TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

ACROSS ICELAND

THE CAMP AT HVERAVELLIR.

ACROSS ICELAND

BY

W. BISIKER, F.R.G.S.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
AND
AN APPENDIX BY A. W. HILL, M.A., ON THE PLANTS COLLECTED

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD

Publisher to the India Office

1902

All rights reserved

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF MAPS

CHAPTER I

THE PARTY

These notes, besides describing a journey made during the summer of 1900 across Central Iceland from the north-east to the south-west, give an account of further travels by land in the west, and by sea along the coast and into the fjords of the north-west, north and east coasts.

The voyage to Iceland was made in one of the vessels owned by the United Steamship Company, a Danish company trading from Copenhagen to Leith, and thence to the Faroes and Iceland.

We were six in all—a semi-scientific party. There was Miss J. A. Hastie, a woman who has travelled much in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and who is not unacquainted with our Colonies at the Antipodes, or with the islands of the South Seas. She was specially interested in the botany of the country, in its folklore, and in the people. Then there was Captain W. H. Cope; he had been at sea for the greater part of his life, and had in the course of his journeyings seen much of the world; he was our nautical adviser, and we referred to him in matters connected with the sea. W. Glen, Miss Hastie's cousin, was known as the "handy man" of the party. If anybody was in difficulties, Glen was always on the spot to lend a helping hand. He produced all sorts of things at the right moment. Did any one require a screw-driver, then Glen had it; want a corkscrew, Glen could supply it; a pair of scissors, he produced them—some string, a strap, it was all the same. If a camera struck work, Glen could render the strike ineffective, for he carried two, and could lend one without interfering with his own photographic work. A. W. Hill, of King's College, Cambridge, was our botanist—who describes what he saw. H. H. Thomas, of Balliol, paid special attention to the geological formation of the country that we traversed, and he was frequently to be seen, camera in hand, taking shots at interesting formations—a glaciated lava surface, a volcanic vent, or an immense "erratic" boulder or "perched block," for instance; he also sketched industriously, and sometimes paced the ground compass in hand in order that he might record in his note-book the direction of a line of fissure, or the position of hot springs along that line; or something else of interest to geologists in particular. I was the geographer, whose mission it was to make a map of a small portion of the country traversed, to get a general idea of its conformation, and to note valleys and mountains, ice-fields and snow slopes, lava flows and hot springs, mighty rivers and tiny rivulets. I undertook to chronicle the events of the journey and to "take shots"—photographic shots—at men and things. We were all more or less devoted to sport, and frequently the desire to kill took possession of us, especially when we caught sight of duck, grouse, or golden plover—or, when we came to stream or river where trout or salmon were known to abound, we had a desire to cast a fly. But it was maddening to know that our desires could not be gratified, for where were gun and cartridges, rod and line? The man who had undertaken to look after that branch of our preliminary arrangements had failed us at the last moment, and it was not till too late, when we were embarking at Leith, that we learned that he was not coming with us. It was not his fault, poor fellow, but his misfortune. He had come a cropper from his bicycle, falling on his head, had remained unconscious for more than twelve hours, and had been forbidden by his medical advisers to travel—all this we knew nothing of until we were embarking at Leith, when it was altogether too late to procure another sporting outfit to replace that which we had fondly believed to be already on board ship, but which was really lying many miles away, far beyond our reach. But I will hasten over a subject that awakens the most tantalising of recollections, for many were the opportunities that were missed.

One Saturday in June 1900 we embarked upon the steam-ship Ceres, and early in the afternoon set sail from Leith on our voyage North. All the morning the weather had been fine, and it promised to continue so before we started, but we had scarcely reached the open sea before we entered a fog, which increased in denseness as we progressed. As a consequence the steam-whistle was sounded every few minutes, much to the discomfiture of many of the passengers on board; but Miss Hastie seemed to rise above such petty annoyances, for she took her seat on deck immediately beneath the whistle, and this spot was her resort during the whole voyage, notwithstanding the fact that the fog continued at intervals for the greater part of the journey, and that the steam-whistle frequently made day hideous with its noise. Conversation with her when the fog was densest was difficult, for it was punctuated—very incorrectly as a rule—by the shrill blasts that broke in suddenly and without warning, often causing the thread of a discourse to be lost, or an interrupted remark to fall flat on being completed, or perhaps repeated, when silence once more reigned.

As a result of the fog we proceeded at half speed only, and during the night the whistle was most aggressive, causing one's slumbers to be somewhat broken. In my own case the steam-whistle was not the only disturbing influence at night, for my cabin companion had a noisy way of enjoying the repose of the just, and often the intervals between the blasts were filled in with sounds that resembled the rumbling of thunder, and not very distant thunder either.

The second day out was a repetition of the first as regards fog, progress made, shrill whistling, etc. The vessel glided on slowly and smoothly, and we employed the time, when not eating and drinking, in the way usual at sea—by reading, chatting with our fellow-passengers, and comparing notes of former travels, varied now and then by a "rubber," or a stroll on deck for exercise. Meals were served at the following hours: 8 a.m., coffee and rusks; 10 a.m., breakfast; 3 p.m., dinner—the chief meal of the day; 8 p.m., supper. At breakfast and supper there were many dishes of smoked, uncooked food—fish, meats, sausages, etc.; but the members of our party did not take very kindly to these uncooked delicacies, and they were left for those who relished them—the Danes, Germans, and passengers of other nationalities, of whom there were many on board.

The fog cleared in the evening and the South Ronaldshay light was sighted. Several members of our party looked with no little interest at the headland, especially our nautical adviser, Captain Cope, for he had had a very unpleasant and dangerous experience thereabouts only two months before: he had been wrecked not far from it in the Shetland steamer, the St. Rognvald, which broke up and became a total loss. The vessel struck in the middle of the night, and he escaped in a very light and airy costume, consisting of a suit of pyjamas and an overcoat.

Next morning the weather was remarkably clear and bright until breakfast time, when we entered other fog banks and remained more or less in them until late in the afternoon; but on nearing our first port of call we emerged into clear weather.

CHAPTER II

THE FAROES

The first sight of the Faroes was impressive. The bold outlines of the islands were well-marked features. The dip (or tilt) of the ancient lava flows could be traced from one island to another. A dome-shaped block, Lille Dimon, was the most striking island, while the almost perpendicular escarpments of Skuo stood as evidence of the power of the stormy Atlantic, whose seas continually beat at the base of the cliffs.

Trangisvaag, in the island of Sudero, was the first port of call. In the fjord leading to it the cloud-effects were many and very fine. As the warm, moist air coming in from the sea was carried against the cool faces of precipitous lava mountains, so the moisture condensed and swept along their sides, at times completely hiding the highest points from view; but the effects were ever-changing. Fine specimens of jointed basalt are these mountains; flow upon flow can be traced for miles in almost horizontal parallel lines. But little vegetation is to be seen—the total absence of trees, a little grass, and much peat moss are the features that first appeal to one who is not a botanist.

Ashore one is first struck with the Faroese themselves: they are a fine race, and retain their native politeness and independence of character; they are courteous in the extreme to strangers. Most of the men are fishermen or sailors, and many, through their consequent contact with English-speaking people, can converse in good understandable English. A small trade is done in wool, and we met two of the islanders, fine types of the race, returning from their day's work; they were quite picturesque figures, for, besides being attired in the national costume, they had wound round them a quantity of wool, which in these islands is generally plucked, not shorn, from the sheep's back. The national costume consists of a sort of brewer's cap, having red and blue stripes as a rule, a cloth tunic, a waistcoat, and knee breeches split at the knees, but very rarely buttoned, rough woollen stockings and skin shoes. The fishermen often dispense with tunic and waistcoat, and wear in their place a woollen jersey with long sleeves, that has a strong sheepy smell, having a particular pattern worked in pale blue and red on a white ground. The women I saw wore dresses of white striped cotton stuff, no ordinary head covering, but shawls across the shoulders, which were often pulled over the head, and wooden clogs on the feet.

All the buildings at Trangisvaag are built of wood so far as the superstructure is concerned, the substructure often being made of blocks of basalt. The roofs of the oldest buildings are covered with grass; the bark of the silver birch is put on the rafters, which is then turfed over, the grass as a rule growing luxuriantly during summer—thus are the roofs made water-tight. The most modern houses are covered with galvanised iron, but as they are not numerous the town is decidedly picturesque. There are several ancient-looking wooden buildings, the church being one of the oldest, with a record of fifty years.

I have stated that most of the male population are fishermen, consequently the chief trade of the islands is in fish—cod-fish. The fish, as soon as brought to land, are cut open by women (who all work at this industry also); they are then washed in water, sometimes sea-water and sometimes fresh, and stacked in heaps with plenty of salt between the layers. They remain so for perhaps three months, covered with tarpaulins held down by heavy lumps of basalt. When properly salted the fish are washed and spread on a floor laid with slabs of basalt. When dry, the fish are stored in sheds, where they are packed in bales ready for export to Spain or Italy, which are the chief markets for salted cod.

The town of Trangisvaag is on the northern side of the fjord at the base of high weather-worn basaltic crags, which frown down upon it and form a grand background. There is a quantity of peat moss on the slopes at the foot of these mountains, often scored deeply by the numerous watercourses.

At Trangisvaag it was quite evident that we were approaching the Arctic circle, for at midnight there was light enough for the houses and other objects on shore to be seen from the vessel's deck, half a mile distant, and to enable me to write up notes without the aid of artificial light.

We steamed out of Trangisvaag fjord in the early morning, but as the weather was dull and cloudy we could not see much of the small islands, Lille Dimon (Little Diamond) and Store Dimon (Great Diamond), for they were cloud-capped and otherwise much obscured by drifting clouds. A few hours later we anchored opposite to Thorshavn in the island of Stromo, the capital and chief town of the Faroes.

IN THORSHAVN (FAROES).

Thorshavn is a very quaint and picturesque place, and many are the peculiar buildings and dwellings in the heart of the town, where the streets are very narrow indeed. No general plan has been followed in the laying out of the town, for the streets run in all directions, up and down hill, and along valleys or depressions in the ground. The styles of architecture are various—a single-storied picturesque shanty of ancient style, with grass-covered roof, having opposite to it a pretentious modern building roofed with galvanised iron, which rises high above, its three stories quite overshadowing the humble neighbour. These turf and grass-grown roofs are a feature in the appearance of the town. The general absence of trees is striking, though one notices with something of surprise the almost tropical luxuriance of foliage in some of the gardens that are more or less sheltered from the strong winds which so frequently sweep over the islands. The only tree I saw there worthy of the name was a sycamore in the front garden of a very picturesque cottage standing on a rather elevated site in the middle of the town.

We had not all brought oilskins, so Thomas and I visited several stores in the course of a search for some—at one of them they had coats only for sale, at another there were nether garments and sou'-westers in addition, but oh, how oily they were, and sticky! and how smelly! Had we purchased, no doubt it would have added to our safety when crossing ice-fields or lava flows, or when ascending snow slopes, for we should undoubtedly have found ourselves stuck fast to saddles on the occasions when the ponies were endeavouring to get rid of us by their frequent stumbles. But we would have none of the oily, sticky, and smelly garments.

I strolled about, camera in hand, and found that many of the women and girls were quite anxious to be photographed; at one spot I came upon a group of women squatting on the ground; as I approached, several others hastened to join the group, at the same time inviting me to photograph them, which I did. Shortly afterwards my films came to an end, so I made a journey to the Ceres, which was lying at anchor half a mile from the shore, in order to reload the camera.

I engaged two young Faroese to row me to the vessel, and on arrival enjoined them to await me that they might put me ashore again; when, however, I had changed the films and was ready to return, they were nowhere to be found—the young beggars had gone off with another fare, and had left me to my own devices and to the off chance of a "lift" in another boat. I felt much inclined to make a murderous attack upon the Queen's English, to say nothing of the young Faroese had they come my way while pacing the deck in impotent wrath; but I was obliged to restrain myself, for there was no one with whom I could with justice quarrel, so I suppressed the rising ire, and went in search of somebody who could speak my native language. In the end I found a Faroese with some knowledge of English, and arranged for a passage in a cargo-boat then about to return to the shore. Soon I was being conveyed from the Ceres at the rapid rate—for a very heavily laden cargo-boat, that is—of about a knot an hour. However, I reached the shore in due course, just in time to join our party at lunch at the hotel, where they were being entertained by a fellow-passenger. A merry meal we had, and in the course of it our host joined us in criticising the appointments of the table, but, in spite of a few makeshifts, they were not at all bad, and the meal itself was decidedly good.

The voyage to Klaksvig was of much interest, for our course lay in channels between islands and in fjords. The formation of the basaltic hills was most striking, the many pyramidal shapes impressing us greatly. There were numerous dykes in the mountain side, deep ravines scored perpendicularly in the basaltic formation, where softer intrusive material had been eroded more rapidly than the rock on each side. At the entrance to Kalsofjord (the channel between the islands of Kalso on the west and Bordo and Kuno on the east side) there was a very strong current flowing against us in a southerly direction; a course was therefore steered close in-shore to avoid the full strength of the current in mid-stream. Klaksvig lies in a bay in the island of Bordo, and to reach it a turn has to be made eastward between the islands of Kuno and Bordo. At the entrance to the bay anchor was dropped, and there we remained all night. We were close to the southern end of the island of Kuno, where a very fine specimen of a pyramidal mountain frowned down upon us from the height of nearly 2300 feet—it is a pyramid that might well cause the shade of Cheops, if ever passing that way, to hide his diminished head and fade into oblivion. We witnessed some very fine cloud-effects in the course of the journey to Klaksvig, for the clouds drifting over the high hills often streamed away far to leeward of them.

During the voyage I often wrote my notes somewhere about midnight, and this night, while thus employed in my cabin, my "stable companion" took it into his head that I was preventing him from the proper enjoyment of his slumbers, and growled out something to that effect; so, to avoid raising his wrath, I interrupted the course of the notes and turned in; but it was not to sleep, for I had scarcely laid head upon pillow before certain sounds from the bunk below made it evident that unconsciously he was going to turn the tables upon me, and that, by stertorously enjoying his slumbers, he would prevent me from peacefully enjoying mine. After several ineffectual attempts to stop the snoring, I at last fled to the saloon, far out of range of the noise, and there reposed in peace for the rest of the night.

At Klaksvig Miss Hastie, Hill, Thomas, and myself went ashore. We hunted the "lions" in couples: Miss Hastie going off with Hill to seek specimens first of all, while Thomas and I were bent on making a trial survey of the bay of Klaksvig, just to keep our hands in. We did this before visiting the "lions," which here assume the shape of whales, or rather whales' skulls, a number of which have been built up so as to form a dividing wall between two properties. On one side of this wall there is a cod-liver oil factory, which we inspected; it was not quite so smelly as are some factories where shark or whale oil is produced—but more of that anon! One of the vats was full of a rich brown liquid, which we were informed was unrefined cod-liver oil. The oil is exported in that state after being run into casks, many of which were strewed on the hillside. A pretty picture was seen near the wharf, where several young women were busily engaged washing cod-fish in a bath under cover of an open shed. A portion of the town of Klaksvig is built on a narrow strip of land that separates Klaksvig bay from Borovig bay—a strip that has been formed partly of moraine debris, and partly by the silting up of shingle by the sea. Facing Borovig bay there is a row of boat-sheds that are peculiar in that they are built of boulders in a small break in the sloping shore, and that the roofs are formed of smaller boulders laid upon a wooden framework. The roofs did not seem capable of keeping out much rain, and doubtless they were not built for that purpose, but for keeping out the snow during winter when the boats are laid up.

In the evening we left Klaksvig and proceeded into Kalsofjord, past the great pyramid; but its lofty head was under a cloud, so we could not admire its full proportions. Passing up the fjord the atmosphere cleared, and one could not help being much struck with the grandeur of the scenery. High precipitous mountains rose up on each side of the fjord; at a first glance, one would say that there was very little land at their foot suitable for cultivation, or for grazing purposes, so near to the water's edge did the mountains seem; but we saw many farms there, and several villages, picturesque places with quaint-looking buildings, nestling in hollows at the base of the hills. What soil there is must be very prolific, judging from the population settled on it. On the west side, and near to the north end of the fjord, there are some very fine specimens of common basaltic land forms—two grand corries, a fine dyke, some sheer faces of rock, and as we passed by the end of the land an almost sheer precipice which faced west came into view, while standing out at its foot there was a solitary basaltic column. When coming up the fjord the steam-whistle was frequently sounded in order that we might hear the very fine echoes for which it is noted; the interval is a long one, some three or four seconds. At the corries the sound echoed and re-echoed until it finally died away in the heights above.

On emerging from the fjord and putting out to sea, we encountered a slight swell from the west, so the vessel rolled a bit; it was really not much, but being the first time during the voyage, it was much disliked by those who were not proof against mal de mer. The clear atmosphere was soon left behind, for we entered another fog bank when only a few miles distant from the land. At once the music (!) of the steam-whistle was resumed, and our ears were again tortured by its shrill blasts.

CHAPTER III

THE FJORDS

Next day rain, fog, and mist prevailed, so there was much whist-playing and smoking below, and much blowing of whistle above. Towards evening we were off the coast of Iceland; the land was not visible, for we were enveloped in fog, but there was no doubt about it, for we could hear that land was not far distant. It may seem strange, but it was a fact, we were really feeling our way along the coast by the aid of the steam-whistle. The land thereabouts rises abruptly from the sea, and the echoes from the sheer faces of rock enabled the officers of the vessel to judge their distance. We went dangerously near to another vessel in the fog, but soon afterwards it cleared off a bit, and there, just abeam on the starboard side, was the other vessel, sufficiently close to be a dangerous neighbour in thick weather. At midnight we were going full speed ahead, but when I awoke at seven in the morning it was to find that our experiences of fog were not at an end, that we were again in a very dense one, and that we were lying-to. After breakfast it lifted sufficiently to allow of a course being shaped for Northfjord, our first port of call in Iceland. Much of the scenery of this fjord was obscured by the thick atmosphere, but occasional glimpses through rifts proved that we were missing many fine scenes that are on view when the conditions are favourable. The first sight of Iceland was obtained at Dalatangi Point, four or five miles to the north of the entrance to Northfjord. In the fog we had gone too far north. Other glimpses on the way were of a corrie near Dalatangi, and the face of the mountains near Mjofifjord. Our stay at Northfjord was of but short duration, and there was no time to go ashore, so the only view we had of the town was obtained from the vessel's deck.

We had a number of Faroese passengers on board, bound for various ports in Iceland; they were good types of the race, and I obtained permission to photograph some of them.

Seythisfjord was not far distant, and in a few hours we were steaming up the fjord towards the town at its head. The scenery and geological structure of these fjords were similar to what we had passed through two days before in the Faroes. Towards the head of the fjord there are many waterfalls on the mountain-sides; in fact, it is a district of waterfalls, for there are some fine ones up the valley, where a fair-sized river and its various tributaries rush down from all sides in a series of great leaps and bounds over ledges of rocks fifty, sixty, a hundred feet high, finally joining and tumbling over the lowest ledge in a grand cascade (which I photographed) to the river below—the "valley of waterfalls" would be a descriptive name to bestow upon it.

It was at Seythisfjord that we first set foot upon the soil of Iceland. We were conveyed to the shore by the steam-launch and boats from a man-of-war, the Danish guardship, that was lying in the harbour. We were so honoured because the captain of our vessel was an officer in the Danish Navy, and it was intended as an attention to him. It seems that some of the vessels belonging to the Company are captained by officers of the Navy, who are appointed to the command by the Danish authorities as a sort of reward for services, for during their term—three years, I think—they draw their pay as officers of the Navy in addition to what is due to them from the Company.

On shore our party split up as usual, Miss Hastie and Hill going off in search of plants, while the "Nautical Adviser," Thomas, and I wandered along the sea-shore and into the town. We were pestered by an Icelander having a very crude idea of the English language who had been imbibing the "lemonade" of the country, and if he had not "three sheets in the wind," at least there was one little sheet flapping about, the end of which was flicking at us at inconvenient moments. We tried to shake him off, but it was of no avail. He had a notion that we wanted a guide to conduct us into the interior of Iceland, and he claimed to be very competent and to know everything of the country. We did not doubt his competency, or if so we did not inform him, but tried to make him understand that we had made our arrangements for guidance, and that the men we had engaged were teetotallers. For a long while he dogged our footsteps, and it was not until we had got clear of the town and were making tracks up the valley towards the waterfalls that we lost him. On the way we joined Miss Hastie and Hill, who seemed quite satisfied with the result of their grubbing amongst what—to those of us at least who had not been educated botanically—looked like very common weeds. Together we slowly, very slowly, made our way up the valley, for there were many stoppages while plants were being dug out and transferred to small tin boxes that looked like tobacco tins—indeed, I think they were originally intended to hold the "weed" of the smoker and not "Weeds—various." So much time was occupied by these stoppages, that at last it became a question whether we should be able to reach the lowest and, as we believed, the finest of the waterfalls, for we were expected to be on board at a certain time, in readiness for departure; the question was much debated, and there seemed to be a general desire to discuss the matter rather than to make the attempt to reach the fall. I determined to try, and was informed that I should miss the steamer.

I could see the misty spray rising from the fall not a mile distant, so I set out across swamps and peat bogs, caring but little for such trifles, for I had resolved to see that fall. Well, I did reach the fall, and after photographing it, crossed the river just below it, and returned on the other side of the valley. It was a rather difficult journey, for I had a severe cross-country course to cover, with a number of fairly long jumps over the mountain streams on the way, but, nevertheless, I reached the Ceres half an hour before the other members of the party. Then, strange to say, none of them seemed to believe that I had reached the waterfall at all; but the photograph of it is the best evidence that I can offer in support of my contention that I did.

THE WATERFALL, SEYTHISFJORD.

The soil at Seythisfjord looked very good, and would doubtless yield good crops were the summer a bit longer and the ripening power of the sun rather stronger. There is much peat and boggy land on the slopes below the steep escarpments on each side of the fjord, and in the river-flats up the valley; many ponies are grazed here, and as some of the boggy land is being drained by deep dykes, the number is likely to increase; the peat that is removed in cutting the dykes is built up at their sides to form dividing fences.

The valley at the head of Seythisfjord is a fine specimen of the result of sub-aerial erosion, for its form is due to the denuding action of frost and snow, wind and rain, storm and sunshine. There is a vast corrie at the head, which is shelved in a series of steps right down to the flat through which the river meanders. It is at these shelves or ledges of the harder strata that the waterfalls and cascades already mentioned are to be found—there, where the river and its branches rush over the edge of one terrace and plunge down to the next.

This being our first experience of the Icelanders, our attention was attracted by the peculiar headdress worn by the women, which is common to all classes—a small black knitted cap, about four or five inches in diameter, from which a silver tube hangs suspended at the side of the head; through the tube is strung a number of cords or silken threads that hang down as a tassel.

We ought to have sailed late in the evening, but a thick fog settled over the land and prevented a start. Wonderful echoes can be produced at Seythisfjord; the steam-whistle was sounded several times, and the sound echoed and re-echoed again and again, the reverberation continuing for many seconds before it died away in the distance among the mountain tops. Fog and misty rain continued through the night and well into the small hours of the morning; but at about five o'clock it lifted sufficiently to allow the Ceres to put to sea. Progress was slow, and the frequent blasts of the steam-whistle that disturbed our morning slumbers indicated the state of the atmosphere; however, we entered Vopnafjord soon after mid-day, and shortly afterwards came to an anchorage opposite the town.

Vopnafjord is one of the homes of the eider duck, and it was on the rocky islets opposite to the town that we first saw those birds in their natural surroundings. We borrowed one of the ship's boats and rowed over to the rocks. It was difficult to get near, for the ducks were very shy—more so than usual just then, because many had young; but as they were too young to fly, we did get fairly near by rowing round their rocks. The nesting season was over, and many of the birds had gone away. The production of eider down is an industry that is increasing; the birds are rigorously protected, and a fine of ten kronur (eleven shillings) is the penalty incurred by any one killing an eider duck.

In the afternoon we went ashore in a hired boat that leaked very badly; but we reached the shore without anything very exciting happening. The return journey, however, was attended with considerable risk, for in the meantime the wind had risen, and there was a nasty choppy sea beating against us when we attempted to make the Ceres. Water entered the boat through the leaky spots, and more was shipped; we were near being swamped, but we made the gangway, and got on board without anything worse than a wetting. At the various ports of call there was often considerable difficulty in obtaining a boat, and the passenger wishing to get ashore had to take whatever craft was available, for they were very scarce. Often they were dirty and very leaky. Sometimes a passage was refused, and on one occasion a cargo-boat starting for the shore declined a fare of two kronur, although going direct to the wharf not far distant—the Icelander is an independent personage, and unless it suits his convenience he sometimes refuses a job.

While at Vopnafjord we met with a man, an Icelander, who could speak a little English; we soon discovered that he was proud of having acquired a few British swear words. Thomas and I were taking shots at a number of fish-cleaners at work on the beach, when this man came along; we had previously been in conversation with him, so he remarked airily as he passed that the result of our snap would be "a hell of a picture." We laughed, but he went on a few paces and then stopped beside a fellow-passenger, a man of strict views and ideas, who was photographing the same subject. The Icelander, encouraged, I suppose, because we had laughed, went one better on what he had said to us, and gave his opinion that this result would be "a blank, blanketty blank picture"!—he seemed surprised at the freezingly cold way in which his remark was received.

We left Vopnafjord in the afternoon and in four hours made Langanes, a narrow, flat-topped peninsula several miles long, a perfectly horizontal lava flow, with faces that rise vertically from the sea; the section is exactly the same, whether through the end or side of the peninsula. The whiteness of the points of rock and of the face generally, evidenced the fact that many sea-fowl resort there, and that the rock-face is covered with a deposit of guano.

At midnight we were inside the Arctic circle, and had the weather been favourable, we should have seen the sun just above the horizon. But His Majesty was not on view, for though the fog had lifted in the morning and had enabled us to make Vopnafjord, the weather had been dull all day, with the sun quite obscured, and the same conditions prevailed through the night. It was a pity, because it would probably be our only chance of seeing the midnight sun, for next day we should be in Akureyri, a town lying at the head of a long fjord, and nearly a degree south of the Arctic circle, where the view would, we thought, be obscured by intervening hills and mountains.

Husavik in Skjalfandi was our next port of call, and we arrived there early enough in the morning for us to go ashore before breakfast. Thomas and I were interested in a reported "raised beach"—land originally formed on the margin of the sea, and subsequently raised by tectonic (subterranean) disturbances to a height above sea-level. Miss Hastie was also desirous of seeing the raised beach, and trudged along with us over the hills to the bay where we expected to find it; but on arrival we could see no raised beach: there was some volcanic conglomerate, the rounded and smoothed stones of which had perhaps caused it to be mistaken for a raised beach—unless, indeed, we ourselves were on the wrong track and had mistaken the spot; nevertheless, there was nothing else in view that looked like what we were in search of, so we returned to Husavik over the hills again. Not long ago these hills were completely covered with fine yellow ferruginous loam—a comparatively recent deposit; but it is now being rapidly eroded, and the older moraine beneath laid bare.

At Husavik there is a great accumulation of moraine matter that has been brought down from the valley at the back. It is a terminal moraine that comes right down to the sea, which washes at the foot of its almost vertical face, fifty to sixty feet high. The town stands on the edge of the moraine, and the only approach from the pier is by a long flight of wooden steps; goods are conveyed in trucks that run up a steep inclined tramway, and these are raised and lowered by cables and the use of a windlass and friction brakes. Behind the town great fields of peat are being excavated and stacked ready for use as fuel.

On the voyage from Husavik to Akureyri, one of our fellow-passengers was the Icelandic minister of the church at Akureyri, a man who had a very fine tenor voice, the best in Iceland according to repute; at our request he sang to an accompaniment played on a small harp by a travelling companion. One thing he sang was the Icelandic National Hymn, entitled the "Hymn of Praise," composed by S. Sveinbjornsson to celebrate Iceland's thousand years of freedom. The thousand years were completed in 1874 (874 to 1874), and the fact was celebrated in that year with festivities and general rejoicing, the King of Denmark taking part in them.

On our arrival at Eyjafjord in the afternoon, the weather was clearing up, and as we steamed up the fjord fine views opened out, and we saw many excellent cloud-effects. After about three hours' steaming up the fjord we reached Akureyri, the town next in importance to Reykjavik, the capital, and came to an anchorage there at about eight o'clock in the evening.

CHAPTER IV

ACROSS THE NORTHERN INHABITED FRINGE

PACK-SADDLE AND BOXES.

The next day was a busy one with us, because Akureyri was to be our starting-point for the journey across the interior, and there were numerous preliminary arrangements to be made. The fogs and thick weather had delayed our arrival at Akureyri by a day. We ought to have set out from Akureyri on the day after our arrival, but the delay at sea had rendered that quite impossible, as may be imagined when I mention the facts that besides personal effects there were provisions, tents, bedding, etc., to be packed; that we were eleven persons in all (our own party of six, a conductor and manager of affairs, and four guides), and that thirty-eight ponies were required for our transport. Of course arrangements had been made for all this long before our leaving England; ponies and everything else were there, but all required a lot of "licking into shape." Our manager was up to his eyes in it all day. The members of our party, however, had less to do, for when we had bought oilskins and sundries, and had sorted out and packed our personal effects into boxes specially made for the purpose—boxes that were to be carried on the ponies, one on each side of the pack-saddle—we were free to do as we liked for the rest of the day. It happened to be the anniversary of the Celebration of the Thousand Years of Freedom, and a festival was being held in Akureyri; so, on attaining our freedom, we made our way towards the fête ground, a spot named Oddeyri, a sort of suburb about a mile away, on a spit of land running into the fjord. There we found the Icelanders assembled in force. People from all the surrounding country were there—men, women, and children; all had come on ponies, which were dotted about in groups, or straying separately over the spit—there were hundreds of them. The Icelanders were amusing themselves much as would the villagers at an English country fête. They were eating and drinking, and engaging in contests of various kinds. Races were being run, there were gymnastic competitions on "horse" and horizontal bar, and there was some wrestling also. The last was decidedly good and interesting. Each competitor grasped his opponent's right shoulder with left hand, and with the right took a firm hold of the other's waistband. Then the fun commenced. The opponents danced around each other, watching for opportunities. Their movements were very amusing, but some of the throws were very cleverly effected. In the evening, at about 8 p.m. that is, dancing commenced. A platform had been prepared for the purpose; this was railed round, and there were seats, on which the girls sat awaiting partners. The custom in choosing a partner is for the man to approach the lady of his choice and bow to her; she acquiesces by rising from her seat, when the couple waltz off together. Just before the dancing commenced, a good-humoured, rubicund man, short of stature, whose well-rounded figure denoted that he was not averse to the good things provided by the gods, ascended a rostrum at one end of the platform, and from there addressed the assemblage. To us who were not acquainted with the Icelandic tongue, his remarks were unintelligible; but by those around who were listening to his utterances, they seemed to be much appreciated, and their smiles and laughter showed that the orator, a fluent speaker, was a popular man and a humorist of no mean order; indeed, one had but to look at his expressive face when he was speaking to learn that he was a "funny" man.

AKUREYRI AT MIDNIGHT.

Between the town of Akureyri and the basaltic mountains to the westward that rise to a considerable altitude, there is, filling the interval, a series of morainic hills, the material of which has come down the Eyjafjorthará valley, or from the mountains beside it. These hills present the appearance of a terrace partly worn down and scored by the action of water and melting snow. No doubt the basaltic mountains once formed the side of the fjord. An hour or so before midnight, Miss Hastie, Thomas, and I climbed the hills to the terrace, in the hope of getting a glimpse of the midnight sun, for the night was almost cloudless. The sun was shining brightly, but it was quickly approaching some mountains near the entrance to Eyjafjord, behind which it would soon be hidden. We failed in the object of our climb, for the mountains referred to were of considerable elevation. Time would not allow us to attack the mountains in the rear of Akureyri and ascend by midnight to an altitude above that of the obscuring hills, so we had to descend unsatisfied. Though we did not actually see the sun at midnight, we could see its light shining on the mountain tops two or three miles away, and we knew that it was above the horizon. So good was the light that Thomas and I took photographs of the town, one looking north and the other south, just at midnight—with stop f32, exposures of one minute and one minute and a quarter were required for medium plates.

We were to have made a start at eleven o'clock the next morning, but fate was against us. At the appointed hour the members of the party were ready and waiting, but guides, ponies, pack and riding saddles, tents, provisions, etc., were not ready, and we could not well start unless they were. Saddles and gear required many repairs—most of them had been hired, and they were not in the best condition. Our manager of affairs was to be seen flitting about settling up accounts, giving directions to the men, inspecting saddles, bridles, girths, and gear, and generally trying to reduce confusion to order. For an hour or more we were amused, but then we began to get impatient. Three of us got hold of a saddle and bridle, and we tried the paces of a few of the ponies. In that way we put in an hour or two that might have proved irksome, for everything was in such a state of confusion and unreadiness, and the space in which the men were working was so confined, that we could render no effective help. Instead of starting at eleven, it was half-past three before we got away—four and a half hours late!

THE SPIT AT ODDEYRI.

We made a slight stir as we clattered along the main street of the town, for it was the largest expedition of the kind that had ever set out from Akureyri, and the progress of our thirty-eight ponies was watched with some interest by those of the townspeople who were on the street. Our way lay beside the fjord, and we proceeded for several miles in a northerly direction. Our general direction across the island was, as a rule, southerly and westerly, but it was necessary to turn the end of a mountain chain before we could shape a more direct course. On we went, past Oddeyri, the scene of the previous day's festivities, until we reached the Glerá, where we had our first experience of fording an Icelandic river. It was not very deep, and it was but a foretaste of a series of more difficult fordings, not a few of which were serious undertakings, and not to be attempted without proper consideration. To this river, the Glerá, the formation of the spit at Oddeyri is due. The detritus brought down by its waters and deposited in the fjord has been gradually banked up by the tides and storms coming up Eyjafjord. Along the shores of the fjord we passed over extensive ancient moraines; then by a detour we worked round the edge of the moraines, which form the end of the mountain range, and entered Horgadalr (the valley of the Horgá). From a spot where we had lunch, or whatever meal it might be called—it was our first since breakfast—we overlooked the valley of the Horgá. On the far side there was a green, fertile-looking spot, and large buildings, which we ascertained to be the Akureyri agricultural grounds and college, presided over by Professor Jón Hjaltalin. To the right the river ran into the fjord through the valley, once, no doubt, an indentation of Eyjafjord. At the mouth of the river a small delta is in course of formation, which should develop into a spit similar to that at Oddeyri.

THE OXNADALSÁ CUTTING THROUGH A HARD DYKE.

Proceeding up the valley of the Horgá, many interesting-looking peaks attracted our attention. The valley and its branches having been eroded out of basalt, the mountains and valleys are characteristic formations—pyramidal peaks, steep escarpments, deeply-cut gorges, with roaring torrents rushing down in a series of waterfalls and broken cascades; there are vast quantities of scree on the mountain-sides covering the terraces of the lava flows, and accumulations of similar material at the foot of the mountains, forming a talus. Moraine heaps are also numerous. Higher up the valley, just above the confluence of the Horgá and the Oxnadalsá, there is a very striking scene, where the last-named river has carved its way through a very hard dyke, the sides of which extend into the river, and stand there like an immense wall with a gap through it. While proceeding up Oxnadalr (the valley of the Oxná = oxen), which is very picturesque, we saw some fine cloud-effects as the moist air condensed and drifted just below the mountain tops. The river Oxnadalsá takes its name from the valley, Oxnadal. This is one of the few exceptions from the general rule, which is for the valley to take its name from the river—dal = valley; so, instead of Oxnadalsá, the rule would make it Oxná. Along this valley all the depressions in the hillsides are filled with quantities of peat. Peat, peat bogs, and swamps are very common throughout Iceland, and in most of the depressions in the hillsides and along the river valleys a peaty growth is to be found.

For several hours in the course of the day we were accompanied by a man travelling the same way and driving a pony laden with pieces of rather ancient shark. When travelling in company, the ponies have a way of crowding together, and unless very careful, one becomes painfully aware of the fact when box or bundle brushes in no gentle way against one's legs. Now the strange pony with the ancient shark at its sides was of a very friendly disposition, and evinced a desire to fraternise with our ponies, choosing the riding ponies for his special attentions, the result being that we had some difficulty in avoiding contact with the evil-smelling stuff. With this exception not many incidents worthy of special mention occurred on this our first day in the saddle; there were several breakdowns, however. The saddlery was not in the best possible condition; it was mostly old and weather-worn, and a great deal of it was very rotten. This became more apparent the farther we went: breakages were numerous, straps snapped, and pack-saddles, bundles, and boxes broke away and were deposited by the wayside; while the ponies, glad to have got rid of their loads, careered gaily on. There was much bustle and confusion, rushing of guides (the men, whether acting as guides or not, are all called guides) after the ponies. "Helvit!" they would shout, as another strap broke and a bundle trailed on the ground, bumping against lumps of lava, by the pony's side; then they would urge their steeds into a fast run or a canter, whistling a soft, long-drawn-out note to induce the pony in front to stop. To urge on the pony they utter a shout that sounds like a cross between "haw" and "hoch." "Hoch! hoch!" they shout, and sometimes bring their whips down with a swish upon the haunches of the nearest pony. When they wish a pony to stop or to slacken speed they whistle gently. We soon found that it was useless to click or to shout "Get up!" or "Wo!" to a pony. He did not understand it, so we had to make use of the sounds that they could recognise.

The first day's journey was not a very long one, seven hours only in the saddle, and we reached our first camping-ground at about half-past ten. Thverá was the name of the farm-house beside which we camped. The buildings were of very primitive construction; they were built in the usual Icelandic style: turf walls and roof; wooden floors to the best rooms, and earth or lava blocks to the others; glass windows. The kitchen in most of the humbler class of farm-houses is a picture, and this one was typical; it was lighted only from the roof, and the openings served also to ventilate the room and to act as smoke shafts. A peat fire was burning in the corner of the room, and the air was filled with the smoke that rose from it and circulated round the room before escaping through the openings in the roof. It had an earth floor, and at the side of the room there was a well about twenty feet deep, that supplied beautifully clear water for culinary purposes. A large cauldron stood over the fire, containing some savoury mess in course of preparation for the family's next meal.

We had four tents, two large ones and two smaller; but on this occasion we only made use of one of them, for four of our number slept at the farm-house. For the rest of the journey across Iceland, however, all four were in use. The two large ones were square "Bell" tents: one was used for meals, and in it the conductor and his four guides slept at night; in the other, Hill, Thomas, and I camped. Miss Hastie used one of the smaller tents; while the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man" occupied the other.

We did not make a start the next day till half-past one; it was several hours after that agreed upon, but we very soon learned that unpunctuality, delays in starting, and consequent waste of time would mark the journey; this was chiefly due to the rotten state of the gear, for several hours were spent every morning in patching up and tinkering at the packs, boxes, and saddles that had come to grief during the previous day—each day had its record of breakages and damage, and each morning its hours devoted to making repairs. All this was very annoying, and it made another guide almost a necessity to relieve one of the English-speaking guides, so that he might go on with us while the others were occupied with the repairs. This would have caused things to work better, but unfortunately no other guide was available. We were already on the edge of the fringe of population inhabiting the regions near the seacoast, and we were fast approaching the uninhabited interior; there were no spare hands on the farms that we passed, so we were obliged to go on short-handed—short-handed only because of the continual breakages. The guides that we had could not have been improved upon: they were all first-class men, each was up to his work, and worked with a will; they were all Icelanders possessing small farms of their own, and two of them, Sigurthur and Hannes, spoke excellent English; Thorlakur was a beginner at it, but we generally managed to understand one another; the fourth man, Josef, was the only one who had no knowledge of our language. We were on excellent terms with all the guides, so things worked smoothly between us.

MORAINE ACCUMULATIONS AND CLOUD-EFFECTS AT THVERÁ.

On leaving Thverá our way, as we ascended some three or four hundred feet to the head of the valley, lay at first over a vast accumulation of moraine matter, piled high up on all sides. Our camping ground had been at the foot of this accumulation, and opposite to it on the other side of the valley there were also great heaps of similar stuff, while on the highest part of the range there was a very fine pinnacle rock, rising several hundred feet higher, and standing out sharp against the clear sky.

I had a bad day of it, being quite out of luck. The conductor accidentally backed his pony upon me, and my right foot was crushed and bruised beneath one of its hoofs; but worse was to come. About an hour after we had started, and when we were getting well up into the moraine, I heard a shout. "Helvit! Helvit!" cried one of the guides. On looking ahead I saw a pony running amuck through the rough broken lava and great boulders; he had got rid of most of his load, but something green was trailing at his heels. In horror I watched the pony's wild career, for the "something green" I recognised as the cover of my plane-table—one of the instruments that I had brought for the purpose of mapping a portion of the interior. This plane-table had been strapped on the top of some packs containing bedding, in order that it might ride on something soft and in safety. I comprehended what had happened. As usual something had given way, the packs and my plane-table had got loose about the pony's heels, and all had been kicked off except the plane-table, which had been made fast by one of its straps to a ring in the pack-saddle, and as the strap was sound it had held on. Well, there was no mistaking its Willesden canvas cover—there it was, trailing along at the pony's heels, being kicked and banged against boulders great and small, just as they came in the way. Bumpity-thump it went along the ground, and with a crash it struck the boulders! The table was ruined, for it trailed a mere crumpled mass without definite shape. There was an end to prospects of mapping. I watched the pony's career for a moment, more in sorrow than in anger, then I urged my own pony into a canter, and came up with the runaway just as one of the guides caught him. The wreck of the plane-table was soon detached from the pack-saddle; a hasty inspection proved that my fears were confirmed: the table itself was represented by a couple of strips, the rest of it was missing; the tripod stand and the alidade ruler were also missing. The guides scoured the neighbourhood of the pony's course, and after a while one of them turned up with one or two strips of wood, pieces of the plane-table, and placed them beside the others. I looked on listlessly until another guide brought in a long green case. This did not seem to be much damaged, so I hastily examined the contents (the tripod stand and the ruler), and found to my joy that they were practically uninjured; a few bruises to the legs did not matter much, for they did not affect the stability of the stand—both alidade and stand could be used! I then turned to the wreck of the table itself and examined the pieces; they were not complete, two or three were missing, but I noticed that although all the screws had been wrenched out, and the apparatus for fixing the board to the stand had also been wrenched off, yet the breaks and splinters were all along the grain of the wood. The guides went over the ground again, and brought back one or two additional strips. I then roughly put the pieces together, and found that except for a few splinters I had got them all, and that none was broken across the grain; the two cross-bars for the back, the last pieces found, were also unbroken. It looked as if it might be roughly mended, if only the necessary tools were available.

THE WRECKED PLANE-TABLE.

The views in the valley of the Oxnadalsá were fine, and the river scenery where the water had carved deep down through the lava and tuff was very bold, the red and blue tints of a quantity of scoria on the steep banks adding to the effect.

In the evening we crossed the water-parting, or divide, between the Oxnadalsá and the Northrá rivers, and at night camped beside a farm known as Fremrikot near the head of the valley of the Northrá river (Northradal). It was a picturesque spot, and the Northrá is typical of the smaller rivers of the country, the valley filled with alluvium and the river meandering through it, though when in flood not much of the alluvium can be seen.

THE NORTHRÁ.

In the morning I amused myself by taking photographs. I caught the women and children from the farm sitting with their backs against an earth-built fence looking with interest at, and discussing, the preparations then being made for a start; these preparations are shown in the view looking down the valley of the Northrá where saddling up is nearly completed.

We received a check this day, and made very little progress. We started gaily enough and fairly early, as times went with us—that is, we got away a quarter of an hour after mid-day—and pursued our way along Northradal. There were several fine gorges with torrents coming down from the mountains into the Northrá; one especially attracted us, where a big snow-water torrent rushes between great buttresses of rock standing on each side. There is a bridge across the gorge, for the torrent is quite unfordable. After about two hours' riding down the valley of the Northrá to its confluence with the Herradsvötn we soon reached Silfrastathr, where, in a picturesque spot, there are a farm-house and a small octagonal church. Here we lunched and made a long halt while the guides went on to ascertain whether the Herradsvötn, one of the big rivers of the journey, was fordable. It was past five when they returned with a local guide and the news that it could not then be forded, because the water from that day's melted snow was coming down and the river too much swollen. On a warm day the snow in the mountains melts rapidly, and a large increase in the volume of the water results; so that there is much more coming down in the afternoon than in the early morning before the sun's heat causes the snow to melt.

SADDLING UP.

Farther on, when describing one of the quicksand rivers that we crossed, I refer to the dangerous nature of their passage; but I find it necessary to make special mention of the subject here, for while revising these notes, bad news reached me concerning the Herradsvötn. In July last year an accident happened at this river which resulted in the death of our "conductor" of the previous year. We did not regard the Herradsvötn as a quicksand river, but it seems to be one, for the account of the accident states that our conductor's horse got into a quicksand and threw his rider, who was carried down the river so quickly by the swift current that no assistance could be rendered, and he was drowned, his body not being recovered until two days afterwards. Poor fellow, his first crossing with us was accomplished safely, and I little thought that I should have to record his death as the result of the second attempt. I happened to take two photographs of this river, one having Maelifellshnukr in the background, and showing the many streams into which the river is split up, the other showing the members of our party about to cross the first stream. Fourteen of the ponies can be seen in the latter, but the great majority of the pack-ponies were ahead, out of the picture—it was impossible to get a string of thirty-eight ponies into one quarter-plate view; the conductor leads our party, and is the first following the tail of the pack-train, he with right hand behind back. The danger in these quicksand rivers is due to the fact that the sands are continually shifting; in the summer each day has its flood of snow water which scours the bed of the river, removing the sand from one place and depositing it in another, so that one definite course cannot always be followed when crossing; what is a good ford one day is impassable the next. With a river split up into about twenty streams the difficulties of fording can be imagined, but not appreciated until experienced, and the dread with which all the guides regard the rivers where quicksands are known to exist cannot be wondered at.

CROSSING THE HERRADSVÖTN.

As the river was not fordable, there was nothing for us to do but await the falling of the water, and then attempt the passage. The delay enabled me to try my hand at repairing the plane-table. The "handy man" was useful on this occasion, as on many others, for he produced from his capacious pockets a wonderful knife. Now this knife had a screw-driver blade that enabled me to countersink a number of holes in the cross pieces, thus permitting the short screws to "bite" in sound places in the broken pieces of the table. In a couple of hours we emerged triumphantly from a room in the farm-house that we had "commandeered" as a workshop, with the patched-up wreck bearing some semblance to a plane-table; it was certainly not in any way perfect, but it looked as if it might with care be used.

In the afternoon I was about to take a photograph of the farm-house; there were several girls standing in front of it, who, when they saw me point my camera, at once took to their heels and ran away (much to my surprise), laughing merrily as they disappeared through an open doorway. Thereafter when they saw me camera in hand they always bolted for the house; this made me determine to have a photograph of them; so I lay in wait, and when next they were running away, I took a snap as they were making straight for the doorway; the photograph, however, was a failure.

Maelifellshnukr, a prominent feature in the landscape here, is a mountain between three and four thousand feet high; it is prominent not only from Silfrastathr, but it can be seen from many places within a radius of sixty or seventy miles, and I afterwards saw it from several widely separated spots.

The pronunciation of some of the Icelandic words is rather puzzling to a new-comer; for instance, the first part of the name of this mountain is pronounced as if spelt may-lee-fettle—tl instead of double l.

The churches in Iceland are often put to strange uses (strange to foreigners, that is); many are the property of the farmers on whose land and beside whose houses they are built. A clergyman often has three or four of these farmers' churches in his district, and he holds occasional services in them. It is a custom, when the farm-house has not proper guest-chambers, for travellers to sleep in the church, and we did so in that at Silfrastathr, Miss Hastie using her own tent as usual. Our beds were arranged some on the floor and others suspended between the seats. The following photograph of the interior of the church taken at midnight shows some of our party peacefully slumbering in their beds.

Next day we made an early start, for we got away soon after ten o'clock, in order to ford the river before the melting snow caused the waters to rise. There was a considerable difference in the level, for I found on going down for my tub that a small branch in which I had the previous afternoon tested the temperature of the water was non-existent. This temperature-testing had caused some fun, for in using my sling thermometer for the purpose, I tied it to the end of my riding-whip, and thus held it suspended in the stream. Hill, catching me in the act, made a sketch which he entitled: "Our lunatic fishing with his thermometer as bait," and handed it round at our evening meal.

The report of the local guide as to the state of the river was a favourable one, so we proceeded down to the Herradsvötn, and prepared against probable wettings. Each had his own fancy for keeping out the water. Miss Hastie wore india-rubber top-boots—I have omitted to say that she rode astride, by far the best way for the rough work in Iceland; the "nautical adviser" used waterproof leggings, the "handy man" top-boots, Hill sheep-skin top-boots of native manufacture, Thomas did not seem to care whether he got wet or not, while I put on india-rubber shoes and chanced the rest. There were some interesting and picturesque costumes in the group.

SILFRASTATHR CHURCH. ASLEEP AT MIDNIGHT.

When all was ready, the local guide led off with some of the pack, three of our own guides following with other sections of it; the conductor went next, and the members of our party followed; I stayed behind for a few minutes to photograph the crossing of the first branch of the river, and then brought up the rear with the other guide. The river runs over a very broad bed and is divided into something like twenty streams, so a considerable time—about half an hour—was occupied before the last stream had been forded. The water was rather deep in some of the branches, and came up just to our knees. We made a very satisfactory crossing, and reached the other side without incident worth recording; a few hours later it would have been impassable again. The river was no doubt "up" when our conductor lost his life.

While crossing the river there was a very distinct mirage effect when looking down it towards the sea. Some of us took shots with cameras, but nothing resulted; it was too distant.

Two days before, and again during this day, there were breakages innumerable; the state of the pack-saddles, packs, straps, girths, bridles, etc., was simply disgraceful—there is no other word for it! Several falls had been due to the breaking of reins or girths, and by the end of the day there was scarcely a member of the party who had not come to grief in this way. Thomas, who was riding a spirited beast, came two croppers through his reins breaking: the second time his pony rolled upon him and he strained a muscle in his side; this was unfortunate, for he felt the effects more or less to the end of the journey. From the river valley, where Thomas had one fall, we ascended to the top of Tungusveit, a long narrow ridge that extends for about twenty miles, dividing the Herradsvötn and Svartá rivers. These long ridges, with rivers flowing in parallel lines on each side, form one of the geographical features of Iceland. Many of them are to be seen in different parts of the country. From this ridge, on which there were many "erratic" boulders, a fine view of Maelifellshnukr was obtained; at the foot of the peak beyond the Svartá there is a series of morainic hills.

At Maeælifell below the mountain there is a parsonage and farm-house, where we halted for a light luncheon. At these farm-houses milk and coffee can always be obtained, and sometimes excellent homemade biscuits and cake also, and these delicacies were forthcoming here. The Icelanders are noted for the good quality of their coffee, which may be regarded as the national drink.

Up to this point we had followed the more or less beaten tracks pursued by farmers and others in travelling from farm to farm; but we were now on the extreme edge of the fringe of population, and were about to plunge into the uninhabited interior. We decided to attack a route that had been used years before by the settlers and farmers—when the present good and frequent service of coasting steamers was not running—to convey fish, other provisions, etc., from and to the coast and across the island, and we found it a very interesting one.

We proceeded up the valley of the Svartá for a few miles over accumulations of river deposits, till we reached Gilhagi farm-house, where we halted for our mid-day meal. This was the last house met with on the north side of the desert and ice-bound interior, and we did not again see signs of habitation till arriving within two days of Reykjavik.

Mention must be made of an amusing misunderstanding that had occurred on the score of matches. It seems that the "nautical adviser" before leaving Akureyri had inquired of the conductor whether he had plenty of matches, and the latter had replied that he had plenty—and so he had for the ordinary requirements of the camp, but not for the general use of smokers; the conductor in his reply had thought only of the camp, while the other had asked from a smoker's point of view, hence there was an approach to a famine as regards the smokers, and it was pathetic sometimes to see the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man" carefully husbanding a match, in the hope that the supply would hold out to Reykjavik.

At Gilhagi the women were washing wool; there was a fire in the open beside a small stream of water, and on the fire a cauldron, in which the wool was boiled; it was afterwards washed in the running water.

CHAPTER V

THE INTERIOR—TO HVERAVELLIR

We were delayed for about two hours while waiting for the farmer to conduct us over the mountains; it was necessary to take a local guide, for none of our own men had ever been over the ground. When we did move on we tried to make up in pace for the delay; we made good time in ascending steadily from the valley over great accumulations of moraine matter and by ancient tracks through hummocky land. Riding through this hummocky ground sometimes requires the exercise of considerable caution. The continuous traffic of generations across the hummocks wore innumerable tracks, which have since been kept open by the weather, and deepened in some cases. Many of them are very deep, occasionally reaching almost to the knees. One has to raise first one foot and then the other to prevent their being badly crushed, or to avoid being unhorsed by contact with the sides as the ponies go on at a fast jog-trot. One member of the party caught both feet against the sides of the ruts, with the result that he was thrown forward, when he affectionately clasped his pony round the neck.

As we continued to ascend we met with a new experience, for we had to ride up one fairly long snow slope and several smaller ones, following in the tracks of the pack-train over the beaten-down snow. We were then at a considerable altitude, perhaps 2500 feet, and we entered what is known as Litlisandr, the little sand waste. Its name does not quite describe it—waste it is, and desolate enough, but there is not a great deal of sand in the part that we traversed, and we passed through its middle. It is an elevated moraine, comparatively flat, with a number of small lakes whose existence is due to a series of drift dams. It was very cold while we were crossing Litlisandr, for the icy wind was blowing strongly in our faces, so the latter part of the day's journey—a long one, for we did not reach camp till just a quarter of an hour before midnight—was made under considerable personal discomfort.

CROSSING A SMALL SNOW SLOPE.

The going was very rough, and some very steep slopes had to be descended after crossing the sandr, and nothing but the sure-footed ponies of Iceland could have got down them in safety. These ponies are hardy little beasts, averaging about twelve hands; born and bred in the hills, they are accustomed to forage for a living in the roughest country, and their experiences there cause them to become the sure-footed beasts that they are. They seem to run on three legs, for they always have a spare one ready for emergencies. Some of them stumble badly, but as a rule they do not, and it is a very rare thing for a pony to come down. It is wonderful how hard they keep on nothing but green feed; they never see a bit of "hard tack," yet, when required, they can jog along for twelve hours or more and be fresh at the end.

After descending from the sandr, we traversed more moraine matter until we reached our camping-ground at Athalmansvötn. Here there are two lakes, and it was on the banks of the more northerly Athalmansvatn that we camped. At the end of our journeys, especially when arriving late, as we did on this occasion, our hands and feet were icily cold—so cold that, to induce a better circulation, we were wont to seize mallets and drive in tent pegs, or to do something else requiring vigorous muscular exertion.

On our way over the sandr we saw the most magnificent sunset effects. Indeed, it was often our luck to witness the glories of an Icelandic sunset.

Towards morning a gale of wind struck us, and threatened to blow our tents into the lake. Fortunately the tents and their cords were sound, and the pegs driven well into the ground, so we escaped the discomfort of a sudden exposure to wind and weather.

Next day we reverted to the usual habit of starting late; but on this occasion it was excusable, for our dinner, or supper, or whatever name may be applied to our third meal, was not finished till past 1 a.m., so a start at 1 p.m. was not so late as it appeared. As it was difficult to draw a line between day and night, an hour or two one way or the other did not matter very much.

Some of our party had hurts which they nursed tenderly: the "nautical adviser" had a knee, Thomas a side, and so on; and great was the consumption of "Elliman's" and "Homocea," advantage being taken of the halts to rub in one or other of these remedies for ills of all kinds; but the "nautical adviser" and Thomas did not seem to take much heed of their hurts when they were in the saddle, for they rode hard enough over the rough moraines that we crossed. At first our course lay over soft peaty ground, but afterwards we were obliged to pick our way over expanses of great boulders. We had to ascend for a while, but suddenly, from the ridge at the highest point in our ascent, there was opened to us a fine panoramic view of two of Iceland's great ice-fields, Hoff Jökull and Lang Jökull. A number of prominent peaks stood out boldly, chief among them being Hrutafell, Skeljafiall, Kjalfell, and those of Kerlingarfjöll.

Our next experience was in crossing a wind-blown sand desert, where the wind blew the sand in clouds across our path and we had ocular demonstration of the work performed in such regions by the wind, where great clouds of sand sweep onward day after day, encroaching upon the land and continually altering the surface features. Although this is a genuine sandr it is not so marked on the maps. We covered several miles before we got clear of this sandblown desert and entered a region of ordinary moraine matter.

After lunching beside a small brook we continued over the moraine to the river Strangákvisl. The pack had gone on ahead while we were at lunch, but one guide was left behind to pilot us across the river, which is noted for the number of quicksands in its bed. There is a considerable spice of danger in crossing these quicksand rivers, for a pony sometimes gets into the soft treacherous bottom, and the rider runs the risk of a ducking, even if nothing more serious happens. The guides have a wholesome dread of the rivers where quicksands are known to exist, and not without due cause. No definite and fixed course can be taken—the quicksands are always changing their positions. The guide went first, as usual, and we were preparing to follow, when suddenly we saw his pony falter and then plunge wildly as he sank into soft sand. The guide was about to jump into the water in order to relieve the pony, and to distribute the weight over a greater area—this is always done as soon as the nature of the bottom is ascertained—when the pony struggled upon a hard bottom and righted himself. Another course was then chosen, and we all got over without finding any quicksand.

A succession of moraines brought us to the banks of a broad river, the Blandá, having several channels and a reputation for quicksands. By this time we had caught up the pack-train, but we waited while it crossed the river, one guide staying behind to pilot us after the pack had safely accomplished the crossing. The guide marked with big stones the point of entrance and then watched intently—as did we all—the passage of the river by the pack. It was forded, however, without misadventure, so we followed carefully in the track pursued by the train. The conductor's pony slipped in the middle of the river and nearly threw his rider into the water, but a quick recovery by the pony prevented a disagreeable wetting and an uncomfortable ride. We had a third river to cross before the day's fording was over. A quantity of moraine and hummocky land intervened, but that was traversed without incident worth recording. The third river is a second Blandá, a branch of the other Blandá; it is really the main river whose proper name is the Beljandi, but the people do not recognise that name, or so speak of it. Although not a quicksand river, most members of the party narrowly escaped coming to grief. It was very deep at the start, and there were some deeper holes not far from the bank; it had to be entered at a very sharp angle, and with a bit of a drop close to the steep bank. Miss Hastie was the first nearly to come to grief: her pony suddenly dived into one of the deep holes, and she herself was taking a header when her pony made a wonderful recovery from its plunge into the hole, and set her straight again; she, however, was unfortunate in straining her side, but she afterwards pluckily kept on the way; all the others following, with one exception, got into one or another of the deep holes; but they all escaped complete submersion, though wetted about legs and feet. I was the exception, for I was riding last—a position that enabled me to profit by the misfortunes of the others and avoid all the holes. I had a way frequently of bringing up the rear, because of stoppages made to take passing shots with camera at things of interest. This camera was always strapped to one of the rings of my saddle, where, on a comfortable pad on the off-side, it rode in safety—except when I happened to bring my whip down heavily upon it instead of upon the pony. The result of these stoppages was, that there was sometimes a delay in the crossing of a river, or a wait at an awkward spot, or at a point of divergence. It often happened that in coming up with the main party, I found my companions shivering from the effects of inaction in a cold wind—the wind is cold when it blows from one of the ice-fields—and in a frame of mind that must have been affected by the wind, judging from the freezingly cold manner in which I was received.

After crossing the river, we continued along near to its banks for several miles. In a pool just below some small rapids, the only rapids we had seen, there were several swans. Our course lay, as usual, over moraine matter and hummocky land, but there was a big patch of black sand composed of fine lava particles that we had to cross. Thus we proceeded until reaching Hveravellir, our next camping-ground, where we found a complete change in the appearance of the country.

We seemed to have got clear of hummocks and boulders, and to have reached the margin of fairyland, for we found ourselves, with grass around, looking at a series of hot springs, fumaroles, and sinter terraces, down which azure blue water trickled, lodging in a number of basins in the terraces, and adding by its colour to the beauty of the scene. Visions of the delights of a natural warm bath rose before me as I looked upon the terraces, recalling the luxury of bathing at the Pink Terraces in New Zealand, before their destruction by the eruption of Mount Tarawera. There are many pleasures in anticipation, for we did not enjoy warm bathing here; we had none; the water was too hot and the basins too small—though there was one small pothole in which the water was not very hot, where one could, with the aid of a big sponge, imagine better things, for the water did not look clean and sparkling and blue as in other basins.

Miss Hastie might have had an awkward experience at the spring where she elected to perform her ablutions, of whose periodical activity she was at the time unaware. During breakfast, one of the guides informed us that the small geyser Miss Hastie had been using as her hot-water tap had "gone off." Subsequent experience proved such pools untrustworthy for washing of any kind. A number of handkerchiefs left by themselves to soak were found an hour or two later making their way down an escape hole in the basin, and one that had been entirely absorbed by suction was not returned during a subsequent eruption by the dishonest geyser.

We erected our tents beside a blue warm-water stream facing the sinter terraces, and as the next day was Sunday, we camped there for two nights. We all took a number of photographs of the terraces and the hot springs, and tried to catch the small geysers when they erupted, as with a few exceptions they did at short intervals; it is true that the eruption was not very violent, and the water was not thrown to a great height, three feet, perhaps, being the maximum.

HVERAVELLIR—THE SINTER TERRACES.

The next day was devoted to exploring the surrounding neighbourhood, and the different members of the party were struck with different features. Thomas and I set off together. We made for the higher ground, and looked round; we at once saw that we were at the edge of a recent (geologically) lava flow. About four miles distant there stuck up two horns, which we afterwards discovered to be the only prominent remains of the cone of the volcano, Strytur, whence the lava had been ejected. Strytur stands in the middle of the long strip of country lying between, and about equidistant from, the two great ice-fields, Lang Jökull and Hoff Jökull, the area of each of which is roughly about five hundred square miles. The strip is about fourteen miles wide at its narrowest part (not eight as shown on the existing maps), and extends north and south about twenty-five miles. Strytur is on the divide, or water-parting, between one system of rivers flowing north and another flowing south, and it stands on the highest part of this strip of land. The lava, as it issued from the volcano, flowed north and south down gentle declivities, and spread out east and west almost to the outlying ranges on the margins of the ice-fields. North it extends to just beyond Dufufell, and south almost to Lake Hvitarvatn. I had come to this part of the country intending to make a quick survey of it as we traversed it from end to end; Thomas also wished to note its structure, so we both looked with interest over the expanse of broken lava spread out before us. It was the roughest possible country to survey (as was subsequently proved), and we were not altogether taken with the task before us. We made our way to a prominent peak of lava that rose forty or fifty feet above the general level, and thence looked around. I wanted a line on which to base my survey, and I decided that this peak and a similar peak, lying in an easterly direction about a mile away, would be suitable elevated ends for a base line.

CHAPTER VI

THE INTERIOR—STRYTUR AND ITS LAVA

I commenced my survey the next morning before breakfast, when I went out to the first position on the lava-peaks and there set up the plane-table, that table which had so badly come to grief at the heels of the runaway pony a few days before. My drawing-paper had been kicked to pieces and was quite useless, and it was only by a chance that I was able to attempt a survey at all. At Edinburgh, just before starting, Thomas bought two or three small sheets of drawing-paper for his own work, in order to be independent of my supply; it was lucky that he had done so, for I was thus able to borrow from him. The size of the sheets was much smaller than mine, and they did not nearly fill the table; it did not much matter though, for part of the table was quite unfit to work upon, because of the long holes where splinters were missing; of course, the area of country capable of being mapped on a sheet was reduced according to the size, and it meant the use of a greater number of sheets of paper, which was a disadvantage; but the board of the plane-table could with care be worked upon, and there was paper available. Having set up the plane-table in position, I erected a flag-post and returned to camp to breakfast. I found that Thomas had, in the meantime, made a small survey on his own account of a line of fissure running through the hot springs of Hveravellir, and had located the position of the springs on that line.

The morning was so beautifully fine, and the sun shining so brightly, that we breakfasted in the open at tables erected in front of the tents. We photographed the camp and the party, with the guides at ease close by. The frontispiece is from a negative, the property of Miss Hastie, which was taken by the conductor. Our meals were not always taken under such favourable conditions—the weather, as a rule, was not good enough. We generally had them under cover of a tent, where we messed in much closer quarters, small accidents being not uncommon in consequence. One morning they were more numerous than usual: the soup took a long time to boil, and when at last it was hot enough, the conductor stumbled and spilled some of the precious liquid over the "handy man," who would have preferred an internal application; then somebody upset the coffee; soon afterwards ominous creaks were heard to proceed from where the "nautical adviser" was seated on his camp-stool, which finally collapsed, and our heavy-weight measured his length on the ground. But such incidents as these, trivial as they were, served to enliven us; they were specially diverting when the weather was adverse.

The weather gave promise of great things, so Thomas and I started away for our first position full of good intentions. I soon got to work, and made excellent progress with my plane-tabling; but gradually there was a change, the sky clouded over, and before long rain began to fall; now, to work at a plane-table in the rain is impossible, so I had to stop. We decided instead to measure along our base line towards the second position at the other end of it. We started in a drizzling rain, which increased as we proceeded; it was very difficult work, for the line was over the roughest possible lava-field. We made good progress, however, but when we had measured thirteen-sixteenths of a mile, it was raining so heavily that, wet through as we then were, and with boots filled with water, we resolved to abandon work for the day. After we had started in the morning, the rest of the party proceeded to the next camping-ground, a few miles farther on, at Thjofadal—a valley at the foot of the big mountain of the region, Hrutafell. For this camp we made tracks over a perfect wilderness, where the fantastic shapes assumed by the lava were most wonderful. There were vents innumerable, including a number of the fissure type; arches, too, that had resulted from side pressure; also many other peculiar forms: pillars, circular vents, etc. On nearing Thjofadal we emerged from the lava and entered upon the moraines at the foot of the range bordering the great ice-field of Lang Jökull. Passing over one of the spurs running down from this outlying range, we dropped by a steep descent into the valley of the Thjofadalsá, a small stream on the south side of the ridge known as Kjalhraun (lava ridge) that crosses the lava-field by way of Strytur, the highest spot in it.

The next morning Thomas and I returned to our first position. Originally most of us had intended to make an attack upon Hrutafell, the giant peak of Lang Jökull; but the rain had delayed my work by the greater part of a day, so Thomas and I had to give up all idea of attempting the ascent. The idea was finally abandoned by the other members of the party, but a preliminary survey of the difficulties was made by the conductor, who thought that he could see a way that might render a successful ascent possible. The "handy man," being released from the Hrutafell expedition, offered to lend a hand in measuring the remainder of the base line, so he accompanied us back to position number one; we also took Thorlakur, one of the guides, with us. On the way, which was along the foot of the range outlying Lang Jökull, we had to pass over a small snow-field, close to which we came upon a good specimen of ropy lava.

After taking several photographs from my first position, we proceeded along the base line to where a staff had been left to mark the point already reached, and thence continued our measurements to the second position at the other end of the base. We found the two positions to be nearly a mile and a quarter apart. A more difficult piece of measurement could not be imagined, taken as the line was over the extremely rough surface of a broken-up scoriaceous lava-field. We remained at the peak forming the second end of the base line for several hours, during which period I was very busy at the plane-table. We then proceeded towards the volcano, Strytur, across the lava, and found it a scene of the wildest and most fantastic desolation—a constant succession of rough lava, ropy surfaces, vents, arches, snow-fields, and small lakes of icy coldness formed by melting snow. Occasionally we had an unpleasant variation, for there were many bogs that appeared to be quite solid until the plunging of a pony, as it sank into one of them, told us that the apparently hard-looking surface was a mass of mud with a number of lava blocks and stones set in it.

Arrived at Strytur, another indescribable scene of desolation met our view. The lava was twisted and contorted in the wildest manner, and mixed in the utmost confusion. The volcano has two craters, inner and outer; the former rather more than three-eighths of a mile, and the latter nearly five-eighths in diameter. The two horns are of peculiar shape: the western horn being but an isolated pinnacle rising less than a hundred feet above its surroundings; the eastern horn is another isolated peak, but though one side of it is perpendicular, and goes deep down into the inner crater, the other side falls gradually away in the typical slope of a volcano. These two horns stand up as distinct landmarks, and can be seen from a great distance to the north; in the south, however, they are hidden, by intervening hills and mountains, from many places that are but a short distance away. The inner crater contains much lava debris, some of the blocks being of enormous size, while in several places there is snow of unknown depth.

My third position was on the highest point of the eastern horn. The wind was very cold, blowing as it was direct from the ice-field, and my companions who had but little work to do had a trying time of it in such an exposed position. They stood shivering in the cold, but descended after a while to the foot of the horn, whence they whistled away at short intervals in an endeavour to hurry me over the work; but as there was no rain, I had, in spite of cold winds, to stick to it, and take advantage of the opportunity to work at the plane-table. I was hailed with delight when I did descend—delight at the prospect of getting away from such a bleak, inhospitable spot. The view from Strytur looking towards Hrutafell and the ice and snow field of Lang Jökull is very fine. Once more we crossed the lava-field and made the best of the way to our camp at Thjofadal.

Next day I was obliged to go on with my work without a companion, and had not a smooth time of it altogether; things did not go right. Over-night I had determined to fix my fourth position on the mountain Rauthkollur, the highest point at the southern end of the outlying range of Lang Jökull. I set out alone, for Thomas was in trouble with his side, and the "handy man" did not look upon the expedition with much interest, for the weather was most unfavourable for any one not having special work to do—rain, hail, snow, and blow were the conditions that held during the whole of the time that I was away from camp. The way lay up a steep gorge between the mountain and a spur running down from near the end of the range; the slopes of the gorge were covered with scree that gave way at every step, and often I slid back several yards before I could stop myself. The climb was a stiff and very uncomfortable one, laden as I was with instruments, glasses, camera, and plane-table; but by sticking to it I gradually ascended yard by yard. I got off the scree whenever possible, and climbed up the course of a small mountain stream; but there were many waterfalls that could not be climbed, which caused me to return to the scree again and again, often sending the loose material flying down in a series of landslips. Higher up I skirted several small snow-fields, where better progress was possible, for the scree at the edges of the snow did not slip away so freely. The ascent would have been easy enough had I not been so heavily and awkwardly laden, or had my hands been free.

At the summit of Rauthkollur a glorious view rewarded me. In front stretched the great ice-field of Lang Jökull; away to the left was the giant Hrutafell: three of its glaciers faced me, while a fourth could just be seen at right angles to the others. The back of this mountain merges in a series of hills that are set in the ice of Lang Jökull. Below Hrutafell, and at the foot of the ice-cap of Lang Jökull, a perfect network of streams came from the snow and ice; it was interesting to trace their meanderings as they ran into stream after stream, until finally all joined in one swift-running torrent and flowed at the foot of the moraines below Hrutafell. Away to the right I looked along the outlying range, on the end peak of which I was standing, and down into the valley between the range and the ice-field.

In spite of the adverse weather, my plane-tabling was very successful from this station; its commanding position enabled me to obtain a good view of the surrounding country, not only over the ice-field, but also over the country from which the ascent had been made. I looked down into Thjofadal, right over the mountain Thjofafell, across the lava-field to Strytur and Kjalfell, and to the ice-field of Hoff Jökull beyond. Showers had to be dodged and plane-tabling done when it did not rain or snow; but I filled up the intervals by taking several photographs, and by making a boiling-point observation for altitude, also clinometer observations for calculating the heights of surrounding peaks.

The return to camp was made at a quicker rate than the ascent; but I met with a nasty accident, by slipping on a stone in the gorge and diving head first down a small waterfall into a pool of water below. The plane-table turned over, and coming upon me, pinned me down in the water for a few seconds; the camera was underneath in the water, which was flowing through it, for the outside case was not water-tight. I extricated myself in course of time, not much the worse for the fall; a badly bruised knee, the loss of a quantity of skin from hands, and a few minor bruises, being all the damage that I had received—it might have been much worse, laden as I was. On arrival in camp I was patched up, and the "nautical adviser" busied himself in preparing soup and other comforts for the inner man, for which attentions I was grateful.

The other members of the party had not done very much in the bad weather, one or two small excursions to spots in the neighbourhood excepted. Late in the afternoon we struck camp and moved on a few miles farther, to a spot known as Gránanes, right on the other side of the lava-fields. Our way lay round by Hrutafell by the side of the river Falakvisl, which runs in a deep gorge at the foot of the mountain. From this river we struck across rough lava, then moraine matter, and again lava right up to the river Svatá. The rivers, as a rule, run along at the edges of the lava flows; there are some exceptions, however, and one instance, in the west of the island, I will refer to in its proper place. One very fine vent we came upon when crossing the lava. Gránanes was on the other side of the Svatá, just by a spot where the water falls ten or fifteen feet over a hard ledge of rock extending across the river. Beyond the river all was moraine matter, great moraine hills, the material of which has come down from Hoff Jökull and has been piled up for miles along its margins. Many very fine erratics are dotted about on the surface near Gránanes.

A VOLCANIC VENT OF THE FISSURE TYPE.

It was on the moraine side of the river that we made our camp. Round about there was lying a number of twigs and dried roots, the remains of dwarf willows that had grown there when the conditions were rather more favourable. Miss Hastie suggested that we might be energetic and collect some of these in order to make a fire. It was a cold night, and the idea of a camp-fire commended itself to us. We gathered together a number of the twigs and roots, and Hill tried to ignite them. He raised a dense smoke, but though he worked hard and fanned industriously he was unable to induce a satisfactory blaze. Anyhow, it was cheering to see the smoke rising into the air, and we did not mind being half stifled when occasionally it was blown into our faces.

A SURVEY PHOTOGRAPH (NO. 169) FROM GRÁNANES (☉ E) LOOKING TOWARDS LANG JÖKULL.

Next morning, after breakfast, I went up to a terrace of the moraine where I made my fifth station, and fixed its position on the map; I also did some plane-tabling while preparations were being made for an expedition to Kerlingarfjöll.

CHAPTER VII

THE INTERIOR—KERLINGARFJÖLL

A SURVEY PHOTOGRAPH (NO. 183) TAKEN FROM ☉ E LOOKING TOWARDS KERLINGARFJÖLL.

When preparations had been completed, some of us started for the mountains of Kerlingarfjöll, where high up, among the snow and ice, there are hot springs, fumaroles, and solfataras. The party was a small one. Thomas, Hill, and I started with the conductor and two guides. Unfortunately Thomas's side was giving him "fits," and he had to return after going but a very short distance.

We had a big quicksand river, the Jokulvisl, to cross—a river that is often highly dangerous, and sometimes, when the water is "up," unfordable. We were accompanied so far by the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man," who afterwards proceeded up the river to view a very fine gorge in it, which we saw from the other side. The journey was most interesting; we crossed vast moraines, where enormous erratics were dotted about on the surface, before we reached the Jokulvisl. The guides all had a great dread of this river; but we made a good crossing, for the recent cold weather had retarded the melting of the snow, and there was no flood in the river, though it was running very swiftly. The sensation when crossing these swift-running rivers is very uncanny—one seems to be rushing up-stream against the current, and on looking at the ponies and their riders in front the impression is deepened: they seem to be moving rapidly as the water rushes by and foams round them, but really the pace is very slow, for the ponies plod along steadily through the water. Even if those in front could be ignored, the impression of going rapidly up-stream could not be effaced, for the water would rush by and swirl round one's own pony just the same. It might be thought that a glance at the opposite bank of the river ought to dispel the illusion, but even that does not correct the false impression. After crossing the Jokulvisl, we proceeded along its banks for nearly a mile to where the river has carved its way deep down through the lava, and left sides that rise vertically for a hundred feet or more. There is a fine hard dyke in one place extending into the river, on the end of which a pinnacle rises that adds much to the grandeur of the scene. After photographing this gorge, we proceeded across more moraine matter until reaching some of the main blocks of the Kerlingarfjöll mountains. In these moraines we had very steep slopes to ascend and descend; in one case the descent was so sharp that for safety we all dismounted and led our ponies down the side, at each step sending down a shower of stones and pebbles. At Kerlingarfjöll we suddenly came upon a series of inclined snow-fields, one of which we ascended, traversing it from end to end. It was more than a mile long, but the zigzag course that we had to pursue made it seem almost interminable; as it was, we were nearly an hour making the crossing. The photograph shows the members of the party apparently soaring up to heaven on their ponies, who in their wild flight seem to be emulating Pegasus. Soon after we had started up this snow slope, the clouds descended upon us and we were enveloped in a thick mist; we could see nothing but just a very limited circle of snow around us, and thus we proceeded, zigzagging the whole way. We crossed several other snow-fields, but they were of less extent.

ASCENDING A SNOW SLOPE.

KERLINGARFJÖLL—FIRE AND ICE.

When approaching the hot springs, we became aware of their nearness by the sulphurous smell that came wafting towards us. Suddenly, from a ridge, we beheld a most wonderful and awe-inspiring sight. All around there were snow and ice-fields, and from their midst, but on the far side of a deep valley that intervened, there rose a cloud of steam, the strong sulphurous smell of which suggested the nearness of the lower regions. There was a mass of yellow, brown, green, and blue clayey matter—liparite softened by steam it was—that had been cut and shaped by ice, snow, and water into a series of cones and cone-like surfaces, and from crevices in this clay the sulphurous steam escaped. Below was the deep intervening valley, the valley of the Ásquidsá, a river that flows from the upper heights of Kerlingarfjöll. To get down to this stream was a work of no slight difficulty; it required patience, much hard work, and much coaxing of ponies. We rode through the snow, and slid down steep slopes of various-coloured clay. These slopes became so precipitous at last that we all had to dismount and plod along their sides, coaxing our unwilling steeds to follow. Presently we reached what looked very much like an impasse at the end of a valley, the sides of which had gradually converged until the channel was then scarcely wider than the ponies were broad. The guides were not to be beaten, however, for they proceeded on foot, and literally dragged the ponies one by one down this channel, to where the snow came to an end and there was a drop of two or three feet into a small stream of water. The guides splashed into this, and by dint of much coaxing induced the ponies to follow, leading them along the stream. Right at the end there was a small waterfall, with a deep pool below. Down the fall they slid, splashing into the pool, where they stood panting beside the main stream that we had seen from above, which ran at right angles to the smaller stream. Meantime, Hill, the conductor, and I had been walking at a slightly higher level on the top of a gradually descending spur of clayey matter. Down the slope of this we scrambled on all fours, carrying with us several pounds' weight of the clay on each boot, to say nothing of what we had on clothes and hands. From the side of the steep slope we mounted our ponies, considerably heavier than when we had been on their backs a few minutes before. We crossed the stream to the hot springs. Some of the ponies objected to passing the hot, steaming holes, and absolutely refused for a long time to do so; but eventually all were coaxed or dragged by. To describe the place is impossible, and mere words are inadequate to explain the nature of the scene. Photographs that I took do not give much idea of the place, for they are all more or less failures. It differs from anything that I saw in New Zealand, because in the hot spring region in the North Island there is no ice and snow. I took a boiling-point observation for altitude, and found the elevation of the stream at the foot of the burning hill to be 3088 feet above sea-level.

I hurried over lunch, and set off with Hannes, one of the guides, to try to do some plane-tabling; but the Fates, in the shape of dense mist, were against me, and prevented me from seeing anything more distant than a few hundred feet. On the upward journey I had noticed a good position for a new station. On the way down to the spot chosen, which was below the long snow slope, we mistook our way in the mist, and went down the wrong slope, coming to an almost sheer descent before finding out our mistake. We learnt this just in time, however, to prevent a catastrophe. We retraced our steps by the tracks in the snow, until we reached the right slope, and there struck the zigzag track made on the ascent. The intended new station was reached without further incident occurring.

From the glimpses of the country that I had obtained on the upward journey, I was convinced that to make a map of these mountains (Kerlingarfjöll) would require a week of fine weather and a series of camps on the spot. As nothing of much value could be done in a few hours, I did not lose very much by the mist having descended over the country, except the exceedingly fine views. It was disappointing not to be able to get to work with camera, but under the circumstances nothing could be done except growl at adverse luck.

After waiting an hour or so for the rest of the party—Hill, the conductor, and Sigurthur—who came on more at their leisure, we resumed the descent towards the plains. Suddenly we got below the line of drifting clouds, and there we beheld some wonderful sights—remarkable scenes due to a series of rapid atmospheric changes. A small lake in the lava-field suddenly came into view as we reached the line of the reflected sunlight. The lake shone out, gradually increasing in intensity, until it glowed brilliantly with a marvellous light. The effect as the scene opened out beneath the clouds was weirdly wonderful. Some of the clouds were of a deep blue, almost purple, tint, producing, as they overhung a line of bright light and vivid colouring, a most impressive picture. Away in the distance, on Lake Hvitarvatn, we could see icebergs floating in their hundreds. These bergs were great blocks of ice that had broken away from the glaciers flowing from Lang Jökull into the lake. The return journey was accomplished, without the occurrence of any untoward incident, at a rate that showed of what stuff the ponies were made, for they cantered over the roughest of moraines with scarcely a stumble, and we made excellent time to our camp at Gránanes. There we found that a real fire had been conjured up in our absence, and a successful attempt made to bake bread in a wash-hand basin—an instance of the shifts that had to be made, which were many and various.

When passing over the sloping moraine matter towards Kerlingarfjöll we crossed a number of peculiar terrace formations, and we often found similar terraces on the hillsides in other places also. These terraces have edges or banks of vegetation, which seem to grow in irregular lines and to arrest the natural descent of alluvial matter, forming a series of terraces or steps that rise, as a rule, but a few inches one above another. The vegetation also collects some of the wind-blown sand of the deserts, which thus assists in the formation of the terraces.

CHAPTER VIII

THE INTERIOR—HVITARVATN AND GULLFOSS

I was early at work next morning, and did some plane-tabling at Gránanes before breakfast. Afterwards, when I had finished what I wanted to do at that station, Thomas and I, accompanied by Thorlakur, the guide, proceeded to Efriskutur, a mountain four or five miles distant, on the highest point of which I purposed making my sixth station. We rode down the river and along the ridge of a long stretch of moraine where there were some fine "erratics"; one very large specimen being worthy of a photograph, I got Thorlakur on horseback to stand beside it while I took a record with camera. Along these moraines we went until reaching the slopes of Efriskutur, up which we rode to the summit. I set up the table on the highest point, and got to work; but the sorrows of a plane-tabler were very marked. A strong wind was blowing, and my first trouble was when, in an unguarded moment, I had my hand off the paper; the wind, a very cold and strong one, caught up the map and tore it from the pins by which it was fastened to the table; it was being whisked away, when Thomas caught it, and so prevented it from disappearing on the wings of half a gale into the valley several hundred feet below. I next found that my tracing-paper had gone, and that it was impossible to use paper of any kind to work out the position of the new station, for the wind was altogether too strong for it to be held down on the map. I got out some drawing-paper, however, in readiness for an attempt, and in a bit of a lull in the wind I managed, by cutting holes along the lines of sight, to find the position—it had not been fixed from other stations, for there was only one ray to it. We were nearly frozen by the intense coldness of the wind that was blowing straight from the ice of Lang Jökull, but fortunately it abated slightly after a while and enabled me to get to work. Lunch soon afterwards, and the reappearance of the sun, tended to restore better circulation, and thenceforward all went well, except that when I wanted to make a boiling-point observation for altitude, the water-bottle was found to be empty. I had lent it to Hill the previous day at the Kerlingarfjöll hot springs in order that he might collect algæ; he had returned it empty, and I had forgotten to refill it. As we had brought no water with us for lunch, it looked as if the observation could not be made for want of it; but I remembered in time that there was a small patch of snow on the mountain-side, not very far down. Thomas kindly went to get some of the snow, which I melted, and was thus enabled to complete the observation. Efriskutur is a tuff mountain; at first we supposed that it was composed entirely of moraine matter, for on the Kerlingarfjöll side, by which we ascended, the hill is covered with it. On examining the other side there was no trace of moraine; there was scree in places, but a great deal of the tuff was uncovered. When the atmosphere was quite clear in the afternoon, we saw standing out above the ice of Lang Jökull a prominent peak, a fine specimen of a volcanic neck.

IMMENSE "ERRATICS."

Our work done, we made tracks for Hvitarvatn, the lake beside which we were to camp that night. To the river Svartá we traversed moraine matter; beyond the river, however, which we crossed, there was no moraine—nothing but the recent lava from Strytur, which quite covered the intervening country to the Falakvisl, a river that has carved its way along the other edge of the lava; on the far side there are great moraine hills. The Falakvisl is a deep, swift river, flowing between banks that are very high in places; it drains the valley between the ice of Lang Jökull and the outlying range north of the mountain Hrutafell, round which it flows, collecting the streams that run down from it and from the other mountains and hills south of the divide of Kjalhraun, the lava ridge by Strytur. This river discharges its waters into Lake Hvitarvatn, and we followed its course to within a mile or so of the point of discharge.

We found the camp beside the lake, about a mile from the water; there was no convenient camping-ground any nearer to it, for the intervening land was a mere swamp. We were in the midst of wonderful and magnificent surroundings. The lake was covered with innumerable icebergs—great lumps broken off from the edges of two great glaciers that flow from Lang Jökull to the water's edge on the far side of the lake. It was interesting to note the fact that the farther away the icebergs were from the glaciers the smaller they were, until on the margin of the lake where the water was not so cold they disappeared altogether. Facing us was a great basaltic mountain, Skrutharfell, set in between the two fine glaciers mentioned. To the left was the great solid mass of Bláfell (pronounced Blou-fettle, the á like ou in blouse), a mountain that had much snow covering its sides; to the right, Hrutafell reared its icy head high into the air; behind, there was the mountain range of Kerlingarfjöll. All this was affected by the gorgeousness of the sunset effects; the sun was descending behind the ice-flow, and lighting up ice and snow with the most wonderful colouring; it was a thing to be seen and remembered—to describe it in adequate terms is impossible.

The lake was the resort of many swans, which disturbed the slumbers of at least one member of the party, for they called and squawked in the most persistent manner through the small hours—I will not say of the night, for we were having twenty-four hours of daylight just then.

I was moving early next morning, for I intended to get to work at the plane-table, but the Fates were against me once more, this time in the shape of clouds which overhung the tops of Kerlingarfjöll and Hrutafell, completely hiding two of the points of those mountains that I required to sight in order to fix my position. I set up the plane-table, however, in the hope that the clouds would clear later on, and then took a boiling-point observation. After breakfast I waited in vain for an hour or two for the clouds to rise and the peaks to clear, for otherwise it was impossible to fix the position. The peaks were gradually clearing, but time was passing; we had a long day's journey before us, and a deep and dangerous river to ford on the way, so a guide could not well be spared to wait an hour or two until proper observations were possible. I had to make the best of it, so took sights on a separate sheet of paper to a number of points, hoping that eventually I should be able to complete. The peaks did clear at the last moment, and I took sights to them; but as there was not time to fix the position on the map itself and to take the other sights again, I did all that was possible under the circumstances, hoping that what had been done would fit in properly. On returning to England, I found the observations agreed very well with my previous work.

My work, so far as the map was concerned, was at an end. I cannot say that it was completed, for the time spent there was too short to permit of the whole of the country lying between Lang Jökull and Hoff Jökull being mapped. I had hoped to complete a map extending from Dufufell and Hveravellir in the north to the mountains of Kerlingarfjöll and the lake of Hvitarvatn to the south; but several things conspired to prevent my doing it full justice, the chief of which were that we were two days late in arriving at Hveravellir, and that the weather was not quite so good as it might have been.

It was about mid-day, if I remember rightly, when we got under way and proceeded along near the shore of the lake; we crossed the Svartá close by where it enters the lake, and at a point just below where the river falls over a ledge of hard rock ten to twelve feet high. We passed over great accumulations of moraine matter towards Bláfell, gradually rising until an excellent view of Hvitarvatn and the myriads of icebergs floating on its surface was obtained. So we proceeded until we came to the river Hvitá. This was one of our big rivers, and its crossing was a dangerous undertaking. The pack, as usual, showed the way and made a successful crossing. We stayed behind, for the purpose of photographing the pack when in mid-stream. The photograph that I took shows the pack-train right in the middle of the river. We followed, and crossed without any untoward incident occurring; the water was rather deep, and when in mid-stream it came up to our knees. At this river we saw a number of sheep swimming across, which is quite a common thing for them to do.

THE PACK-TRAIN CROSSING THE HVITÁ.

I afforded some entertainment to my companions in the course of the day. The pony I was then riding was a confirmed stumbler, and he blundered along during the whole day, sometimes on four legs, but more often on three; occasionally he shortened his two front legs and tried to make good time on his knees. It was not altogether pleasant riding, for there was great uncertainty as to which mode of progression he would next adopt. After several bad stumbles he came to grief. He stumbled, recovered, went on two paces, and then came right down. He caught me off guard when having a loose seat immediately after his recovery, with the result that I was deposited, very nicely and quietly, however, in a soft sand-patch that was handy. I was much disgusted, for I happened to be just in front of the other members of the party. But this was nothing compared with the next entertainment that I gave soon afterwards. We had not proceeded much farther before some of the rotten saddlery gave way: my crupper broke and a ring at the back of the saddle was dragged out—my oilskins, etc., came adrift and fell; but one of the packages did not get free, it hung by a strong cord at the pony's heels, where it dangled, knocking against them. My pony did what any self-respecting pony would have done in similar circumstances—he promptly bolted! Now the ground thereabouts was not remarkable for its evenness; indeed, it was one of the roughest pieces of ground that we passed over in the course of the day. He made excellent time, and the harder he went, the more the package hit against his heels, until he became quite frantic with fright and ran amuck. I was at the rear of the party some distance behind when he started off, but we soon caught up the others, bumping into one, cannoning off a second to a third, and nearly unseating Miss Hastie, who was not prepared for the charge. My only fear, as he was such a bad stumbler and had already been down, was that he would come a cropper in the course of his wild career and throw me upon a lump of lava; but as he kept his feet, I stuck to him and at last managed to get him under control and pull him up. He stood trembling in affright, for the objectionable package was still at his heels. I dismounted and removed the disturbing cause, afterwards returning in company with the "handy man" to collect the goods and chattels that were lying distributed over the country that had just been crossed in something like record time. In spite of the bumps and knocks that they received, my companions enjoyed the spectacle, and it afforded them an opportunity for some good-natured chaff.

A FINE GORGE IN THE SIDE OF BLÁFELL.

During the latter part of the day's journey, which was along the high banks of the river Hvitá, we saw some fair specimens of columnar basalt. There were times, when we were travelling along on the edge of these high banks within a few inches of the edge of a drop of two or three hundred feet, that I did not feel quite comfortable, for my pony continued to stumble along to the end of the journey; but he did not come right down again, though several times he had to be pulled up from his knees.

GULLFOSS—FRONT VIEW WITH "RAINBOW" EFFECT.

GULLFOSS—SIDE VIEW.

We came round Bláfell in the course of the day, and there saw a number of very fine gorges in the mountain sides, deep ravines carved out by the streams and torrents on their way to the river, the Hvitá.

Our way lay over moraine accumulations nearly the whole of the day, and during the latter part of it along the right bank of the Hvitá (White River), a swift-rushing glacier stream that drains Lake Hvitarvatn of the water there collected from Lang Jökull. There are many deep and picturesque gorges in the basalt through which the river flows.

GULLFOSS—THE UPPER FALL.

We camped beside the Hvitá at a spot known as Sandá, which lies just below the confluence of the Hvitá and Sandá. We were then near the southern end of Lang Jökull, looking upon the very striking mountains that fringe its edge, the Jarlhettur (the Earl's Hats) as they are called, because of the shapes of their upper portions; several of these peaks are interesting inasmuch as they are, without doubt, the hard cores of ancient volcanoes—volcanic plugs or necks.

GULLFOSS—THE FALL INTO THE RAVINE.

At Sandá we remained over Sunday, but as it rained hard we were confined to our tents nearly the whole day—our Sundays were, as a rule, very wet, and of six or seven that we had in or about Iceland only two were fine; it did not matter much, for Sunday with us was always a day of rest, and the rain only kept us to our tents. On these occasions much tobacco was consumed and as many matches were used as economy allowed.

On leaving Sandá our way lay for several miles over a desolate sandy and stony desert. Farther on there were many evidences of ice-action: the rounded forms of boulders attracted our attention, as did numerous ice-scratchings on them; some of the outcropping lumps were beautifully rounded, and in one place (in the same valley as Gullfoss) after passing the falls, but just before reaching Bratholt, there was undoubted evidence that the ice had swept up a slight rise in the valley before descending the steep slope towards the Bratholt farm.

GULLFOSS—THE RAVINE BELOW THE FALLS.

BELOW GULLFOSS—CASTELLATED DYKES.

Gullfoss is one of the sights of Iceland. It is a magnificent waterfall on the Hvitá, where the white water of the river cascades over a series of step-like barriers stretching from side to side, and then plunges finally over a ledge of very hard rock into a yawning abyss more than a hundred feet deep, whence it throws up clouds of spray that are carried hither and thither as the wind sweeps first this way and then that; so thick is the spray, that one's clothing soon becomes saturated on incautiously getting into it. Gullfoss is one of the finest waterfalls in Europe, and it is only surpassed in grandeur, if at all, by one or two others in Iceland. We saw the falls at their best, for when we arrived the sun was shining brightly and a rainbow playing over the spray as it rose from the gorge. It is true that the sky clouded over afterwards, and that rain began to fall before we left Gullfoss, but we carried away the impression of the broken waters of the cascade sparkling in the sun, and of the colours of the rainbow playing on the spray over the ravine. The water has carved out a deep gorge in the basalt, and below the falls there are many good specimens of basaltic columns. In the lower part of the gorge there are the picturesque remains of a very fine hard dyke that has a much softer one beside it. These remains are to be seen on both sides of the river, and they have assumed the outline and form of a number of castellated buildings perched high upon prominent peaks.

CHAPTER IX

GEYSIR AND THINGVELLIR

We were very near the margin of the desert interior, for within two or three miles we arrived at the farm-house of Bratholt, the first human habitation that we had seen for ten or twelve days. We had traversed the uninhabited country and were then entering upon the final stage of the journey across the island, where we expected to see some of the better class of farms and farmers. Bratholt farm-house seemed to be one of the superior kind—it was certainly the best that we had seen so far. We lunched there, and while the meal was being prepared were shown over the premises by the farmer's wife and daughters. A fine specimen of an old kitchen attracted my attention, and I determined to try to photograph it. The housewife was most anxious to help with the camera. I had a difficulty in setting it up in a suitable position, so she volunteered to hold it wherever I wanted it to stand. I tried to explain that she could not hold it still enough, and that it would have to be kept in one position for nearly ten minutes; she stood in the way looking on till I fetched a guide to explain matters, when she left me to my own devices. It was quite a picture, this kitchen; one of the curiosities it contained was an old quern with a bone (human?) for a handle. The room was as smoky as most of the Icelandic kitchens usually are; in the roof there was a number of skins that had been hung up to dry or placed there for preservation. Some three-legged pots stood in a corner on the floor; a fire was burning in a fireplace built of lumps of basalt, and the smoke that arose from the smouldering peat bricks hung in the air till it gradually escaped through a hole in the roof.

We invaded the work-room and bed-chamber, which is usually called the bathstofa. As its name implies, this chamber was once the bath-room of the house; but bathing has gone much out of fashion with the Icelander, and he no longer considers a tub at short intervals to be desirable. The bathstofa is now used as a living-room; it is fitted up with a series of open bunks ranged along the sides, in which the various members of the family repose at night; but the bunks serve not only for sleeping purposes—they are often the receptacle for all sorts of things, and we could hardly help noticing in one a miscellaneous collection consisting of sugar, stockings, skin shoes, tea, etc. There were several spinning-wheels in the room, and at our request the lady of the house set to work at one of them. The family made cloth, various articles of clothing from it, sheep-skin shoes, and bone spoons with "Gullfoss" carved on them, for the "trippers" who call when on the way to Gullfoss. One of the daughters was an expert in the use of vegetable dyes; she was not at home, but we saw some of her work. We bought a few things: shoes, stockings, gloves, rugs, etc., and the "handy man" cleared out the stock of cloth and called for more, but more was not to be had there. Later in the day, however, we passed another farm where cloth could sometimes be bought; the "handy man" heard of this, and we lost sight of him for more than an hour while he was, ostensibly, making further purchases, though he did not seem to be overburdened with their weight when at last he turned up. In the evening he remarked on the beauty of a girl that he had seen at the farm, which raised grave doubts as to whether the charms of this beauty had not been the real cause of his long stay there. We thought it mean of him not to have informed us when in the neighbourhood, and told him so; he smiled serenely, for we were then a safe distance away—half a day's journey. We expected to camp that night at Geysir; so when the "handy man" appeared with his bundle of cloth, we pushed on for that interesting spot. We had to cross the river Tungufljot on the way; it is a rather deep and swift-flowing river, but we made an excellent crossing at a recently discovered ford where the water did not reach much above the level of our stirrups.

At Geysir there is a region of hot springs, geysers, and blue, boiling cauldrons, where one can stand on the sinter margins, look deep down into the blue waters, and imagine whence they come. There is also a number of holes where liquid mud bubbles and splutters. There are geysers active, and others quiescent and extinct. Among the latter is the celebrated Strokur—a few years ago it was very active, but now it is quite dead; it died during an earthquake that occurred in 1896. Although the earthquake stopped Strokur, it seems to have caused Great Geysir itself to play with increased energy. Strokur had to be coaxed into activity, but it was easily done by feeding it with lumps of turf, which were thrown into its yawning mouth, wide open always and ready for a meal. It never failed to give a display when properly fed. It was when it had had a surfeit, and was likely to be choked with the turf, that it erupted, ejecting the turf violently, and at the same time shooting upward a column of boiling water and steam. But all this is of the past—no quantity of turf will provoke it into activity now; it is dead, and there is no indication that it was once the scene of violent disturbance; nothing remains as a record of former glories but a hole in the ground a few feet in diameter.

It was late in the evening when we arrived. The weather was not what we should have liked, for it was dull and rainy; there had been much rain at Geysir during the previous few days, and we were informed of the fact by a farmer living in the neighbourhood. It is said that Geysir erupts more frequently during and after a period of much rain, and also when the wind blows from a certain quarter—I forget which quarter, but that is immaterial now, for the all-important thing is that it was then blowing in the favourable direction. Whether there is any real ground for the reports I do not know, but I record the fact that during a stay of about fourteen hours Geysir erupted six times, and that the average is said to be one in twenty-four hours. The first eruption occurred while we were at supper at about 10.15 p.m. There was a dull, deep-seated thud somewhere below, a sort of subterranean rumbling that caused us to inquire of our conductor, who was rather deaf, what it was. We had previously been informed that certain premonitory rumblings always preceded an eruption; but we were doubtful whether what we then heard was the warning. The conductor had not heard it, and he was endeavouring to explain to us the nature of the sound when a guide rushed to the door of the tent to inform us that Geysir was about to play. We hastily left our meal, made an abrupt exit from the tent, and rushed to the spot. Surely enough it was in eruption, for great clouds of steam were rising from the crater and rolling towards us. We got to windward of the steam, and looked towards the crater, and what a sight it was! High into the air, sixty, seventy, eighty feet up, there was shooting stream after stream of boiling water, which fell in showers of spray all around, some descending towards the crater and meeting on its way the outgoing streams. A ring of sinter surrounds the crater; it is raised ten to fifteen feet above the general level of the ground, so the hot water that fell upon it ran off in a ring of little cascades. It was a wonderful sight, this enormous natural fountain; it continued to play for two or three minutes before it gradually subsided and stopped—all was then still, save that the last of the water was streaming over the edges of the sinter ring, whence a little steam was rising. As soon as the eruption came to an end, we climbed upon the ring, which has a diameter of something like a hundred feet; there is a large depression or basin in it that is filled with water before eruption, but it was then empty. In the middle of the basin there is a funnel, said to be about sixty feet deep; at the surface it is about sixteen feet in diameter. We stood on the edge of this funnel or crater, looking down into its depths, the water then standing at a level of something like fifteen feet below that at which we had previously seen it.

THE SINTER RING OF GEYSIR.

We returned to our interrupted meal, congratulating ourselves that we had arrived just in time to witness the fine display, without at all expecting that we should have another opportunity of seeing such a spectacle. But, as I have stated, we were lucky enough to see in all six eruptions, three of which occurred at short intervals during the night. The first occurred at 10.15 p.m.; the others at 1.30, 3.30, 6.30, 8.30, and the last of the series at 10.45 a.m. The finest displays were the first, second, and last. The second, that at 1.30 a.m., occurred just after we had turned in, but the warning rumblings sounded before we had gone to sleep. Each made a dash at some articles of clothing, and hastening into them, made a blind rush through the rain to the side of Geysir, where we presented a curious spectacle: we were a very motley assemblage indeed, and the various costumes it would perhaps be better not to describe accurately. I have not a photographic record of the scene—there had been no time to get out cameras, and the light was very bad.

THE FUNNEL OR CRATER OF GEYSIR.

There is a smaller geyser, known as Little Geysir, distant about a quarter of a mile from its more important neighbour. Now, this happened to be in good working order, for it erupted while we were finishing our evening meal, sending up spray to a height of from ten to twenty feet, and continued more or less active during the rest of the night.

Many were the boiling and bubbling springs that we saw along a line of fissure nearly half a mile in extent. The basins of some of them were very beautiful, one especially, where the water was of a bright blue colour and the edges of the sinter basin quite white. The basins and terraces are composed of the silica that was at one time held in solution in the water that flowed over them; it was gradually deposited layer upon layer, slowly lining the vent through which the water was ejected, and building up the terraces and basins.

We were loth to leave the neighbourhood of Geysir and continue on our way; but we could not linger, because time was of importance to some of the members of the party, who had to reach Reykjavik, the capital of the country, in time to catch a certain steamer. Another day could not be spared, so on we had to go. We proceeded at first over a quantity of sinter debris, and then through some hummocky land. After a while we came to a wood—an Icelandic forest, or one of the nearest approaches to a forest that Iceland can boast. It consisted of a quantity of scrubby birch and willow "trees," mere bushes, averaging three to five feet in height, though some, it is true, attained the height of six or even seven feet; interspersed amongst them were some geraniums (G. silvaticum). The river Bruará flows through the middle of the wood, and we had to cross it on our way. The crossing was a peculiar one. At the spot there is a rapid in the river, with a waterfall just below. Hard rock stretches from side to side, forming a barrier that is cleft in the middle of the river; the water flows with very picturesque effect over the ledge and into the cleft, which is bridged by a wooden platform; the crossing is effected by the bridge, and by fording the river on each side of it. While I was photographing the spot with some members of the party on the bridge, my pony ran away, and crossed the river, leaving me on the wrong side of it. However, the runaway did not get very far before its career was checked; it was then brought back, and I followed in the track of the others.

Farther on in the wood we halted at a wayside farm-house for lunch, and to rest for a while before continuing on what was likely to be a long journey. Away we went again, though, through the wood, until we overlooked the Bruará at a spot where it had worn down the valley to the level of a plain of denudation, of which it is a fine specimen. There, below, was the river meandering in a winding course over the plain; there also were two small lakes, one of which, Laugarvatn, is of historical interest, for it was there that the Icelanders on being converted to Christianity were baptized; they objected to cold water, but a hot spring in this lake causes the water to be warm, so the objection was overcome, and they were baptized in the warm waters of Laugarvatn. We gradually descended to the vicinity of Laugarvatnshellirar, a peculiar volcanic district, where a number of castellated-looking rocks on the hillsides are very suggestive of ancient ruins. To the left of them rises the Kalfstindar range, the peaks of which are the hard plugs of ancient volcanoes that have become exposed by the erosion of the softer material of the original cones. Here we came upon recent lava again, and during the rest of the day's journey we were obliged to travel very slowly, for we had to pick our way over very rough ground.

The ponies stumbled along hour after hour, much to the discomfiture of the "nautical adviser," who was in a helpless state, suffering great pain. Earlier in the day he had been stung on the eye by an insect. At first he did not feel much inconvenience, but as time passed, his eye became inflamed and very troublesome; so intense was the pain at last, that his eyes had to be bandaged. Thus blindfolded he had to ride on, just balancing himself, and allowing his pony to pick its own way through the lava as it followed one or another of us. It was a very dangerous proceeding, because the lava over which he had to pass was of the roughest possible kind; the ponies had to perform all sorts of peculiar antics while dodging from side to side, or in climbing over boulders or outcropping rocks, now going up a steep slope, then descending one at a dangerous-looking angle. When three or four miles from Thingvellir, our destination that night, we came to a great rift in the earth known as Hrafna-gjá (Raven's Rift), a crack going deep down into the earth, and extending three or four miles in a line parallel to another even greater rift that will be again referred to. On reaching Hrafna-gjá, we had to climb down its steep side, there being a drop of something like a hundred feet to the lava at its foot. The steepness and unevenness of the descent rendered it necessary for us all to dismount and lead our ponies down. The day was dull and the light then becoming bad; but we had to plod on. We were not many miles from our destination, Thingvellir. We presently saw right ahead what looked like a line of high precipitous cliffs with a white patch in it. At first we were very doubtful what the patch could be; but on drawing nearer we heard the splash of falling water, and from the sound, judged that the volume was pretty large. We could see nothing distinctly, though, for it was approaching midnight and the light was failing fast, so we pushed on along a line parallel to the cliff, unable to distinguish anything clearly.

It was at Vallholt, close to the margin of Lake Thingvallavatn, that we halted. There we reached modern civilisation suddenly, for we came to a large galvanised iron structure which we found to be a hotel, so we pulled up and dismounted. On inquiring for our tents, we were informed that they had not been erected, and that we were to take up our quarters at the hotel. We had not expected this, and as we had all become somewhat attached to our canvas quarters, we grumblingly entered the hotel and went in search of our boxes. The arrangement of the interior was peculiar: a large hall occupied the middle of the building, extending the full width, and reaching from floor to roof; at each end of the hall, a passage led through to the end of the building. On each side of one of these passages there was ranged a number of cabin-like rooms, each of which contained two bunks, one above the other, and in a corner there was a wash-hand basin, the whole being fitted up like the interior of a cabin on board ship—this was accounted for by the fact that the arrangement had been designed by a sailor.

Thomas and I had piloted the "nautical adviser" and given his pony a lead during the last part of the journey, so we three were rather late in our arrival; but we were met with the cheering intelligence that supper (it was 11.30 p.m.) would be ready in a few minutes, and that we were to "hurry up" and make whatever change of costume we deemed necessary to celebrate the return to some of the conventionalities of modern civilisation. We were hungry, very hungry, and did not waste time over an elaborate toilet, but soon put in an appearance in the large central hall. Here we were regaled with a most sumptuous and excellent banquet. The soup was all that could be desired, and it was hot—a very comforting thing when one is half frozen. This whetted our appetite for the other good things that were to follow: salmon that was cooked to perfection; then came another excellent dish, and last of all delicious pastry and cream—the Icelanders, as I have already stated, are noted for the quality of their pastry. We had growled on finding that we were to take up quarters in a tourists' hotel, but the quality of the dinner quite reconciled us to the return to civilisation. We had been living for more than a fortnight on tinned foods, so we fully appreciated the good things that "mine host" had provided for us. We were disappointed in one way; but when a hungry man has fed well he is not disposed to quarrel with things in general—especially when they take the form of a fairly comfortable bunk and more room in his cabin than he would have had in his tent.

Thingvellir and the neighbourhood is a most interesting and historic place, for it was there, in the tenth century, that the Althing, or Parliament, used to assemble. The spot whereon it once met, known as the Logberg (Law Rock), is now a verdure-covered hill, lying between two remarkable rifts in the lava. Thingvallavatn is the name of the largest and most picturesque lake in Iceland; the view of it which we had obtained the day before from above Hrafna-gjá was very fine, but the atmosphere had not been quite clear; we had seen enough, however, in spite of rain and haze, to enable us to form an idea of the beauty of the scene. We were favoured on this occasion, for the air was clearer and the light brighter, so we were better able, from the elevated site of the Logberg, to enjoy the fine view. The meeting-place of the Althing was removed from the Logberg to one of two islands lying in the lake, but to which of them is questionable, though it is supposed that it used to meet on the long flat island near Thingvellir, close to the shore of the lake.

Not only is this neighbourhood interesting historically, but geologically it claims attention. I have already mentioned the remarkable rift, Hrafna-gjá; there is another at Thingvellir—I am not referring to the two rifts at the Logberg, for though noticeable in themselves, they are but minor rifts when compared with that of Hrafna-gjá, and still more so when comparison is made with Almanna-gjá (All-men's Rift) at Thingvellir. It is a most extraordinary break in the earth, extending for three or four miles across the country in a line parallel to Hrafna-gjá, showing a face of lava with a drop of something like a hundred feet. Now what has happened to cause these extraordinary rifts? The whole of the land between Hrafna-gjá and Almanna-gjá has fallen in, dropped through about a hundred feet, and forms a "rift valley." The lake derives its water chiefly by underground rivers from the ice-field of Lang Jökull, though one small stream, the Oxará, runs into it. This river tumbles over the edge of the cliffs by a fine cascade into the rift of Almanna-gjá; but it does not flow very far (less than a mile) before it escapes through a gap in the outer wall of the rift by a second and smaller fall. Above the smaller fall there is a pool known as the Murderesses' Pool, in which it was once the custom to drown women found guilty of infanticide or adultery.

ALMANNA-GJÁ—IN THE RIFT NEAR THE WATERFALL.

There are several legends connected with Thingvellir. One of them refers to a remarkable jump supposed to have been performed by one Flossi, an outlaw, who, on being closely pursued, escaped by jumping across one of the lava rifts of the Logberg hill—an impossible feat with the rift at its present width, but it is supposed to have widened considerably. In these rifts of the Logberg there is, deep down, some beautifully clear water standing at about the same level as the lake. Over one of the rifts there is a small wooden bridge with a hole in the middle of it; beside the hole we saw a bucket with a long rope attached. As the clear water of one of the pools was immediately below, it was not difficult to infer that this was the source of the water-supply of the hotel which was in the immediate neighbourhood.

After we had seen all that was of special interest at Thingvellir, we started on the last stage of our journey across the island; but before doing so we took leave of two of the guides, Josef and Sigurthur, who were returning to our starting-point, Akureyri, with about a dozen of the ponies; for we had no further use for the full pack, seeing that we expected to reach Reykjavik, the capital, in the course of a few hours. From this place to Reykjavik a road has been constructed—a rough one at best, but still a road; the only one of any length in all Iceland, for it is thirty-six miles long. It commences just below the lower fall of the Oxará; after a short ascent, a bridge crosses the river between the waterfall and the Murderesses' Pool, whence it rises by a steep ascent to the level of the country above the rift. This part of the road has been cut in the side of the fissure of Almanna-gjá. From above we obtained a fine view overlooking Lake Thingvallavatn, but after losing sight of the lake we saw no more of the picturesque until nearing Reykjavik. An exceedingly fine specimen of a glaciated lava surface attracted Thomas and myself. My photograph shows it excellently: in it there can be seen the undulating surfaces of lava, the roches moutonnées, just as they were smoothed by the passing ice, and there on the surfaces are several "perched blocks" which helped in the smoothing and scratching process. There was evidence all along the road not only of the work of frost and ice, but also of that of fire and heat, for we saw in all directions tuff and lava cones and volcanic necks.

GLACIATED LAVA SURFACE NEAR THINGVELLIR.

On nearing Reykjavik we met a number of pack-trains conveying goods of all descriptions to the farms. It was just the end of the season when the farmers make their annual journey to the capital. They take in their wool, dispose of it, and then return with whatever goods they have purchased. Some of the farmer's women-folk accompany him as a rule. The women ride their ponies on a saddle peculiar to Iceland. They balance themselves on their ponies seated sideways, with feet resting on a little platform that hangs suspended from the saddle by two straps; they ride by balance alone, for there is no horn by which they can grip the saddle. All goods have to be transported on the backs of ponies, for as there are no roads (with the exception of that from Reykjavik to Thingvellir) so there are no carts or waggons in general use—I did see three carts in Iceland, one of them in Reykjavik, but they were used only for hauling goods from the wharves into the towns. Timber and galvanised iron are carried balanced on the backs of ponies, the galvanised iron having to be doubled up. A pony sometimes looks very peculiar as he plods along with an unwieldy load swinging from side to side. He has an awkward time of it whenever there is a heavy or gusty wind blowing, and that in Iceland is very frequently. Heavy goods that cannot possibly be carried on the backs of ponies are transported when the winter snows cover the ground; rough sleighs are then used for the purpose.

CHAPTER X

THE CAPITAL—REYKJAVIK

Much to our surprise, when about two miles outside Reykjavik, we met our fellow-passenger by the Ceres, him with whom we had lunched at Thorshavn on the outward journey. We had left him behind at that port, and he had intended to stay for several weeks at the Faroes and to return thence to England; but having found things rather slow there, he had followed us to Iceland by the next steamer; hence the meeting on the road.

We created some sort of sensation as we entered the capital of Iceland. The clocks were striking ten as we clattered down the long main street; it was a time when the populace were at leisure and on the street, and they evinced no little curiosity as we rode by them. They were congregated in small groups, and it was evident to us that we were being discussed—and no wonder, for we were a motley-looking cavalcade! We must have presented a very grotesque appearance, clad as we were in oilskins, and covered with mud from head to foot: it had been raining at intervals on the way, and we had had a rather disagreeable journey. We caught glimpses of faces at most of the windows peering curiously at us and watching our progress through the town. Many of the members of the groups, by the wayside saluted as we passed by—the Icelanders are a polite people, as a rule, and they doff their head-gear in salutation to strangers. So we progressed, being saluted, and acknowledging the salutes. It was a sort of triumphal entry, for the news had been carried forward by one of the guides, who was some little distance ahead with some of the pack-ponies, that we had just crossed the country by way of the uninhabited interior. All things come to an end, and so did our journey when we reached the end of the main street in Reykjavik, for there, at a great wooden building four stories high, we took up our quarters, and the crossing of Iceland was an accomplished fact.

If Reykjavik is not a town to be admired, it must be said that the surrounding scenery is most beautiful; and one of the finest sights I saw in Iceland was one evening when sunset effects were on hill and dale and over the sea.

Glasgow House—why so named we were unable to discover—was where we were quartered. The accommodation was fairly good, though there was a lack of furniture in some of the rooms. We learned that the proprietor had but lately entered into possession, and that the furniture had come from a much smaller house; it certainly required some additions to make the general accommodation equal to the table kept there. We came in hungry after our thirty-six miles' ride, so we fully appreciated the good things set before us by our hostess, a Danish woman, who was a capable head of the kitchen. The dining-room was on the ground floor, but a steep staircase led to a large hall-like room above, from which a number of doors opened into bedrooms.

After we had eaten a most excellent meal—dinner or supper—we went for a midnight prowl round the town. Our fellow-passenger by the Ceres, an Oxford man, whom Thomas and I had known there, was staying at Glasgow House, so he accompanied us, and we strolled about the more retired parts away from the main street, discussing the incidents of our travels in the interior.

THE BUSINESS END OF REYKJAVIK BY THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE.

Reykjavik is not a very large town, as its population of about four thousand indicates. It is built on the coast and is a long, straggling place; and although just in the business quarter there are several streets running parallel or at right angles to one another, yet, with this exception, the houses are built along the main thoroughfare. The buildings for the most part are of wooden construction, with galvanised iron roofs, though here and there a turf-roofed shanty stands as a reminder that the habitation of the average Icelander has no galvanised iron about it. Some of the principal business people are Danes, and many of the houses have been built more in conformity with Danish ideas than with those of the Icelander. The natives are fishermen and farmers, and have no very strong predilections for general business—they are inclined to leave that sort of thing to the Danes, who are more adapted to it. The clergymen and doctors are, as a rule, the sons of farmers who exhibit signs of greater brightness than the average. They first go through a course at the Latin School, and then proceed to the Theological College or the Medical School; some afterwards go to Copenhagen to the University there. Both clergy and medical men are paid by the State, though the latter receive a nominal fee from their patients. The finest building in Iceland is said to be the Bank in the main street of Reykjavik. It is a strongly built, solid-looking square structure. The ground floor is used for banking business, but the upper floor contains a good collection of Icelandic curiosities and antiquities—it is known as the Antiquarian Museum, I think. Old weapons, ladies' saddles, women's national dress, snuff and various other kinds of carved boxes, gold and silver ornaments, altar-cloths, altarpieces, and other church furniture, etc., are among the exhibits. This collection is never open to the public in the way that similar collections are open in other parts of the world. A visitor cannot walk in at any stated definite hour—the doors are always locked against admission unless an appointment is made with the caretaker of the collection to open them, and if, as in our case, one happens to be a little after the appointed time, a wait of half an hour while the attendant guide goes in search of the caretaker may be necessary. In the Ornithological Museum—a large room attached to a small house just away from the business part of the town—there is a fine collection of the birds of Iceland. We tried to gain admission here without having made an appointment with the caretaker, but quite failed: the door was locked, and we were unable to make known what we wanted. The only person on the premises, a middle-aged Icelandic woman, laughed and giggled and talked, and evinced no little curiosity regarding certain articles of our clothing. We thought, in our ignorance of her tongue, that she was making fun of us and of our dress. When we went away from the Museum, this woman followed us down town, and on meeting our guide we learnt that our curious friend was not quite in her right mind—a fact that accounted for her peculiar actions and manner. We saw the collection of birds on another occasion by appointment.

Facing a grassy square there are two buildings of importance—one of these, a wooden structure, is the Cathedral; the other, a massive stone building, is the Senate House, where the members of the Althing, or Parliament, meet.

REYKJAVIK—INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL.