Chapter VII

Akureyri—Dr. Jon. A. Hjaltalin—temperature of sea and air—Icelandic gloves—curious custom—state of agriculture—imported seed a failure—schools of agriculture—reason for neglect of farming—a fact worth noting—stock raising—quality of grass—wool trade—desirability of direct trade with England—obstacles—necessity for improvement in fibre—peculiarity of Iceland sheep—their number—weight of wool—we go ashore—shark oil factory—a few facts about the shark fishery—the only trees in Iceland—the Falls of the Glera—shipping ponies—“Jack’s” love for animals—value of ponies—homeward bound—a strange scenic effect—within the Arctic Circle—a courteous judge—close time for birds and animals in Iceland—indigenous birds—the Great Auk—Langenes—in a fog—deep sea soundings—we land at Thurso—conclusion.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

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The following illustrations, drawn by Mr Alexander Shepherd, A.M., of Bradford, have been prepared—with a few exceptions—from original photographs taken by the author:—

PLATE I.

1 John o’ Groats House.
2 Duncansby Head.
3 The S. S. Camoens in dock, Leith.
4 Saloon of S. S. Camoens.
5 Amateur Photographers on board of S. S. Camoens.

PLATE II.

1 Heimaey and Heimaeyklett, from the Cemetery.
2 Lava Cairn on Helgafell.
3 An Icelandic whaleboat.
4 The Church at Heimaey.
5 Altar and Candelabrum of ditto.

PLATE III.

1 Turf-and-rubble-cottage, Heimaey.
2 The Althingis Hus, Heimaey.
3 Woman riding man-fashion.
4 Drying birds for fuel.

PLATE IV.

1 View of Reykjavik.
2 Icelandic woman wearing holiday head-dress.
3 „ „ „ “Hufa” or National do.
4 Snaefellsjökull from the sea.
5 Building stone houses in Reykjavik. Quarrying stone
in middle of street. Labourers with hand barrow.
6 The Cathedral and Althing, Reykjavik.
7 Lava plain, near the Observatory, do.

PLATE V.

1 The Almannagja from the South.
2 Lake Thingvellavatn and Hengill.
3 Rocks on summit of Almannagja.
4 A rest by the way.
5 The Almannagja from the North.

PLATE VI.

1 The Upper Fall of the Oxara, Thingvellir.
2 The Lögberg, Thingvellir.
3 View of plain at „
4 The Parsonage, „
5 „ Church, „
6 Execution Pool, „
7 Train of pack-ponies „

PLATE VII.

1 The Bruera and Bridge.
2 Washing clothes in the “laugs,” or hot springs.
3 Tourists’ tents at the Geysirs.
4 The Great Geysir.
5 The Strokr in the sulks.
6 „ in action.

PLATE VIII.

1 Landing place at Akureyri.
2 One of the five trees at „
3 Principal store „
4 Fishing in the Glera „
5 Waterfall of the „ „
6 Shipping ponies „

NOTE.—The route followed is indicated upon the front cover, which has been specially designed by the writer.

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PLATE I.

1 John o’ Groat’s House.—2 Duncansby Head.
3 The S. S. Camoens in dock, Leith.—4 Saloon of S. S. Camoens.
5 Amateur Photographers on board of S. S. Camoens.
]

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FROM ENGLAND TO ICELAND.

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“This is a traveller, Sir, has ploughed up sea so far
Till both the poles have knocked; has seen the sun
Take coach, and can distinguish the colour
Of his horses and their kinds.”

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Far away on the very verge of the Arctic Circle, where the dark waters of the North Atlantic sweep on to meet the ice-floes of the Polar Sea, lies the Ultima Thule of the ancients—the Iceland of to-day.

To poets and historians who wrote before and immediately after the dawning of the Christian era it was a land of mystery, “an island hid by snow and winter,” as one of them has well expressed it, and even to us, whose lot has been cast in more enlightened days, it is to some extent a land of mystery still. Modern science has unlocked many of its secrets, and explained many of its marvels, but there are, in this great wonderland of Europe to-day, problems yet unsolved, and regions yet untraversed, which await the scientific enquirer and the adventurous explorer.

It is not, however, in either of these capacities that I invite the reader to accompany me on a trip to Iceland. I make no pretension to be either the one or the other. It is rather as a companion bent on enjoying to the full a summer holiday on one of the least-frequented bye-paths of the Northern Hemisphere; as an admirer of Nature amid her strangest phenomena, and in her sternest, as well as in her kindliest moods; as a wanderer familiar with much of the world and with many of its ways; as an interested observer who has noted the conditions of life among savage and civilised, in many a foreign clime; as a business man, keenly alive to the increasing necessity for new markets for our products and manufactures; and as an advanced political student, to whom there is much that is both instructive and attractive in the story of the little community, which for more than a thousand years, in loneliness and isolation, and amid alternate seasons of deepest winter-gloom and midnight summer-sunshine, has “lived and moved and had its being,” heedless of the social revolutions which have broadened the foundations of human liberty, and comparatively unaffected by the dynastic changes that have drenched Europe with blood, wasted its resources, hindered its progress, and turned it, even in this nineteenth century, into an armed camp of professional cut-throats.

Colonised in 874 by some of the bravest and boldest blood of Scandinavia, Iceland for four hundred years remained an independent commonwealth. In 1262 she passed under the yoke of Norway, and subsequently in 1380 under that of Denmark, whose suzerainty she acknowledges to-day.

Famed in early times for the power and prowess of her vikings, and for the genius of her skalds or song writers, she has not only created a language, of which it has been said that “no one who has not read the masterpieces written in Icelandic can judge fairly of the capacity, force, and sweetness of this most classic tongue,” but has made it the medium of bequeathing to the world, in her historical “sagas”—or prose epics—a wealth of information regarding the deeds and heroes of the Teutonic race, which has been of priceless value to the historians of Europe.

With the loss of her independence, however, she gradually declined in self-respect, and speedily sank into a state of apathy and lethargic hopelessness from which, thank Heaven, she is at last beginning to arouse herself. Rip-van-Winkle-like she has recently risen from a sleep of centuries, and having, by peaceful agitation, succeeded in obtaining the right of Parliamentary self-government, there seems to be every prospect that—in spite of their poverty, and the natural disadvantages under which they labour—her sons will yet prove themselves worthy of their high ancestry, and redeem their country from the decadence into which they have unhappily permitted her to sink.

It is in a spirit of hopefulness for her future, that I take up my pen to record my impressions of both country and people, as well as with a sincere desire that I may succeed in creating an interest in, and furnishing some useful information regarding, a land about which Englishmen generally know little and perhaps care less.

So much by way of preface. Let me now ask the reader to suppose that we have started together from a busy manufacturing town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and are hurrying on to Edinburgh by Midland Express to catch the S.S. Camoens, advertised to sail from Leith, at noon on the 8th of July, 1885. We pass Settle, that most charming of Yorkshire country towns, nestling at the foot of its fine background of encircling hills, stop for a few minutes for refreshments at Carlisle, where in the days of the old Border feuds many a Scottish reiver met with a short shrift and a sudden death, and an hour later cross the Tweed, loved and immortalised by “The Great Unknown.”

We look with all a Yorkshireman’s interest upon the shed roofs and smoking chimneys of Hawick and Galashiels, which remind us that we are travelling through the great textile manufacturing district of Scotland.

We see Melrose, not indeed “by moonlight and alone,” but in the “summer gloaming” and over the heads of a small crowd of canny Scots who are thronging the station, and thinking not of “the brave days of old,” not of princes and prelates, of abbeys and abbots, of monks and monasteries, but of the state of the wool market, of the prospects of trade, of “hanks,” “pirns,” and “shots,” and of “warp” and “weft” and “web,” and of the hundred and one other prosaic matters which demand the attention of the industrious weaver, who has supplanted the red-handed warrior; and whose shuttle, as it clicks from morn till night, tells of better times for mankind than those when the sound most frequently heard in these same streets was the clash of swords, and the clang of armed men.

We are on our way to a land whose poverty is great and whose progress has been slow, but as we recall the fact that, according to Macaulay, Scotland from “having been one of the most turbulent countries in Europe, has become one of the most highly civilised, one of the most flourishing, one of the most tranquil;” that according to Froude “she has scored a deeper mark upon the world’s history than any nation either ancient or modern, perhaps the Athenians and Jews excepted,” we feel that the Icelander need never despair, if he will but try to bring about the regeneration of his country by pursuing, and seeking to perfect himself in, the peaceful arts of industry.

Night has banished twilight when we reach Edinburgh, and after a trip to Leith by tram to see the vessel that is to be our home “on the ocean wave” for the next two or three weeks, we retire to rest, “perchance to dream” of the discomforts inseparable from “a life on the rolling deep.”

On the following morning we sail from Leith punctually at the appointed hour, and within five minutes after leaving the quay are face to face with what seems likely to prove a catastrophe. We are gliding down between the massive sea walls that line the channel of entrance to the docks, when a battered old tug, having several mud-barges in tow, steers right across our course. There is no room in which to turn, and a collision seems inevitable. Just, however, at the instant when we are expecting to see the little boat cut in two she manages, somehow or other, to swing clear of our bows as we forge past. A sound of crashing timber is heard as her stern is forced against one of the barges behind her. A solitary seaman, who appears to be both captain and crew, rushes to the bulwarks, and in a dancing rage shakes his clenched fist at us in impotent fury, at the same time pouring forth a torrent of vituperation of which fortunately only a few words reach our ears, though if judged by the little we hear, his language is certainly strong enough to have travelled further.

The sun is shining pleasantly from a bright blue sky, and the landmarks of “Auld Reekie” stand out grandly on the horizon behind the intervening wilderness of roofs and chimneys that slope upwards from port to capital. Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags, the Calton Hill, the Castle, the Scott Monument, and other picturesque features which combine to make Edinburgh, what it undoubtedly is, the most beautiful city in the world, are all clearly discernible by the naked eye.

On the shores of the Firth, as we steam towards Granton, before heading for the ocean, lie the lovely seaside resorts which add so much to the pleasures of life in the Scottish metropolis. Having transferred the managing agent to a gaily painted tug, we circle round and steer north-east, passing on our left the cultivated slopes and quiet little coast-towns of the kingdom of Fife, while away ahead, over our starboard bow, rises the shadowy form of the famous Bass Rock, whose name is associated with some of the grimmest tragedies of Scottish history, and in whose dungeons, in the dark days of ecclesiastical tyranny and persecution, so many of those “of whom the world was not worthy,” were left to perish miserably.

Keeping well in towards the land we make steady progress at the rate of about nine knots per hour, and have sighted and passed the lights of Aberdeen before bed-time. Early on the following morning we find ourselves off Duncansby Head, the extreme north-east point of Scotland, a bold and dangerous promontory. Not a tree nor a human habitation is to be seen on the landscape till we round the point, when we all rush to the bridge, glass in hand, to take a look at John o’ Groat’s House, a rather pretentious-looking new hotel built in the Scottish baronial style of architecture, and situated near the beach, within a stone’s throw of the Pentland Firth, whose powerful tide, so dreaded in stormy weather, is breaking heavily upon the rocks.

A flag-staff in the centre of a mound on the left of the hotel, is pointed out as marking the original site of Mr John de Grout’s residence. In some old maps, however, this is indicated upon the summit of Duncansby Head. A small cairn of stones erected there seems to support the theory of those antiquarians who are inclined to accept these maps as correct, and who contend that in the old piratical days it was much more usual for a man to build his house, as the eagle builds its eyrie, upon some bold cliff or headland whence he could watch for danger, and prepare to meet it; than upon a flat, or in a hollow, where he would be liable to be surprised. Be this as it may, it is a satisfaction to all of us to see a spot which geographical circumstances have rendered so interesting.

Passing through the channel, between Stroma and South Ronaldsha, two of the Orkney Islands, and leaving the Skerries with their two lighthouses behind us, we shape our course for the north-west.

“As we pace along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches”

the outlines of Dunnet Head the most northerly, and Cape Wrath the most significantly named, point on the wild and rockbound coast of Scotland, gradually fade from view, and long before nightfall we are out in the open sea, and experiencing the unpleasant effects of a heavy swell in the North Atlantic. Towards evening the breeze freshens though the passengers do not. Seats at table began to be vacant early yesterday, and these increase in number “as” the ship and “the moments roll.” Even I, who have hitherto defied Neptune on many a stormy ocean in both hemispheres succumb at last, and begin to study the waves with a pathetic interest, and to find myself saying, in the words of the old song, “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?”

On the morning of the third day out, (Saturday, July 11th), the breeze increases to a strength of about nine windforce, equivalent to what is known among seamen as “a fresh gale,” ten being “a strong gale,” eleven “a storm,” and twelve “a hurricane.” The waves are tolerably high, being estimated by our captain at from ten to fifteen feet above sea-level or from twenty to twenty-five feet from hollow to crest, and the Camoens, which rolls fearfully, is a mere plaything under such conditions. It is needless to say that the number of invalids does not decrease.

During the afternoon the wind moderates, and shortly before dinner we sight the coast of Iceland, whose highest mountain, Orœfajökull (6,426 feet), with its snow-clad crest and slopes, and extensive glaciers is distinctly visible through the clear bright air at a distance of more than seventy miles. A very considerable portion of the surface of Iceland is covered with glaciers, which feed the mountain torrents, and the gradual subsidence of which forms not one of the least of the terrible dangers that constantly threaten immense tracts of country with destruction. Orœfa is the apex, or coast extremity, of Vatnajökull, the largest of these, an icefield, which covers an area of between 3,000 and 4,000 square miles, or about one-twelfth of the total area of the island. The word “jökull,”—meaning ice hill—is attached as a terminal to the names of all mountains on which glaciers are known to exist.

As we gradually near the land Orœfa rises grandly beyond the low level plain that lies like a long black line between its base and the ocean. This plain, of the extent of which we can form no conception from the sea, stretches away back to the coast range for a distance of about thirty miles, and is at least about twice that length from east to west. The fogs which are continually, and often very unexpectedly, encountered in these latitudes render it a source of anxiety to navigators, who not unfrequently find themselves aground before they are conscious of danger, there being neither lights nor landmarks to guide them. Though but sparsely peopled, it is covered with nutritious grass, and has become the great pony-breeding district of Iceland.

Ever since we began to steer north the days have been growing longer, and night having now quite disappeared, we are able to read small print by the light of the sun at what the chronometer indicates as midnight, and can distinguish the coast quite clearly at an hour when in more southern latitudes it would be shrouded in darkness.

It is not till after 1 a.m., as we are passing Portland Point, and its wonderful water-worn arch and fantastic group of basaltic needle-rocks, that we go down to our berths, comforted by the captain’s assurance that if we do not find ourselves high and dry upon the summit of some volcanic cone which may suddenly rise under us “from the bottom of the deep blue sea,” we may expect to be lying safely at anchor off the Westmann’s Islands long before it is time to get up. In 1783, a month previous to the outbreak of the Shaptarjökull—the most terrible eruption that has ever occurred in Iceland—a submarine volcano near what are called the Fire Rocks, forty miles south-west of Cape Reykjanes, burst forth and covered the sea with pumice stone to such a depth and extent that ships were impeded by it. Within a few months the volcano disappeared, but now forms a dangerous reef.

Having been in Java six months after the catastrophe at Krakatoa, which in August, 1883, destroyed thirty thousand human beings; having seen the vast fields of pumice stone then floating in the Indian Ocean and in the Java Sea; and sailed in a steamer which, while lying in the Straits of Sunda, two days subsequent to the dreadful disaster above referred to, had a marvellous escape, only succeeding with the greatest difficulty in forcing her way through the immense mass of volcanic scum that covered the ocean for hundreds of miles round about to a depth of several feet; having seen evidences of the fearful nature of a submarine outburst in the huge breaches, in the massive sea wall at Batavia, made by the spent force of the great wave which—more than a hundred miles away—had absolutely swept two thriving cities—Anjers and Telokbetong—out of existence; and having slept at the foot of Gedeh, a burning mountain at Scindanlaija, which only a few years ago caused great destruction of life and property at Tjandoer, the captain’s grim joke has a significance for me that it might not otherwise have possessed. It does not, however, disturb my rest.

On awaking, the absence of motion, and a strange stillness unbroken by the horrid grinding of the propeller—that greatest of all the bêtes noires of the ocean traveller—satisfy me that we have safely reached port at last. Hurrying on deck I find myself gazing upon a scene of wild grandeur and picturesque beauty, which charms and impresses me, and whose attractiveness increases as I become familiar with its details.

We are lying at anchor, in smooth water, in a pretty little bay situated on the north shore of Heimaey—(Home Isle)—the largest of the group known as the Vestmanneyjar or Westmann’s Islands. About a mile ahead of us, on the left shore, and partly hidden behind a rampart of black weed-covered rocks, lies the collection of wooden sheds, and huts, and turf-and-rubble dwellings, in which a total population of five hundred and ten souls lives, and carries on its chief occupation of fish-curing. The town extends from the sea inland towards Helgafell, a volcanic cone about 750 feet high, whose shelving stone-strewn slopes, and jagged cairn-crowned crest, standing out clearly against the bright blue cloudless sky, form a fine background to the view in that direction.

Turning our eyes away from Helgafell and Heimaey, and with a passing glance at the pretty little Danish sloops moored opposite the wharf, we face to the right about, where a gigantic rocky mountain promontory, with two huge humps known respectively as Heimaeyklett and Ystaklett, stretches itself, like a protecting arm, between us and the western sea. Its precipitous inaccessible overhanging cliffs tower hundreds of feet above the deep blue waters that kiss its feet, and every ledge and nook, and cranny of the bold brown beetling crags that frown down upon us is crowded with sea-fowl, whose screams as they watch us from their places of vantage on the rock, or fly in tens of thousands above our heads, fill the air with a continuous clamour. From the verge of the precipice grass-grown slopes incline steeply upwards to the summits of both humps, and on these a few sheep can be seen grazing in places where, to all appearance, there is scarcely foothold, even for a goat.

The clearness and purity of the atmosphere in this part of the world, when the weather is fine,—which is not very often,—has been remarked by many travellers. It would be impossible for us to view the scene around us under more favourable conditions in this respect. On the coast of the mainland, distant ten or twelve miles across the intervening Strait, Myrdalsjökull, another well-known and beautiful volcano, asserts itself magnificently amid the lower cones by which it is surrounded. Its white peak, pure as an angel’s robe, its glaciers, and its slopes on which purple and silver meet at the snow-line, gleam in glorious loveliness under the morning sunshine.

In mid-channel Elirey and Bjarnarey, two brown-faced weather-worn basaltic island-rocks, with crowns of brightest emerald, rise almost perpendicularly out of the shimmering sea, not only heightening the effect of the scene by affording a resting-place for the eye, but forming a striking and picturesque addition to one of the most beautiful panoramas I have seen. We are loth to leave the deck even for breakfast, but console ourselves with the reflection that we shall be able to see a good deal during the twelve hours at our disposal before the time fixed for sailing.

Though it is Sunday morning, the cargo is meanwhile being rapidly transferred to the large whale boats, which began to fetch it soon after our arrival, and from the number of men employed, and the evident bustle and excitement on shore, I conclude that the little white church, which forms the most conspicuous object on the outskirts of the town, will have plenty of room for the accommodation of strangers, and that the poor præstur will not improbably have to preach to a “beggarly array of empty benches.”

The coming of the Camoens is a great event in the lonely Westmann’s Islands. It not only breaks the monotony of what must be a dull and dreary existence, but is a source of general rejoicing amongst all classes of the community, for her freight is precious in the eyes of a people who are compelled to depend upon an outside, and to them far-away world, not only for the very means of life, but for many of the comforts, and all the luxuries, which their limited means will permit them to enjoy. I come to the conclusion, therefore, that the recording angel who with a tear blotted out Uncle Toby’s oath will bend a pardoning eye upon what to some would appear to be Sabbath desecration, but what is really and in the truest sense a work of necessity.

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