Chapter VI: Chapter on Our Scandinavian Ancestors 293 (3)

The little bit of pet pasture land, round each farm, enclosed by a low turf wall, is called “tun,” a word still used in rural districts of Scotland—spelt toon, or town—with the same sound and similar signification.

Rode many miles through wild black desolate dreary volcanic wastes—no near sounds but the metallic bicker of our ponies’ hoofs over the dry rocks and stones, or fearless splashing through mud puddles—and no distant sounds save the _eerie_ cries, tremulous whistlings and plaintive wails of the curlew, plover, and snipe. Observed the abrasions of the ice-drift very distinctly traced on the rocks, these all running nearly south-west. The slightly elevated rock-surface was frequently polished quite smooth, scratches here and there showing the direction of the friction by which this appearance had been produced. In some instances the rock was left bare, in others detached stone blocks of a different formation rested on the surface.

Wild geranium, saxifrage, sedum, and tufts of sea-pink are very common, when we come to anything green. The wild geranium, from the almost nightless summer of the north, is six times larger than in Britain, and about the size of a half-penny.

Came to a deep ravine, wild, horrid, and frightful; rode along the edge of it, and then through dreadfully rough places, with nothing to mark the track; amidst great and little blocks of stone—trap, basalt, and lava—mud-puddles—up-hill, down-hill, fording rivers, and through seemingly impassible places; yet the Icelandic horse goes unflinchingly at it. Mr. Haycock says it would be sheer madness to attempt such break-neck places in England; there, no horse would look at it; steeple-chasing nothing to it. His horse was repeatedly up to the girths in clayey mud, and recovered itself notwithstanding its load as if it were nothing to pause about. Truly these are wonderful animals, they know their work and do it well.

Came to a grassy plot, in a hollow by a river’s side, where we halted, changed the saddles and bridles to the relief ponies, and, clad in mackintosh, thankfully sat down on the wet grass to rest, while we ate a biscuit and drank of the stream. In the course of the day, we had come to several green spots, like oasis in the black desert, where the horses rested for a short time to have a feed of grass.

After starting, ascended for about an hour through a ravine, where we saw some lovely little glades full of _blae-berries_—sloe,—low brushwood, chiefly of willows and birch, and a profusion of flowers, such as wild geranium, thyme, dog-daisy, saxifrage, sea-pink, catch-fly, butter-cup, a little white starry flower, and _diapensia_; the latter is found, here and there, in round detached patches of fresh green like a pincushion, gaily patterned with little pink flowers. I am indebted to Professor Chadbourne for the name of it. Obtained a root of this plant for home, and gathered flowers of the others to preserve.

We now came to an elevated plateau which stretched away—a dreary stony moor—bounded in one direction by the horizon-line and in another by hills of a dark brown colour. Here there was not a patch of verdure to be seen; all one black desert lava-waste strewn with large boulders and angular slabs, lying about in all conceivable positions. In riding, one required to keep the feet in constant motion, to avoid contact with projecting stones, as the ponies picked their way among them. Our feet consequently were as often out of the stirrups as in them. Shakspere says “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast;” not so, however, with the sure footed Icelandic ponies; for, even over such ground, they trotted at a good pace and no accident befell us.

I generally rode first with Zöga the guide, or last with Professor Chadbourne. The driving of the relief horses before us, like a stampedo, and the keeping of them together afforded some of us much amusement as we rode along. Here no sheep or cattle could live. It was literally “a waste and howling wilderness.” We saw several snow-birds and terns flying about, and often heard the _eerie_ plaintive whistle of the golden plover. These birds were very tame and examined us with evident curiosity. They would perch on a large lava block before us, quite close to our track, and sit till we came up and passed—then fly on before, to another block, and sit there gazing in wonder; and so on for miles. They had evidently never been fired at. Mr. Murray humanely remarked that it would be murder to shoot them! In this black stony plateau there was often not the least vestige of a track discernible; but we were kept in the right direction by cairns of black stones placed here and there on slight elevations. These guiding marks—“varder” as they are called—are yet more needed when all the surface is covered with snow; then, “vexed with tempest loud,” Iceland must resemble Milton’s description of Chaos.

“Far off,
Dark, waste and wild under the frown of night,
Starless exposed and ever threatening storms
Of Chaos blustering round.”

We saw one rude house of refuge, without any roof, built of lava blocks, in the midst of this black desert where everything seemed blasted. Came now on spots where a few tufts of sea-pinks, and many bright coloured wild-flowers were springing up among the stones. Saw flat rock-surfaces shrivelled up and wrinkled like pitch, an effect which had evidently been produced when the lava was cooling; others were ground down and polished smooth in grooves by the ice-drift. As near as I can calculate, some fourteen or fifteen miles of our journey lay over this one long long dreary stony waste, henceforth, ever to be associated in memory with the plover’s wild lone plaintive tremulous whistle.

At 3 P.M. we came in sight of the blue lake of Thingvalla,[7] lying peacefully in the valley before us; while the range of the hills beyond it, bare, bold and striking in their outline, was mostly of a deep violet colour.

During the day, arrowy showers of drenching rain “cold and heavy,” like that described by Dante in the third circle of the _Inferno_, or wet drizzling mists had alternated with gleams of bright clear sunshine. Towards the afternoon the weather had become more settled and the effect of the prospect now before us, although truly lovely in itself, was heightened by our previous monotonous though rough ride over the dreary stony plateau. The lake far below us, with its two little volcanic islands Sandey and Nesey, lay gleaming in the sun like a silver mirror; while the wild scenery around forcibly reminded us of Switzerland or Italy.

Thingvalla was to be our resting place for the night, and seeing our destination so near at hand in the valley below us, some one purposed a rapid scamper, that we might the sooner rest, eat, and afterwards have more leisure to explore the wondrous features of the place. Forthwith we set off at a good pace, but the Professor was too tired to keep up with us, so I at once fell behind to bear him company. The others were speedily out of sight. Knowing that dinner preparations would occupy Zöga for some time after his arrival, we rode leisurely along, admiring the green level plain far below us. When wondering how we were to get down to it, we suddenly and unexpectedly came to a yawning chasm or rent running down through the edge of the plateau. It seemed about 100 feet deep, 100 feet wide, and was partially filled with enormous blocks of basalt which had toppled down from either side; where more, cracked and dissevered, still impended, as if they might fall with a crash at the slightest noise or touch. This was the celebrated Almanna Gjá or Chasm, of which we had read so much but of which we had been able to form no adequate idea from descriptions.

Of a scene so extraordinary, indeed unique, I can only attempt faithfully to convey my own impressions, without hoping to succeed better than others who have gone before me.

Let the reader imagine himself, standing on the stony plateau; below him stretches a beautiful verdant valley, say about five miles broad, and about 100 feet below the level on which he is standing; to the right before him also lies the lake which we have been skirting for some miles in riding along. It is in size about ten miles each way, and is bounded by picturesque ranges of bare volcanic hills. This whole valley has evidently sunk down in one mass to its present level, leaving exposed a section of the rent rocks on either side of the vale. These exposed edges of the stony plateau running in irregular basaltic strata, and with fantastic shapes on the top like chimneys and ruined towers, stretch away like black ramparts for miles, nearly parallel to each other, with the whole valley between them, and are precipitous as walls, especially that on the left.

The top of the mural precipice, overlooking the gorge at our feet, is the original uniform level of the ground before the sinking of the valley. It forms the edge of the plateau which stretches away behind and also before us to the left of the precipice; for we look down the chasm lengthways, along the front of the rock-wall, and not at right angles from it. A mere slice of the rock has been severed and is piled up on our right, like a Cyclopian wall. It runs parallel with the face of the rent rock to which it formerly belonged, for, say, about the eighth of a mile N.E. from where we stand, and then terminates abruptly there in irregular crumbling blocks like a heap of ruins; while the trench or gjá itself also runs back in a straight line S.W. for about two miles, and terminates at the brink of the lake.

The N.E. side of the valley is the highest, and the S.W. the lowest—shelving beneath the blue water, and forming the bottom of the lake. The river Oxerá, which thunders over the rock-wall on the right, forms a magnificent waterfall, and then flows peacefully across the south-west corner of the valley to the lake.

Between these two rock-walls—the left forming the real boundary of the valley on that side, but the right wall being only a slice severed from the left, and not the other boundary of the valley, which is situated about five miles distant—a long narrow passage descends, leading to the plain below. The flat bottom of this passage 100 feet deep is strewn with debris, but otherwise covered with tender green sward. The bottom is reached from the elevated waste where we stand by a very rough irregular winding incline plane—for although the descent is full of great blocks of stones, dreadfully steep, and liker a deranged staircase than anything else, we still call it a steep incline plane from the level of the plateau to the passage beneath which leads into the valley—high rock-walls rising on either side as we descend. Entering the defile and moving along on level ground, the wall on the right, evidently rent from the other side as if sliced down with some giant’s sword from the edge of the plateau, soon terminates in the valley; but that on the left runs on for many miles like a fire-scathed rampart. The stony plateau stretches back from the edge or level of the summit of this rock-wall, and the lovely green valley of Thingvalla extends from its base to the Hrafna Gjá or Raven’s Chasm—the corresponding wall and fissure, like rampart and fosse—which bounds the other side of the valley.

I am thus particular, because certain descriptions led me to suppose that here we would encounter a precipice at right angles to our path, and have to descend the face of it, instead of descending an incline _parallel to its face_, from where the _stair_ begins on the old level. As it is, however, it seemed quite steep enough, with the rock-walled incline reaching from the valley to our feet. This wild chasm is called the Almanna Gjá—all men’s or main chasm; while the one on the other side of the vale of Thingvalla is called the Hrafna Gjá or Raven’s Chasm. The whole character of the scene, whether viewed by the mere tourist, or dwelt upon by the man of science, is intensely interesting, and in several respects quite unique; hence I have tried to describe it so minutely.

When Professor Chadbourne and I came up to it, we gazed down in awe and wonder. We knew that our companions must have descended somehow, for there was no other way: but how, we could not tell. Were we to dismount and let the horses go first, they might escape and leave us; if we attempted to lead them down they might fall on the top of us; to descend on foot would be extremely difficult at any time, and dismounting and mounting again at this stage of our proceedings, was rather a formidable undertaking. “How shall we set about it?” I asked my friend. “You may do as you please,” said he, “but I must keep my seat if I can.” “So shall I, for the horse is surer footed than I can hope to be to-day.” “Lead on then” said the Professor, “and I’ll follow!”

So leaving my pony to choose its steps, it slowly picked its way down the steep gorge; zig-zagging from point to point and crag to crag, or stepping from one great block of stone to another. I was repeatedly compelled to lean back, touching the pony’s tail with the back of my head, in order to maintain the perpendicular, and avoid being shot forward, feet first, over its head, among the rocks. Sometimes at steep places it drew up its hind legs and slid down on its hams, many loose stones rattling down along with us as the pony kicked out right and left to keep its balance, and made the sparks fly from its heels. Descending in silence, at last we reached the bottom in safety, thinking it rather a wild adventure in the way of riding, and one not to be attempted elsewhere.

Looking back with awe and increasing wonder at the gorge we had descended, for it certainly was terrifically steep, we both remarked the cool indifference and utter absence of fear with which we had ridden down such a break-neck place. The fresh air and excitement prevent one from thinking anything about such adventures till they are over.

The high rock-walls, now hemming us in on either side, bore a considerable resemblance to the pictures of Petra—Wady Mousa—in Arabia, and here we could fancy mounted Bedouins riding up with their long matchlocks. All was silent as the grave. The ground was green with tender herbage; great blocks of stone lay about, and others seemed ready to topple over and fall down upon us. Riding along, the rocks on the right soon terminated like a gigantic heap of burned ruins, and allowed us to gaze across the vale of Thingvalla, with the river Oxerá in the foreground. Here we overtook our friends who told us that they had all dismounted and led their horses down the chasm, and would scarcely believe that we had ridden down. All of us were lost in wonder and struck with awe at the scenes we had witnessed. We forded the river in a row, following Zöga’s guidance; and at 5 o’clock in the afternoon rode up to the priest’s house on the other side. It was simply a farm, like others we had seen, consisting of a group of separate erections with wooden gables, green sod on the roof and the whole surrounded with a low stone wall coped with turf. Beside it was the silent churchyard with its simple grassy graves of all sizes. Immediately behind the house were piles of sawn timber, and several carpenters at work rebuilding the little church, which having become old and frail had been taken down. Its site was only about 25 feet by 10.

Zöga went in to tell the pastor of our arrival, leaving us to dismount in a deep miry lane between two rough stone walls leading to the house. He had been busy with his hay, but speedily appeared and hospitably offered us what shelter he could afford.

Zöga arranged for the grazing of the ponies; we were to dine in the largest room of the house, and he was to have the use of the kitchen fire to cook our dinner—the preserved meats, soups, &c.—which of course we had brought with us. The pastor provided a splendid trout from the river, to the great delectation of half a dozen travellers all as hungry as hawks.

Now commenced the unstrapping and unpacking, presided over by the indefatigable Zöga; boxes, bags, and packages, bespattered with mud, lay about singly and in piles. Everybody seemed to want something or other which was stowed away somewhere, and forthwith the patient obliging Zöga, in a most miraculous manner, never failed to produce the desiderated articles. Taking a rough towel and soap, I performed my ablutions in the river close by, while dinner was getting ready and felt quite refreshed. “Time and the hour runs through the roughest day,” and this was certainly one to be marked in our calender. Shortly after 6 o’clock we dined and attempted some conversation in Latin with the priest, Mr. S. D. Beck. He is a pastor literally and metaphorically, farming and fishing as well as preaching. Hay, however, is the only crop which is raised here; and the Icelanders are consequently very dependent upon the hay-harvest. With their short summer they might not inappropriately quote Shakspere’s lines,

“The sun shines hot; and if we use delay
Cold biting winter mars our hoped for hay.”

The scythe used by the Icelanders is quite straight and not half the length of ours. The numerous little hummocks, with which pasture land is covered, necessitate the use of a short implement, so that it may mow between and around them; the hillocks are from one to two feet high, and from one to four feet across. In some places the ground presents quite the appearance of a churchyard or an old battle-field. These elevations are occasioned by the winter’s frost acting on the wet subsoil. If levelled they would rise again to the same height in about 7 or 8 years; but the farmers let them alone, because they fancy they get a larger crop from the greater superficial area of the field, and this old let-alone custom certainly saves them much labour. The primitive state of their agriculture, as well as the peculiar nature of the Icelandic soil, may be inferred from the fact, that there are only two ploughs in the whole island and no carts. A spade, a scythe two feet long, a small rake with teeth about an inch and a half deep, and ropes made of grass or hair to bind the hay, which is carried on men’s backs or conveyed by horses to be stacked, are all that the farmer requires for his simple operations. The hay, especially that which grows in the túns, is of fine quality, tender and nutritive; and, with even any ordinary attention to drainage, many a fertile vale could be made to yield much more than is now obtained from it. Latin was our only mode of communicating directly with the priest; but having had little colloquial practice of that kind, we blundered on, feeling that, in appropriating the stately language of Cicero and Virgil to creature comforts and the vulgar ongoings of daily life, we were almost committing a species of desecration: yet the ludicrous combinations and circumlocutions, grasped at in desperation to express modern things in a dead language, afforded us no little amusement. Professor Chadbourne, Mr. Murray, and myself got most of the work to do, and were often greeted with the pastor’s goodnatured “Ita,” or “Intelligo,” when our propositions could not have been particularly remarkable for perspicacity. Amongst foreigners, charity covers a multitude of sins of this kind. We cannot however apply the same remark to our own countrymen, who are often more inclined to laugh at a foreigner’s mistakes than to help him.

The fragrant tedded hay and the green vale of Thingvalla stretching before us were peculiarly refreshing to the eye, after the dreary rugged lava-wastes through which we had passed—where tracks of flat rocks were corrugated and shrivelled up like pitch, having been left so when the lava set; and where other rock-surfaces appeared ground and polished in grooves by the ice-drift; or where all was covered with a pack of lava blocks and slabs, of all sizes and lying in every conceivable direction.

After tea I walked out alone a little way north-west of the church to examine the Althing, on the upper part of which stands the Lögberg or sacred law hill, where, when the Parliament or Althing was assembled, the judges sat; and where justice was administered to the Icelanders for nearly 900 years; thus rendering Thingvalla, with its numerous associations and stirring memories, to speak historically, by far the most interesting spot in the island.

The Althing is a long sloping ridge of lava, about 200 feet long and from 30 to 50 broad, covered on the top with the most tender herbage and flowers. At the end next the church it is low and approachable, by climbing over a few stones among and below which one can see water, but it is entirely separated from the surrounding plain by two deep perpendicular rocky fissures or chasms running parallel on either side and joining at the further end. Only at one place is the chasm so narrow—16 feet—that, once on a time, Flosi, leader of the burners of Njal’s house, made his escape from justice by taking a desperate leap. These chasms contain clear water, so that the Althing is in fact a narrow peninsula, which with the entrance guarded was as secure as a fortress. One looks sheer down, say 20 or 30 feet, to the surface of the water in the chasms; while the water itself is from 80 to 90 feet deep, and in some places said to be unfathomable. These fissures run S.W. to the lake which is about a mile distant. Through the water, one sees huge blocks of lava of a whitish blue colour and dark masses of basalt gleaming from the green depths. Beautiful tender fairy-like ferns grow on the edges and in the sheltered crevices of the rocks; and I gathered specimens of grasses, mosses, violets, butter-cups and forget-me-nots, from the soft verdant carpet which covered the surface. Here, the Icelandic Parliament, such as it was, continued to meet, down to the year 1800, when the seat of government was finally removed to Reykjavik.

In the old palmy days, prior to A.D. 1261 when the island became subject to Norway, the Althing was the scene of many a spirited debate; affairs of the greatest import were here freely discussed, and finally disposed of, in open assembly. Thus, in the year A.D. 1000, after a stormy debate, it was determined that Christianity should be introduced as the religion of the island. Here, measures of general interest were proposed, taxes levied, law-suits conducted, the judgments of inferior courts revised, subordinate magistrates impeached for dereliction of duty and dismissed from their office; while criminals were tried, and if found guilty of capital offences were summarily executed. Criminals were beheaded on the little Island of Thorlevsholm in the Oxerá; in a pool of the same river, female offenders, sewed in a sack, were drowned; and those condemned for witchcraft were precipitated from the top of a high rock on the east side of the Almannagjá.

The Althing commonly met in the middle of May and sat for 14 days. Every freeholder had a right to attend and express his opinion on measures under consideration: thus, at Thingvalla, friends and acquaintances from distant parts of the island—members and friends of both sexes—annually availed themselves of this opportunity of meeting each other. The people pitched their tents on the banks of the Oxerá and in the plain around the Althing; so that a wild lone scene usually silent as the grave, for the time became quite a busy one, enlivened by the presence of nearly all the elite of the island.

Gazing from the Althing, so as to take in the general aspect of the wondrous scene around us, the whole valley seems obviously to have sunk down en masse to its present level. The tops of the two extreme wall-like boundaries, with chasms at their base, on either side of the vale, respectively called the Almannagjá and the Hrafnagjá, show the original height of the whole, and also exhibit a section of the rock. This view of the matter is proved by the fact, that the numerous cracks, rents, or fissures, such as those around the Althing, with which the valley is intersected, when examined are found exactly to correspond in their sections—trahytic trap capped by lava—with the edges left standing as they were before the subsidence of the valley and now bounding it like a black rampart. The pastor’s dwelling, from where I stand, presents the appearance of a few grass hillocks or potato-pits. The site of each erection is partly excavated from the side of a little slope, to protect it from the storm. Grass-turf covers the roofs, and the whole group of buildings is surrounded by a three-foot turf-wall; consequently, like many other Icelandic farms we have seen, little more than the roofs appear above ground. At midnight I made several sketches of the lake of Thingvalla; the river Oxerá as it fell thundering over the dark rock-wall in a sheet of white foam; and the bare heights to the north-east, purple in the evening glow and mottled with snow patches.

On returning to the pastor’s, I found my companions fast asleep on the floor. The canvas tent which had been left by the French expedition served them for a bed, portmanteaus or packages were appropriated for pillows, and plaids and wrappers spread over them for blankets. They lay packed like herrings in a barrel. I stepped over them as quietly as I could, found an unoccupied space near the open window, speedily ensconced myself for the night, and in a few minutes sank into a well-earned and blessed state of obliviousness.

_Saturday Morning, July 30._—Breakfasted and left Thingvalla at 9 A.M. The first five miles or so of our journey across the valley lay through low green brushwood, where the vegetation was fresh and luxuriant. This in Iceland is called a forest; but the trees, chiefly birches and willows, are all dwarfs. The birches were about 3 feet high, very few of them attaining to the height of 4 or 5 feet; the willows were of three kinds; one with a leaf resembling bog myrtle; the leaves of another white, green, and flossy—both these varieties only 10 to 12 inches high; while the third, although Professor Chadbourne assured me it was a genuine willow, was only about one and a half inches; we observed catkins on them all. Wild geraniums, forget-me-nots, butter-cups, the beautiful rose-coloured sedum so common in Iceland, clover, sea-pinks, &c., grew in profusion, and imparted to the whole the appearance of a rich fresh green coppice. When the ponies could snatch at a stray bite of grass as they passed along, in doing so, they would often at the same time take up a tree by the roots and carry it off in their mouths.

We came upon yawning chasms, every little way, where the rocks had been rent asunder; the cracks or fissures about 100 feet deep, 10 or 20 wide, dry, and all running in the same direction from the lake. These we either avoided, or crossed at places where blocks of stone had fallen in, so as to fill up part with debris, or form natural bridges which afforded as good footing as the most of the track we had ridden over. The lake of Thingvalla lay peacefully behind us on our right, fair as a silver mirror. Ascending a green bosky hill, where numerous hillocks around were clothed with low brushwood to the very top, we came to the Hrafnagjá, or Raven’s chasm, which forms the eastern boundary of Thingvalla. It is a deep broad irregular abyss, several miles in length, and on the further side, high like a rampart. We got across it, and up to the level of the plateau, by picking our way over the ridge of an avalanche of rock and stones, which had fallen in, leaving gaps, rude arches, and frightful openings into the darkness beneath us; while, right and left, the chasm itself stretched away like the dry fosse of a giant’s castle which, through successive ages, had withstood the assaults of all the rock-jötuns. Up this perilous way, steeper than a stair, winding, zig-zagging, doubling, leaping like cats from block to block, or standing for a second like goats with four feet on one stone to consider their next move, our patient ponies toiled upwards and took us safely across. Looking back, we bade adieu for a time to the lovely green vale of Thingvalla beneath us, and were lost in wonder, both at the wild savage grandeur of the chasm we had just crossed and at the sure-footedness and pluck of our trusty little steeds.

The plateau now attained was of the same level as that over which we had passed before descending into Thingvalla, but here, it did not extend very far, being bounded by irregular heights and bare hills.

Vegetation disappeared, everything seemed blasted. Plovers again sat quite close to us, or flitted past, uttering their shrill plaintive whistle; passing so near that we could distinctly observe the tremulous motion of their mandibles. The ponies stepped aside from holes in our very track, opening into hollow darkness, where stones thrown in were long heard striking against the sides. At one place, we came to a black cave 20 or 30 feet in size, arched right into and under great blocks of stone. It appeared to be a huge lava-blister which had taken its present shape in cooling. The bottom of the cave, protected from the warm rays of the sun, was covered with snow; and, for the same reason, white patches of snow lay in crevices of the bare rocky hills around us. The path now ascended flanking the sides of the hills on the left, while the whole region seemed fire-scathed and blasted. The hills and slopes were covered with dark volcanic sand, pulverized ashes, and slag, out of which abruptly rose irregular masses of rock. Here, leaving our horses, we turned aside to examine a small extinct crater or vent, called Tintron, crowning a little eminence to the right. In ascending it, we were up to the ancles in fine black sand or slag, which, yielding beneath the feet at every step, made walking extremely awkward, if not difficult. The crater itself was composed of great blocks of red and black vitrified lava, over which we looked down into the darkness as into Pluto’s chimney. We threw in some large stones, but could not from their sound form an estimate of the depth. Perhaps this vent may be only a lava-blister which has burst on the top, instead of forming a cave like the other we lately saw. However, though small, it presented the appearance of a regular crater. From it, we saw, on the one side, the beautiful Lake of Thingvalla; and, on the other, the near hills opposite, with the slope between them and us all covered with black scoriæ.

After pocketing a few specimens of the lava, I made a rough sketch of the crater and gathered a sprig of wild thyme, and a little white flower (_parnassia_), which was blooming all alone on its very brink. Mounting our ponies and descending for about an hour, on clearing the hill-side we came in sight of a level plain of green meadow land, lying below us, shaped like a horse shoe, and occupying an area of 3 or 4 miles. It appeared to have been submerged at no very distant period, and, like other Icelandic valleys, was sadly in want of drainage.

The rocky hill-range, which at the same time came into view on the left and formed the boundary of the plain, was one of the most singular I ever beheld. It was composed of black, yellow, and red volcanic rock; rising in fantastic cones, or receding into savage gorges, steep, abrupt, and angular. The surface was absolutely without vegetation of any kind, and every cleavage, rent or crevice, so fresh, bare, and unweathered, one could fancy that the rocks had only during the last hour been smitten, shattered, and splintered by Thor’s hammer; while the rich effect of their vari-coloured tints was heightened by the pure white clouds which incense-like were now muffling and rolling about their summits, and by the verdure which extended to their base like a carpet. Our track lay along the foot of them, and wonder only increased as we obtained a nearer view of their Tartarian wildness.

Here we halted, and I made a slight sketch of a portion of the range. As a mere study of light and shade, to say nothing of other striking features, the scene would have made a magnificent photograph.

Starting, we rode on, till we reached the end of the cinder range, doubled the outmost spur, and, after ascending for sometime, came in sight of gently sloping hills. Their flowing outlines were covered with verdure to the very top, and, from our path, opened up here and there into little green bosky valleys “where the blae-berries grow.” Before us, in a vast level plain which stretched away from the roots of the hills near to the horizon, lay the Laugervatn; and further to the south, linked by a river, the Apavatn, a lake much larger; while several other rivers meandered in gleaming serpentine courses over the vast green prairie-like meadow.

On the brink of the Laugervatn are several hot springs from which it takes its name. We observed columns of white steam rising from them on the brink next us, just below the farm of Laugervalla; and also across on the other side of the lake. Approaching the farm, we halted, outside the tun, to lunch, rest for an hour and let the horses graze. It presented the usual appearance of Icelandic farms; not unlike an irregular group of potato-pits or tumuli. The roofs were of the same colour as the plain, and the whole shut in from the surrounding pasture land by a rude four-foot wall, also covered on the top with green turf. The tun, or few acres thus enclosed, receives a top-dressing of manure and bears a luxuriant crop of hay; the rest is left in a state of nature, and reaped without sowing. The hay, when stacked, is protected from the rain by thin slices or strips of turf from 6 to 10 feet long. Nearly all Icelandic farming has reference to the rearing of stock—the summer being too short for grain to reach maturity.

* * * * *

A few words, here, while we rest, as to Icelandic Farms in general.

Most farms have a weaving room, a smithy, a milk room, a sitting room—used also for eating and sleeping in—called stofa; a guest-chamber, cattle-houses, which are sometimes placed immediately under the sleeping-room but more frequently detached, and a kitchen; which last my friend Dr. Mackinlay neatly describes as often “a dingy dark place, with a peat fire on a lava block, and a hole in the roof to let in light and let out smoke.” The turf is inferior; wood is too scarce and valuable to be much used for fuel. Coal costs £5 per ton, is retailed in small packages at about 2d. per pound, and is only used in smithies. When turf is not available, the Icelanders, like the Arabs, burn dried cows’ dung; and on the coast, where even that is scarce, they use the dried carcases of sea-fowl. Why do they not burn dried sea-weed, which is extensively used for fuel in the Channel Islands?

Their daily food is taken cold, and consists chiefly of raw dried stock-fish and skier. The latter dish is simply milk allowed to become acid and coagulate, and then hung up in a bag till the whey runs off. In this form it is both nutritive and wholesome, being more easily digested than sweet milk; while, to those who take to it, it is light, palatable and delightfully cooling. Milk is prepared in this way by the Shetlanders, who in the first stage call it “run milk,” and when made into skier “hung milk.” The same preparation is made use of by the Arabs, and it is also the chief diet of the Kaffirs and Bechuanas at the Cape. Our idea that milk is useless or hurtful when soured is merely an ignorant prejudice. Those who depend for their subsistence chiefly on milk diet, and have the largest experience, prefer to use it sour, and medical authority endorses their choice. In Icelandic farms hard black rye bread is at times produced as a luxury; butter is always cured without salt, and used rancid, however, after it reaches a certain mild stage it gets no worse; meat is dried at certain seasons of the year for occasional use, and the rivers abound in excellent fish. The chief use to which the kitchen fire is put, is to prepare a cup of warm coffee. Snaps, sugar candy, coffee, grain, and other foreign commodities, they obtain at the factories.

The scarcity of fuel tempts people to crowd together for heat; sometimes 15 or 16 people in one small sleeping apartment, and that often placed over another where cattle are kept. The state of such an atmosphere may be imagined, while many dirty habits and the frequent recourse to stimulants are thus accounted for. Nor will any one wonder much, although there were no other causes, that, in one district of the south, 75 per cent of all the children born die before they complete their twelfth month.

As for indoor occupations, the farmers, as in colonial outposts, of necessity are Jacks-of-all-trades. They forge scythes, make saddles and bridles, make their simple household furniture, horse-shoe nails, and even build or repair their own houses. Females do the tailoring, but men make their own shoes and take their turn at the spinning wheel, the knitting needles, and the loom. All work together by lamplight, while some one reads aloud some old-world story. The out-door occupations are both fishing and farming. The ver-tima, or fishing season, lasts from February till May, and is chiefly carried on, on the south-west coast, which, from thus becoming a source of wealth, is called Guld-bringu—or the gold bringing—Sysla. At the beginning of the season, men move down to the fishing stations. The boats have each from 4 to 10 oars, and crews of from 10 to 20 men.

Lines only are used, and the fish caught are chiefly cod and ling. Part are salted and dried for exportation, part dried for home use without salt and left at the stations to be fetched at midsummer, when many people resort to the annual fair for the sale of produce, or rather the exchange of commodities. The deep sea fishing is not prosecuted by the Icelanders, but is chiefly carried on by the Norwegians, French, and Dutch. All journeys are performed on horseback.

These statements will enable the reader to form an idea of the ongoings of daily life in the numerous farms, which are scattered over the habitable belt of pasture-land which nearly surrounds the island.

* * * * *

Through Zöga, we had an interview with the farmer, and arranged for the grazing of the ponies on the farm of Laugervalla. A girl brought out a large basin of skier, together with a plentiful supply of milk and cream to us.

We looked wistfully to the south-east in the direction of Hekla which lay about 35 miles distant, but at this time it was quite hid by an impenetrable veil of clouds resting on the horizon line. As we were about half-way from Thingvalla to the Geysers, we mounted the relay horses, and now it was the turn of those that brought us thither to be driven before us.

In Iceland, at whatever pace the ponies run, they are supposed to be resting, when they carry no load.

Our course lay over some wet marshy land—from which we gathered heather, moss, cotton-grass, and buck-bean—across a shallow river brawling over white and slaty coloured stones on its way to the lake; and then higher up, along the sides of the green hill-range which trends in the direction of the Geysers. Here dwarf-birches and willows grew in profusion; while the broken cakes of black lava, which projected from among them, served by contrast to add freshness to the greenth of the foliage, and yet more brilliance to the vari-coloured flowers which bloomed in beauty on every side. We saw innumerable coveys of ptarmigan on the hill-sides, many plovers, snipe, and a few snow-birds. All were very tame, flitted quite near and seemed to wonder at our intruding on their amenities. We did not abuse their confidence, but admiringly allowed them to go, as they came, in peace.

Coming to a part where the soil was of soft earth and turf, we found it, for miles, worn by the ponies into very narrow tracks, averaging two feet in depth. There were from six to twelve of these tracks, with thin grassy ledges between them, lying close together nearly parallel and every little way running into each other; where the ground sloped, they were dry; and, where it was level or low, they were full of mud or water. Riding along at a hard trot, we required to be ever on the alert, and to maintain an incessant motion of the feet, in order to avoid collision with the irregular surface and the projecting stones on either side of us. Tempted by a wild flower of unusual beauty, I dismounted, but was astonished to find that the deep tracks were so narrow that I could not walk in them, there not being width for my one foot to pass the other: yet a horse finds no difficulty in trotting along; actually, however paradoxical it may seem, requiring less space for its feet than a man.

We saw numerous farms as we passed along, each consisting of a group of irregular hillocks, with the windows hid deep in the grassy turf like port-holes, and generally all turned inwards so as to be sheltered from the roaring blasts of winter. We met ponies trudging along conveying lambs from one farm to another. It was curious to see the little animals looking out of square crate-like boxes, made of spars of wood, slung in the manner of panniers on a donkey, and to hear them bleat: reminding one of the old nursery rhyme “young lambs to sell!”

They could not be otherwise transported over lava tracks and across the rivers which separate one valley from another. We saw several small caravans or companies of Icelanders on the way. They had the same sort of boxes as our baggage ponies, and the same quaint horse gear, down to the rough hair cords tied and fastened by passing a sheep’s knee-bone through a loop to prevent knots from slipping. They had tents and provisions; one of the ponies carried a leather bottle probably filled with skier. It was a calf’s skin sewed up, with the head and legs left on it, so that it presented a quaint old world look; and recalled pictures in the catacombs of Egypt. Notwithstanding the difference of climate, when in contact with the people, one is here, at every point, reminded of the East and carried back to patriarchal times. We touched our hats in returning the salutations of those we met, although we did not know the exact import of what was said to us on such occasions till afterwards, when Dr. Mackinlay told me that an Icelander when he meets a stranger invariably doffs his bonnet and accosts him with the phrase “Saellar verith thér!”—“Happy may you be!” or occasionally with one still more expressive, “Guts fride!”—“God’s peace be with you!” On saying good-bye, he uncovers again, and repeats the first phrase with a slight inversion, “Verith thér saellar!”—“Be ye happy!”

After the customary salutations, he accosts everybody on the road with a series of questions, like a master hailing a ship. The first question put, is “What is your name?” the second “Whose son are you?”—for the general absence of surnames renders this necessary—the third “Where do you come from?” Then follows “Whither are you going?” and “What are you going to do there?” These questions are not regarded as impertinent, but as exhibiting a kindly interest. Henderson says, “When you visit a family in Iceland, you must salute them according to their age and rank, beginning with the highest and descending according to your best judgment to the lowest, not even excepting the servants; but, on taking leave, this order is completely reversed; the salutation is first tendered to the servants, then to the children, and last of all to the mistress and master of the family.” Old friends meeting, salute each other, in the old Icelandic way, with the kiss of peace. Clergymen are a privileged body, for, in salutation, even strangers male or female give them the kiss of peace and address them as “Sira,” Father. Hence our words sire and sir. Out of Reykjavik, and away from the factories, there is much of the oriental type about the manners and customs of the Icelanders; the same simplicity, the same native politeness, the same disregard of cleanliness, and the same dislike of change.

We now rode over uneven rocky ground, enriched with brushwood, till we reached the banks of the Bruará. This broad, deep, rapid river drains the valley of Laugervalla, receiving the waters of two lakes, Laugervatn and Apavatn; which in turn are fed by rivers and streams from the snow mountains beyond. A few miles south of us, near Skálholt, it receives the joint waters of the Túngufljot from Haukadal with the overflow of the Geysers, the magnificent river Hvitá which flows from a lake of the same name at the foot of Lang Jökul, and the Laxá, from Grœnavatn; further down to the south-west it also receives the Sog flowing from the lake of Thingvalla; and after draining several hundred miles of country, these waters, united in a little gulf called Olfusá, flow into the sea on the west coast.

Properly speaking, the Bruará terminates when it joins the longest and principal river of those named—the Hvitá or White-river—and below the junction, the whole waters united in one river are simply called the Hvitá; while the gulph, formed on the coast where it debouches into the sea, is called Olfusá.

The place selected for fording the Bruará is immediately above a singular waterfall shaped like a horse-shoe—the concave looks downwards—with a volcanic fissure or rent from two to three hundred feet long in the middle of it. This wedge-shaped gap in the bed of the river runs back to a point, and the water rushes down into it, from either side, falling into the chasm with a noise like thunder. Over this chasm, near the point or part of it highest up the river, are placed some planks with a slight hand-rail on either side, forming a rude bridge about twenty feet long and seven or eight broad. The river was swollen by recent rains, so that at least a foot of water lay upon or rather rushed over the bridge itself. Some thirty feet of the river had to be waded through ere the bridge in the middle could be reached; and—guessing its whole width here, say at 70 feet—again other 20 feet had to be forded after the bridge was passed, ere the steep rough bank, up which we had to scramble on the other side, could be attained. The water was deep, turbulent and rapid; while we could hear large stones grating on each other as they were borne along in the current. The eye took in all these bearings at a glance; there was no pause, Zöga led on and we followed. Our horses were up to the girths, and seemed walking over large movable boulders. They leant up the river so as to withstand the current. The arrowy swiftness of the flowing water produced a strange illusory feeling, akin to giddiness; one could not tell whether the motion pertained to one’s self, or to the river. A little to our right was the roaring cataract, so we kept the horses’ heads well up the river, to avoid missing the bridge; in that case we should inevitably have been swept over. The view, from the bridge, of the foaming mass of water through which we moved, and of the yawning gulph into which it was tumbling and furiously rushing along, far below our very feet, impressed the situation on our minds as something unique.

All having got over in safety, we paused for a few minutes on the top of the high bank to gaze back on the strange spectacle; while, before us, the river rushing along into the chasm, although on a smaller scale and different in kind, suggested Dr. Livingstone’s description of the great Victoria Falls on the Zambesi. The bridge has been renewed here from of old. On this account, the river is named Bruará or Bridge-river; a sufficient reason, when we mention that there is only one other bridge in the whole island.[8]

In the neighbourhood of the river we saw many small butterflies—blue and white—both fluttering and flying kinds; and were much annoyed with mosquitoes like gnats, that bit our faces severely and would get in about our necks, persecuting us most pertinaciously.

The Iceland ponies are truly wonderful animals. They carry one over smooth bare rocks, over great blocks of lava, up places steeper than a stair but with footing not half so good; through mud-puddles, water or bogs; over tracks of volcanic sand; through coppices; up hill, down hill; or across rivers. Patient and sure-footed, they stick at nothing. They are guided by the feet as much as by the bridle; a gentle touch with the heel being the Icelandic they are trained to understand. Some riders, we saw, kept up a constant drumming on the poor beasts’ sides. After their day’s work is done, they receive no manner of grooming or stabling; saddle and bridle taken off, they are then left to shift for themselves.

To our intense satisfaction, Zöga pointed out a hill about ten miles off, on the other side of which lay the Geysers. It was detached from the range of hills we had to skirt, rising with a gentle slope at right angles to them, and falling abruptly on the other side; forming a sort of bluff headland resting on a marshy plain. Part of our track lay through a plashy bog; then we had long level tracks of beautiful velvet turf at the foot of the hills, which both riders and horses seemed to think were made expressly for running races upon. When the ponies could be got into their peculiar amble, we progressed very pleasantly, and almost as fast as at a gallop. The hills on our left were mostly green, covered with dwarf birches, willows and blae-berries. On their slopes we saw farms, here and there, as we passed along. The plain immediately on our right, bounded by distant mountains and jökuls, was marshy. When it became very spongy and impassible, generally, we had only to move a little way higher up along the hill side, in order to obtain firmer footing. Approaching the hill which separated us from the Geysers, we crossed the morass, forded a river, rode up a miry lane past a farm house, turned the flank of the hill, and beheld clouds of white steam rising from the slope. The wished for goal now lay before us. Pushing on rapidly, my trusty little pony soon reached and picked its way over a gritty slope, among numerous plopping pits, steaming holes, boiling springs and fountains, up to the side of the Great Geyser, where I dismounted at 9 o’clock at night, having been ten and a half hours in the saddle.

The Geysers are boiling springs, situated seventy-two miles north-east of Reykjavik, on a gritty slope, at the foot of a trap-hill three hundred feet high; and on the upper border of a green-marshy plain, sloping down towards a small river which runs meandering through it in a southern direction. They are about a hundred in number, and all located in an area of about a quarter of a mile. Three of them are erupting—the Great Geyser, Strokr, and the Little Geyser. These, with Blesi, the most beautiful of the non-erupting springs, and situated a little way above the great Geyser, are the principal attractions to a traveller; although all the others, with everything pertaining to such phenomena, are intensely interesting.