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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IX.

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

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

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

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

It is perfectly true in Iceland that

but we cannot say that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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