Chapter VI: Chapter on Our Scandinavian Ancestors 293 (7)

On landing, Mr. Haycock accompanied me to call for Miss Löbner, who has been poorly ever since her sea voyage. Her mother presented wine, cake, coffee &c., and was most hospitable. None of us being able to speak Faröese, at first we felt a little awkward; but a brother of the old lady’s who speaks English soon came to the rescue and acted as interpreter. With justifiable pride, they again showed us their flower and kitchen garden. I got the whale-knives, caps, shoes, gloves &c., which had been made or procured for me during my absence in Iceland. Ere leaving, Miss Löbner appeared to say adieu! and insisted on my accepting several other specimens of Faröese workmanship as remembrances of Thorshavn. No people could have been kinder.

Again, wandering about, we explored the town, looked at the church, stepped into the stores, passed the governor’s garden, and wandered a mile or two in that direction in order to obtain a view, and get quit of the fishy smells which superabound in Thorshavn.

On our return we called for Mr. Müller, who presented me with a copy of the gospel of St. Matthew in Danish and Faröese, arranged in parallel columns. I understood him to say that this was the only book ever printed in the Faröese dialect, and that it is now out of print and very rare. It bears the date of 1823.

Here we saw an old man 76 years of age, an Icelander who has been in Faröe for the last 40 years. He had spent several years in England, and told me that, in 1815, he saw our regiments land at Liverpool after the battle of Waterloo. He speaks English fluently.

A Thames fishing smack, and a sloop from Lerwick, are lying in the bay. Piping and dancing goes merrily on, on board the latter, relieved by intervals of music alone. In one of these, we heard “The Yellow Hair’d Laddie,” rendered with considerable taste, although, doubtless, several “improvements and additions” were made on the original score.

We took some Faröese boatmen into the saloon of the steamer, and I shall not soon forget the look of wonder and utter astonishment pourtrayed on their countenances, as they gazed on the mirrors and everything around, or were shown things with which they were not familiar and heard their uses explained. They were greatly pleased with my life-belt. Dr. Mackinlay showed them a multiplying-glass, and, as it was handed from one to another—each man first making the discovery of what had so inexplicably excited the wonder of the last looker—the queer exclamations of amazement accompanied by inimitable pantomimic gestures reached their culminating point, and were irresistibly droll.

The weather is all we could desire. The sailors are singing some curious Danish songs, with the time well marked, as they heave the anchor; and at 20 minutes past 6 o’clock P.M. we are steaming out of the bay. The evening is lovely, and the Thermometer, on the deck, stands at 68°. Thorshavn soon disappears, and we leave the Faröe islands astern, relieved against an amber sky, Dimon being the most striking and conspicuous of the group. A few stars shone overhead, and I walked the deck till midnight.

_Tuesday, August 9._ At breakfast, tasted a whale-steak which Miss Löbner had yesterday sent on board for me, with particular instructions to the stewardess to have it properly cooked. The flesh looked and tasted like dry tough beef, with a slight flavour of venison. The blubber, however was too strong for any of us to do more than merely satisfy—not gratify—our curiosity.

The day was lovely. Professor Chadbourne invited me to visit and spend a month with him during his holiday. Indeed, cordial, pressing invitations, all round, were the order of the day. As fellow-travellers we had been happy together, and felt sorry at the near prospect of our little party being broken up and scattered; for several valued friendships had been formed.

Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, the thermometer indicated 98° in the sun and 75° in the shade. Dr. Mackinlay showed me an old Danish dollar he had got, in change, at Reykjavik; it bore the date of A.D. 1619, the year of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers from the _May Flower_. Part of the day was spent in writing out these pages from my diary. In the evening we saw, far to our left, faint and dim on the horizon line, the north-west islands of Shetland; and by a quarter to 8 o’clock P.M. were sailing twenty miles to the west of Fair Isle, which lies between Orkney and Shetland. Both groups are in sight. We have not seen a sail since we left Faröe, and now, what we at first fancied to be one, off the north end of the Orkneys, turns out to be a light-house, rising apparently from the sea, but in reality from low lying land which is yet below the horizon.

The sunset to-night is gorgeous; cavernous recesses opening through a dense purple cloud-bank into glowing regions of fire; while broad flashing gleams ray out on every side athwart the sky, as if from furnace-mouths. Then we have moonlight on a sea smooth as glass, and not even a ripple to be seen. The Orkney light-house, now gleaming like a setting star, is left far astern. The phosphoresence along the vessel’s side and in her wake is most brilliant; while, seething, electric-like, from the screw, it rivals the “churned fire-froth” of the demon steed. The moon, half-hid, is at times deep crimson and again bright yellow. Many falling stars are shooting “madly from their spheres;” not that our music lured them, although, “on such a night” of nights, when all is harmonious, we cannot but sing. Mr. Murray gives us “Home, sweet home” and “The last rose of summer,” and ere retiring at midnight, all of us join together in singing the “Spanish Chant.”

_Wednesday morning, August 10._ We are off Inverness; wind a-head and rising. Professor Chadbourne to-day gave me an oak-leaf which he plucked from the tree, at Upsala, planted by Linnæus with his own hands. Wrote as long as the heaving of the ship would admit of it, then arranged botanical specimens and read Wordsworth. The wind is blowing so fresh, off Peterhead, that, with full steam, we are not making above one and a half knots; and at times can scarcely keep any way on. Passed the Bell-Rock; the sea still rising. Went to bed at 11 o’clock P.M.; vessel pitching a good deal.

_Thursday morning, August 11._ Rose at four o’clock and was on deck ere the _Arcturus_ dropt anchor in Leith Roads. But as we cannot get our traps on shore till the custom-house officer comes at nine o’clock to overhaul them, we remain and breakfast on board. The examination made, at half-past ten o’clock A.M., we landed by a tug steamer, and made for our respective railway stations, each, on parting, bidding the other “a bright adieu!” in the hope that it might only be for “a brief absence!” “Odin” was in good feather: his owner sun-bronzed and strong.

At length, comfortably ensconsed in the fast express, I lay back in the corner of a compartment, closed my eyes and resigned myself to see pleasant pictures and dream waking dreams—of snow jökuls, volcanoes, glaciers, and ice-fields; of geysers, mud-cauldrons, and sulphur-pits; of lava plains, black, wierd and blasted, or dreary wastes of ice; of deep rapid rivers, flashing waterfalls, leaping torrents; of frightful chasms, rugged cliffs, and precipitous mountains mirrored in deep blue fiords; of pathless stony deserts, enlivened at times with oasis-like spots of tender green herbage and bright coloured flowers; of wild break-neck rides, over bare rocks, among slabs and lava-blocks of all shapes and sizes and lying in every conceivable direction; through volcanic sands and scoriæ; by red and black vetrified craters, or across dangerous fords; of multifarious scamperings too, and mud-plashings over hill and dale; or wild rides down rocky steeps, not on a phantom steed, but on a sure-footed Iceland pony; of pleasant companionship by the way; of cordial welcome and great kindness received, in quiet homesteads, and at all hands from the people, wherever we went; then again of Frost contending with Fire, and of all the varied and marvellous phenomena of Iceland, that singularly interesting island in the lone North Sea.

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Footnote 38:

At night it sunk to 50°.

Footnote 39:

See illustration D at p. 53.

Footnote 40:

Compare illustrations pp. 202, 206, and 207.

Footnote 41:

See illustration p. 197.

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