represents right well the Spirit of the Glacier. Curious to say, the same tale concerning the “Loves of the Mountains” is told in far New Zealand, where Messrs Tongariro and Taranaki (Mount Egmont) are jealous as they are amorous of Mrs or Miss Taupo.

The earliest climbers seem to have attempted the ascent from the east and south-east, where the snow-line extends much lower. Such were Eggert Ólafsson (1755); Mr, afterwards Sir, John Stanley (1789); and the three Britishers who “wrote their mistresses’ names in the snow—the emblem of their purity.” Sir George Mackenzie (1810) remained below, and Drs Bright and Holland went stoutly up: the latter tells us (p. 55, Recollections of a Fast Life) that a snow bridge gave way during the descent, and one leg sank through the arch: he was saved by the poles of the two Iceland guides, but ever after he sought to shun the remembrance. They were followed by Henderson (1814), by Gaimard (1835), and by Forbes (1859).

Of course, none reached the very summit. The Frenchman sensibly attempted it from the north, and found the slope easy: we shall presently see his line of march. Remains only to try the west where the snow lies much higher up, and where the angle does not apparently exceed 25°: here also the distance to the cusps or peaks is notably shorter. The Beruvík farm appears to be a good starting-place. But Alpines who love “climbing for climb” must remember that without ropes and ladders, perhaps kites also, and very likely with them, it will be impossible to do more than has been done by their predecessors.

The accidents of the shore-line preserve their interest: the lone rock Göltr (the deer)[62] and the twin Lón-drángar (sea-inlet drongs), donjons of lava 240 feet tall, the north-western appearing as if standing inland, where a red rock acts castle. Beyond it, amongst the conical and degraded craters, we remark the Tröllakyrkja, Kirk of the Trolls, or Giants, who here have a diocesan as well as a governor. They have been busy on and off this coast, as shown by the Trölla-botn, Giant Bay, the Polar Sea between Norway and Greenland; the Trölla-börn (chimneys), or volcanic “hornitos;” the Trölla-hlað, the Giant’s Causeway, or colonnade of basalt; and the Trölla-dyngjur, or Giantesses’ bowers, the mamelons near Reykjanes, which erupted in A.D. 1000. And that the dwarfs have not been idle we see by the Dverga Kamarr, their hollowed chambers in the basalt. We run by Dritvík (guano bay), along the caverned cliff, built in various layers, here frosted like silver, there dotted with white points, which prove to be birds. At Öndverðarnes (fronting naze), after an hour of thorough enjoyment, thanks to Dominus Barðr, we turn the corner, the north-westernmost projection of Snæfellsjökull, which the pilot calls Svarta-lot, from the steps protruded by the swart sea-wall; we open the Breiði Fjörð, and again we find waters smooth as a silver plate.

Not that Broad Firth is always so well behaved: at times he rages with frantic violence, mixing sea and sky till the general view is like a well-shaken basin of soup, and confusing all the elements in a chaotic matter, which justifies the much-maligned Pytheas. Many have been drowned when crossing the dangerous sea, amongst them Ólafsson, the Icelandic traveller, in 1767; shortly after he had “addicted himself to the study of revealed religion.” During the winter of 1873-74, it was completely invested by the Greenland ice; congelation extended as far as the eye could reach from the highest hill-tops; and drifted bears were slaughtered by the peasantry. There are traditions of skating across the broad bay, of seals being killed, and of ships’ anchors being blown away by the furious wind. At least, so says Mr Clausen, who has now taken us in charge. The grandson of a Danish merchant mentioned by Henderson, he has married a wife from Bonnie Dundee, and he has spent some four years at Melbourne, which have opened his eyes to auriferous quartz-reefs, to large deposits of iron, and to other minerals in his native island.

We delay for a while at the mouth of the big bay to swing the ship and prove her compasses, a precaution never to be neglected. The “Jón” then runs at a respectful distance along the northern shore of the Snæfellsjökull tongue, which is not less interesting than its southern coast. Our cicerone points out Enni or Ennisfjall, “forehead mountain,” la montagne de front,[63] where those who would avoid a long detour inland must pass over an Úfæra or “don’t travel” path—sands liable to frequent bombardments from the red bluff 2500 feet high. Henderson tells the exaggerated tale of its horrors, quaintly wondering how they were not felt by the young girls who rode with him. Mr Clausen then introduces to us Ólafsvík, his ancestral home, two slate-roofed houses, with surrounding huts, nestling in a sheltered bay; and, by way of urging his hospitality, he nobly makes us “free of the cellar.”

SUKKERTOPPR AND LIKKISTA (SUGAR-LOAF AND COFFIN).

The eastern point of the “Vík” is Búlandshöfði (farm-land head), of whose road Forbes has given a sketch, which verily makes the reader “squirm.” From the sea, it appears a cone some 2000 feet high, shelving towards the water, composed of many couches, said to belong to old basaltic formations, rich in zeolites: between them are ledges and débris of the columnar type. All own the road to be dangerous for the side-saddle; but also Mr Clausen had travelled over it in winter, cutting steps for his nags in the icy snow, and holding on to his pony’s tail.

An adjoining headland to the east showed us the quaint features called the Coffin (Líkkista, the lich or corpse kist) and Sukkertoppr (the sugar-loaf), both rising from a transparent sea, and backed by slate-coloured walls and snow-dotted peaks. The former is an elongated dorsum, with a shallow dome above, steps around its neck, and lower slopes of a brownish-red. The Pão de Assucar, thinly greened, and laterally barred with grey rock, seen from the north-east, is a regular cone, like the Sugar-loaf of Sutherland; and over all hangs, like a halo, the glorious presence of Bárðr’s home, whose snow roof stretches far lower than on the southern side. As the sun slants towards the west about 10.30 P.M., his last fires light it like a noble opal in a shining bezel of sleety blue, the glow waxing brighter and brighter till the snow, all aflame, dims every other object of earth, sea, and sky. At last the fire burns slowly out, a tall white spectre, the ghost of the morning’s scene, towers in the upper air, and the world becomes once more cold, dull, and pale—by contrast colder, duller, and paler than ever. It had been a “thing of beauty,” even though the incomparable scenery of Magellan’s Straits, rendering me not a little fastidious, was still fresh within my brain.

As we steam eastward we are shown the red Hraun of the Berserkir,[64] two light-coloured knobs thrown out by the red and broken forms of the Drápuhlíðarfjall. It has been asserted that Dr Backmann dug into the Bersekja-dis, and found two skeletons, but men on the spot know nothing about these fouilles. The story of their acting Macadam is too well known to repeat, since it appeared in the Eyrbyggia Saga; we may observe, however, that it has every characteristic of the normal Icelandic legend. There is the unavoidable woman in the case, Asdisa, “a young, haughty, fiery, and robust damsel.” The chief actors in the tragedy, Halli, Leiknir, and their destroyer Arngrim, surnamed Víga Styr (the stirrer or restless one), are all poets; and the latter characteristically boasts of a foul and cowardly assassination, as if it were a deed worthy of a Bayard. The highly honourable nature of murder pure and simple, unaccompanied by aught of risk or gallantry, belongs to a certain stage of society, and the Eastern reader finds many instances in the career of Arab, Persian, and Hindu heroes.

And now, in the cold, fierce wind, we run past a scatter of islets, especially noting Elliðaey (Ellwich Isle), the private property of the bishop, whose fair daughter is on board. The light-green surface, effect of summer growth, supports a few wrack-eating sheep; and the dark masses of subcolumnar basalt, bluff to the north, and pierced with black caves, are silvered over by troops of birds. About eleven P.M. we turn sharp to starboard, and sight our destination, Stykkishólm, not Stockholm, not arène de morceaux, but “holm of sticks,” that is, bits of pillared stone: the settlement’s name is taken from one of the three rock-islets to the north, Stykkisey. Leaving tall Súgandisey (wind-gush isle) to the east, and the larger Landey to the west, we presently find ourselves in a well-defended, dock-like inlet, with a landing-place above high tide. The comptoir was of more importance than usual, Stykkishólm being then the capital of the Western Quadrant: a schooner, two brigantines, and a smack lay at anchor; seven flags were flying; of the eight houses two were double-storied, and the parsonage boasted of a white belvedere. Crosses on the rock-dyke, one looking from afar like the ancient Irish, suggested a non-existing Calvary. The oldest tenement was that occupied by the Amtmaðr, or high sheriff.

My first care at Stykkishólm was to see the Hr Administrator A. O. Thorlacius, agent of the steamer: he came on board with his son, but, unfortunately, we were “barbarians to one another.” The father has taken meteorological observations once per diem, at noon, since November 1845: in 1866 he was provided with instruments by the Board of Trade, and his labours have appeared in the journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society.[65]

Early next morning we set out, mounted on rat-ponies, and guided by Mr Sýslumaðr Skúli Magnússon, to see the curiosities of Thórsnes, the little peninsula which was once a hot-bed of heathenism. Some cantonniers were working at the path, which combined the Brazilian pleasures of slippery plank-bridges, foul causeways, and corduroys of slush; we were compelled to round the long inlet Vésvágr or Vé-vágr (holy bay), because it cannot afford a ferry: here broken bottles showed a habit of picnicing. Turning to the south-east we sighted Helgafell (holy hill), a common name, as we have seen about Reykjavik. This lump of subcolumnar basalt, perpendicular to the north and east, and falling with an easy grassy slope to the south-west, after being honoured as hillock never yet was, was chosen for one of the earliest Christian churches; and people still pray at the dwarf chapel on the “Mount of Immortality,” because the habit is 800 years old. It still preserves intact the memory of Snorri Goði (the priest of Thor), “who was good to his friends and grim to his foes:” the Eyrbyggia Saga tells the tale of his intrigues, cruelties, and murders, Arnkell, whose tumulus is hereabouts, being the “Charles” or good boy of the story. We were shown the Munkrskarðr, where the holy men bade farewell to their beloved monastery, a kind of Arctic “Last Sigh of the Moor”—an illiberal English sacerdos adds, “their heart, doubtless, was with their treasure, buried in a hill-side.” Monks, you see, are not like other men; they must always be either almost superhuman, or, that failing, subhuman.

Thence we turned to the east, where Thórsnes lies, and whence the old Thunderer looked out upon Hofsvágr or Temple Bay.[66] Here, in A.D. 883, Thórolfr Mostrarskegg (of the big beard), following the pillars of his high seat round the head of Snæfellsjökull, took possession of the ground with burning firebrand, as was the significant custom of the day. The good guide, being utterly guiltless of all local knowledge, led us up to a substantial farm-house, at whose door stood a blear-eyed old franklin. Our nags, which attempted to crop a few blades of grass, were incontinently seized and tethered to a long cord—after the open-handed hospitality of the Syrian peasant, who, however poor, supplies your animal with barley and bruised straw, I was struck by the change for the worse. Usually the people are to be pitied; they would, perhaps, be hospitable, but they cannot afford it where every ounce of fodder is wanted. Even in the wealthier age of paganism the guest who outstayed his three days was said to “sit,” and was held to be a cosherer or vagrant. This “bonder,” who had 200 head of sheep in his “rétt,”[67] and 300 elsewhere, evidently had better use for his grass than the pauper. Moreover, there is far more ceremony in hyperborean than in sub-tropical lands. If the farmer be absent, an Icelander will not enter the house; the women know nothing, and prefer running away from strangers. When the master is at home, the guest is too shy to ask for what he wants. After a sufficient experience, I ended by dismounting, walking up to the door, offering a pinch of snuff and a drain from my brandy-flask, and roundly explaining my general requirements, to be paid for, bien entendu. A stranger may do this, but the natives have a punctilious regard for one another’s feelings, an admirable but uncomfortable quality, which prevents their taking or tolerating any such liberties.

The steamer was to start at ten A.M., and the garrulous old man was determined to extract every item of European news from the guide, whilst Mister Sýslumaður could not disappoint a constituent—the average dawdling is worse in Iceland than in Peru. At length he sent with us his son, and this nice-looking lad led us to a shore fanged with hideous stumps of basalt, grey rocks wetted by the perpetual wave, and long muds foul with wrack, which resembled cods’ sounds. It had a certain weirdness of aspect, especially its background, the torn and tormented flanks of Drápuhlíð,[68] an extinct volcano to the south, famed for minerals and alternate strata of trap and ropy lava. The only remains of the Virki (“work”), where the local Thing met, were vallum-like lines of green sod; and the Dóm-hringr, doom’s ring or judgment circle, was a triangular shape, with the base facing the shore. Not a sign of the Hof was to be seen; the Blótsteinn, or sacrificial stone, was asked for, but beyond legends of buried treasure, nothing was known to the incurious peasants.

On our return to Stykkishólm, we called upon the Amtmaðr (high sheriff), Hr Bergr Thorberg, who, fortunately for us, spoke good French. He assured me that Hr Skuli Magnússon had found the Blótsteinn, and we again accompanied him to sketch it. After thirty minutes, a boat placed us on the eastern side of the little peninsula, and we landed upon the broken basalt, weedy and slippery as ice. This shore is still known as Thórsnes, and the place as Thingvellir. After vainly seeking information at a cottage, inscribed T. (Teitur) G. S. Guðmundsson, 1869, we found a shepherd lad, who steered us through the swamps to a rise on the west, a site marked by a Varða of rock. The “Stone of Fear” was a bit of basalt, six feet long by six feet two inches broad, and half buried in the ground: at least, such was the article shown to us. South of it lay the Doom-ring, a circle of rough rocks, twenty-five feet in diameter. Between the two were buried the criminals whose backs had been broken upon the stone.[69]

In these forensic and sacrificial circles the judge, still called “Deemster” in the Isle of Man, faced eastwards, with his back to Holy Hill, at which man might not look without ablution. On his right, the direction of Múspellheim, the place of honour, from the profound popular reverence for the sun, stood the accuser. The accused was on his left, in the line of Niflheim, the nebulous north, a scene of horror and guilt, which the old Germans called midnight. The twelve doomsmen occupied the space within the Dóm-Steinar, where benches, here probably of turf, were provided for them. The sentences delivered from the “Circle of Brumo” were almost poetical in their ferocity. The old pagan Scandinavian was the incarnation of destructiveness. His was not the fickle pugnacity of the Kelt, who would fight and shake hands within the hour; nor the feeble pride of the classic, who only battled to “debellare superbos:” he was a Shiva, satisfied with nothing less than absolute annihilation. The blood-men were warned lest “weak pity step in between crime and its fitting punishment.” The following was the form of outlawry sentence: “For this we judge and doom thee, and take thee out of all rights, and place thee in all wrongs; and we pronounce thy lawful wife a lawful widow, and thy children lawful orphans; and we award thy fiefs to the lord from whom they came, thy patrimony and acquired property to thy children, and thy body and flesh to the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the fish in the water. We give thee over to all men upon all ways; and where every man has peace and safe-conduct, thou shalt have none; and we turn thee forth upon the four ways of the world, and no man shall sin against thee.”

And this doom was to extend “wherever Christian men go to church and heathen men sacrifice in their temples; wherever fire burns and earth greens; wherever mother bears child, and child cries for mother; ship floats, shield glitters, sun melts snow, fir grows, hawk flies the long spring day and the wind stands under his wings; wherever the heavens vault themselves, the earth is cultivated, the gale storms, water seeks sea, and men sow corn. Here shall the offender be refused the Church and God’s house, and good men shall deny him any home but hell.”[70]

And the old Scandinavian punishments were sanguinary and atrocious as those of the Thulitæ, of whom Procopius spoke. Criminals were cast to wild beasts, burned and boiled alive, flayed and impaled, to say nothing of mutilation and such a trifle as tarring and feathering.[71] Cowards were drowned or smothered in mud. Forest burners were exposed to the fire till their soles were roasted. Barkers of trees had their internals nailed to the injured bole, and were driven round it till their bowels took the place of the despoiled coat. Removers of boundary-stones were buried to the neck and ploughed to death with a new plough, drawn by four unbroken horses, and driven by a carle who had never before turned a furrow. And so forth.

The aspect of the Dóm-hringr vividly reminded me of the old theory held by Sir Walter Scott, to mention no others, that Stonehenge and similar buildings were Scandinavian courts of judicature, in which criminals were doomed and put to death. One of these fora was fitly described by Olaus Wormius as “Undique cautibus septum”—hemmed in on all sides with stones equal to rocks, and usually disposed at a bowshot from the centre. So Camden says of Stonehenge it is a “huge and monstrous piece of work such as Cicero termeth ‘insanam substructionem:’” his sketches make it like a dance of giants (choir gaur or chorus magnus), justifying Walter Charleton’s “Chorea Gigantum, vulgarly called Stone-heng” (London, 1663), which he also restored to the Danes. Mr Fergusson’s anti-Druidical protest was anticipated as far back as 1805 in the “History of the Orkney Islands” (Longmans, London), by the Rev. George Barry, D.D., who justly observes, “These extraordinary monuments have, like almost all others of the same nature, been supposed Druidical; but with very little reason, since there is not the least shadow of evidence that that order of men was ever within these islands;” while Coxe justly calls the Druids a “favourite order of men, under whom we are apt to shelter our ignorance.” Stonehenge and its chiselled, tenoned, and morticed trilithons and cronets, though finished with more art, are evidently the same class of building as the Standing Stones of Stennis; and both would appear to represent in comparatively genial climes and populous regions the rude Doom-ring of Iceland. I need hardly notice the opinion of the Rev. Isaac Taylor, who, in a wild and ignorant book (p. 43, Etruscan Researches; London, Macmillan, 1874), converts to Turanian sepulchres the monuments which covered the Wiltshire downs, and who considers the stone circle a survival of the weights which kept down the skin tents. Though bones have been found within such buildings, and without the rings, the sepulchral use may have been of later date.[72]

Part II.—to Grafarós.

Our next station was at Flatey, on the other side of the Breiði Fjörð, one of a vast archipelago which we were slowly to thread. Like the “cedars of Lebanon,” three things in Iceland cannot be counted—the lakes, or rather ponds, of Arnavatnsheiði; the hillocks of Vatndalshólar, and the islands of the Breiði Fjörð. Similarly it is said no Laplander has lived long enough to visit all the islands in Lake Enara, and no Swede has touched at the fourteen hundred of the Malar Lake. The holms lie mostly at the bottom and on both sides of the Broad Firth, and, being girt by broad reefs, they demand no little prudence. Some are private property, but the greatest part belongs to the parsonage of Helgafell, whose incumbent lives at Stykkishólm. These quaint forms, the birth of upheaval and the toys of earthquakes, all show traces of columnar and subcolumnar basalt: the colour is chiefly black, whitened by gulls and sea-fowl; some are dimly green with a house-leek bearing a pale flower; and here and there a Húshólmr supports a homestead. We remark the “wash” dry at ebb-tide; the shoal, the dot, the knob, the drong, the “cow and calf,” the dome, the pinnacle, the “gizzard,” like the Moela of Brazilian Santos: the nub, the skerry, the shield, the line, the ridge, and the back: castellations are common, and one at the mouth of the Hvammsfjörð (comb-firth) bears two dwarf cones passably resembling broken turrets.

Our signals failed to attract the pilot, who lives at Bjarneyjar, and thus we were forced to rely upon ourselves: the grey weather and spitting rain were, however, far less risky than sleet and snow. To starboard lay the Dala Sýsla, a fat lingula of land, bounded south by the Hvammsfjörð, and north by the Gilsfjörð. In the latter direction a neck of about five miles broken by a lake, leads to the Húnaflói (bear-cub floe),[73] opening upon the Polar Sea, and a canal like that of Corinth would save rounding the great three-fingered palmation, the work of west winds[74] and Greenland ice, which forms the north-west of Iceland. Once upon a time a Troll, we are told, attempted to anticipate the specialité of M. de Lesseps, but he was caught by the sun before his task was done, and, after the fashion of those days, he was incontinently turned to stone: so travellers are still obliged to ride across the neck. Hvammfjörð (comb-firth) is a fair specimen, says Munch, of how trivially local names arose; the Landnámabók (ii. 16) tells us that here (Kambsnes) Aud Ketilsdottir pectinem suam amisit. But Hvammr also means Convallis, a place where several dales meet, or simply our “combe.” The Dale-County peninsula ends westward in the Fellströnd highlands, whose chief height is called Klofi or Klofningr (the cloven), because it separates the two inlets; from the north its profile, projecting the lowlands of Dægverðarnes (daywards naze) reminded me of bottle-nosed Serafend (Sarepta) as seen from the Sidon road. Off this headland we sighted a couple of small whales: in the early part of the century we read of a school numbering some 1600, but now-a-days the long-fibred Medusæ seem to be a waste of cetaceous provaunt.

At length the south-easter brought up heavy rain, veiling the shore, and compelled us to turn for occupation to the study of our fellow-passengers. At Stykkishólm we had shipped a Dr Hjörtr Jónsson, an Icelander who spoke a little Latin and English, and who was very civil and sea-sick. He had studied under Dr Hjaltalín at Reykjavik, and had finished himself by a year at Copenhagen. The feminine part of the “old lot” has at once thrown off the civilised hat and adopted the ridiculous Húfa: the black or the grey shawl is sometimes worn over the head with something of the grace that belongs to the ornamental mantilla and the useful reboso. All are in leathern bottines which show the toes carefully turned in when walking or sitting. First-class and second-class of the ruder sex are distinguished by boots and “Iceland shoes:” so the railway clerk in the Argentine Republic ranks you by your spurs, the larger they are the lower you go. We distinguish the Danish-speaking by a perpetual recurrence of “Hvává”—hvad behager, s’il vous plaît?—from the Icelandic-speaking by an ejaculated “Há,” explosive, aspirate, and nasal enough for Vikings and Berserkir. There are half-a-dozen students with bowie-knives and long canes, like officers of the United States navy. The signs of Burschdom are noise, inquisitiveness, republicanism, hard drinking, and consequent “hot coppers,” especially in those who are “unco heavy on the pipe.” They gather together, singing Luther’s hymns and national Norwegian airs, whilst not unfrequently they intone in chorus—

“Doolce reedentem Lalagen” (pronounce Lala-ghen) “amábo
Doolce loquentem.”

They gather round us, forgetting the venerable axiom, “Manners makyth man;” they pester us, and ask in roaring voices about the English “hestar,” for they naturally hold us to be horsedealers, and, as the universal bow-legs show, all are “horsey” from babyhood. Their luggage consists mainly of old saddles and bridles, and of nests of sealskin riding-bags. They talk politics, they regret the old Iceland republic, and they hope to see it once more—this must be expected from students, and we find it even in the law-abiding Brazil. Two of them are never sober, and huge horns of spirits acting bottles supply the de quoi: all drink hard at each landing-place, which leads to the “stool of repentance” next morning. Their heartiness, not to say their roughness, is dashed with a curious ceremoniousness: they never omit pulling off their hats, an uncomfortable practice perhaps less common in England than elsewhere; they shake hands whose warts cause a shudder; and, when they exchange the parting kiss, it is with deliberation—first prospecting the place, then planting a “rouser” upon each cheek, and finishing off full upon the mouth.

The Coryphæus of the band is a little rather reverend, freshly ordained and stationed at some hole in the Skagafjörð, which elicits not a few mild witticisms connecting his domicile with purgatory. Sir Guttormr, who violently objects to his name being translated “Dei vermiculus,” makes the serious mistake of disputing on Old Testament subjects with Mr Levi, a Norwegian Jew, whom I had at once diagnosticised and drawn out by a “Shalom lach:” Apella is now going to try the north, last year he and his partner “did” the south. Their business consisted in women’s hair, especially the tints which command such large prices in the southern marriage-marts; and, unless report greatly belie them, they collected their booty by “screwing” husbands and brothers up to the cutting point with spirits.

Two hours’ steaming through the maze of rocks placed us at Flatey. It occupies nearly the centre of the Eyja-Hrepp (island parish), and it is connected in trade with the Svefneyjar or Isles of Sleep—ah! how different from

“That happier island in the watery waste”

which lodged the lotus-eaters. Flat-isle is, of course, not flat, but rolling ground, trending east-north-east to west-south-west, with a dwarf bluff in the former, and a high basaltic rib in the latter direction. The length is at least a mile, by about three-quarters of utmost breadth, though Henderson (ii. 91) gives it only one mile in circumference. Curious to say, the little rock has a name in literature, through the “Codex Flateyensis,” or annals of the Norwegian kings.[75] In A.D. 1183 its monastery was transferred to Helgafell, and, during the Reformation, its ninety-six farms were duly secularised and annexed by the Danish Crown. At present about a quarter of the island belongs to the Church; and thus the clergyman is no longer obliged, like Sira Andreas, to “follow the original employment of Zebedee’s children,” and be “particularly dexterous in catching seals.”

We landed on the north-western side of the island, about its middle length, at a regular dock fronted by a natural breakwater of basalt, upon the usual scatter of slippery wrack-grown rocks backed by a few yards of black sand. A rude causeway, not made by man, leads up to the settlement, half-a-dozen houses, one wholly wooden and double-storied; the rest of the normal ground-floor type, overgrown with the white-flowered weed. The huge vats and oil-tuns were not wanting: there was a windmill like that of Reykjavik for grinding imported rye, and higher up stood the church. A wooden box like those of the old Saxons, it had a long coffin for a deceased clock, a steeple of two stages, each with a white-framed window staring out of the black tar: where the apse should be, the outline was stepped after Iberian fashion. The cemetery lay around it, with a few monuments and railings neglected and broken down, and this being Saturday, of course the building was closed. We walked to the north-east over the wet grass and warty ground, and then turned south-west towards a sloping and time-wrecked cross, crowned with an old billy-cock and a fragmentary stocking. This is not intended for irreverence, but to show that the place is to be respected by hawks, ravens, and strangers; the utilitarian idea comes from Norway, where, indeed, we must go for explanation of many Icelandic peculiarities. The eiders, here and in Stykkishólm, float about the harbour tame as horse-pond geese; at times a Skua causes the duck to bolt with prodigious cackling, followed by its young, piping their plaints. The turf is shaven and hollowed to make the nests, which affect the wrinkles and pock-marks of the surface, and the places are marked by pegs; as at Engey, some show eggs, others ducklings, whilst others are abandoned with the down carelessly left to decay.

We returned on board in a greasy boat, with huge hooks fastened to wooden bars, and baited with flesh of the sharp-biting puffin. The “sea-parrot” nests in the sand, making holes two to three feet deep, and clinging to one another when dragged out. The head and feet, wings and entrails, are often mixed with cow-chips for fuel, whilst the breast is salted. On this occasion, and many others, I remarked that the sailors prefer turning sunways or to the right (deasil or dessil), the left or “widdershins” being held uncanny. The superstition is rather Aryan than Semitic, the former affecting Pradakhshina, whilst the Tawáf of the latter presents the sinister shoulder. So in the marriage ceremony of the Russian Church, bride and bridegroom thrice circumambulate the temporary altar.

June 30.

During the night we had steamed along the bold bluffs of Barðaströnd in the Sýsla of that name: now we prepare to double the great north-western projection of Iceland, which somewhat resembles south-western Ireland. The country people extend the right hand horizontally: the thumb forms the length, whose nail is Snæfellsjökull; the hollow between pollex and index represents the Breiði Fjörð, and the other fingers are the digitations of the annexe, North Cape being the ring of the little finger.