distance, the corresponding chasm of the Hrafna Gja cut across the
lower sloop of the distant hills, and between them now slept in
sunshine and beauty the broad verdant plain[4] of Thingvalla.
Ages ago,--who shall say how long,--some vast commotion shook the
foundations of the island, and bubbling up from sources far away
amid the inland hills, a fiery deluge must have rushed down between
their ridges, until, escaping from the narrow gorges, it found space
to spread itself into one broad sheet of molten stone over an entire
district of country, reducing its varied surface to one vast blackened
level.
One of two things then occurred: either the vitrified mass contracting
as it cooled,--the centre area of fifty square miles burst asunder at
either side from the adjoining plateau, and sinking down to its present
level, left the two paralleled Gjas, or chasms, which form its lateral
boundaries, to mark the limits of the disruption; or else, while the
pith or marrow of the lava was still in a fluid state, its upper
surface became solid, and formed a roof beneath which the molten stream
flowed on to lower levels, leaving a vast cavern into which the upper
crust subsequently plumped down.
But to return where I left myself, on the edge of the cliff, gazing
down with astonished eyes over a panorama of land and water imbedded
at my feet. I could scarcely speak for pleasure and surprise; Fitz was
equally taken aback, and as for Wilson, he looked as if he thought we
had arrived at the end of the world. After having allowed us sufficient
time to admire the prospect, Sigurdr turned to the left, along the edge
of the precipice, until we reached a narrow pathway accidentally formed
down a longitudinal niche in the splintered face of the cliff, which
led across the bottom, and up the opposite side of the Gja, into the
plain of Thingvalla.
Independently of its natural curiosities, Thingvalla was most
interesting to me on account of the historical associations connected
with it. Here, long ago, at a period when feudal despotism was the
only government known throughout Europe, free parliaments used to sit
in peace, and regulate the affairs of the young Republic; and to this
hour the precincts of its Commons House of Parliament are as distinct
and unchanged as on the day when the high-hearted fathers of the
emigration first consecrated them to the service of a free nation. By
a freak of nature, as the subsiding plain cracked and shivered into
twenty thousand fissures, an irregular oval area, of about two hundred
feet by fifty, was left almost entirely surrounded by a crevice so
deep and broad as to be utterly impassable;--at one extremity alone a
scanty causeway connected it with the adjoining level, and allowed of
access to its interior. It is true, just at one point the encircling
chasm grows so narrow as to be within the possibility of a jump; and an
ancient worthy, named Flosi, pursued by his enemies, did actually take
it at a fly: but as leaping an inch short would have entailed certain
drowning in the bright green waters that sleep forty feet below, you
can conceive there was never much danger of this entrance becoming a
thoroughfare. I confess that for one moment, while contemplating the
scene of Flosi’s exploit, I felt, like a true Briton,--an idiotic
desire to be able to say that I had done the same;--that I survive
to write this letter is a proof of my having come subsequently to my
senses.
This spot, then, erected by nature almost into a fortress, the founders
of the Icelandic constitution chose for the meetings of their Thing, or
Parliament; armed guards defended the entrance, while the grave bonders
deliberated in security within: to this day, at the upper end of the
place of meeting, may be seen the three hummocks, where sat in state
the chiefs and judges of the land.
But those grand old times have long since passed away. Along the banks
of the Oxeraa no longer glisten the tents and booths of the assembled
lieges; no longer stalwart berserks guard the narrow entrance to the
Althing; ravens alone sit on the sacred Logberg; and the floor of the
old Icelandic House of Commons is ignominiously cropped by the sheep
of the parson. For three hundred years did the gallant little Republic
maintain its independence--three hundred years of unequalled literary
and political vigour. At last its day of doom drew near. Like the
Scotch nobles in the time of Elizabeth, their own chieftains intrigued
against the liberties of the Icelandic people; and in 1261 the island
became an appendage of the Norwegian crown. Yet even then the deed
embodying the concession of their independence was drawn up in such
haughty terms as to resemble rather the offer of an equal alliance than
the renunciation of imperial rights.
[Illustration: THINGVALLA.]
As I gazed around on the silent, deserted plain, and paced to and
fro along the untrodden grass that now clothed the Althing, I could
scarcely believe it had ever been the battle-field where such keen and
energetic wits encountered,--that the fire-scathed rocks I saw before
me were the very same that had once inspired one of the most successful
rhetorical appeals ever hazarded in a public assembly.
From the Althing we strolled over to the Almanna Gja, visiting the
Pool of Execution on our way. As I have already mentioned, a river
from the plateau above leaps over the precipice into the bottom of the
Gja, and flows for a certain distance between its walls. At the foot
of the fall, the waters linger for a moment, in a dark, deep, brimming
pool, hemmed in by a circle of ruined rocks; to this pool, in ancient
times, all women convicted of capital crimes were immediately taken,
and drowned. Witchcraft seems to have been the principal weakness of
ladies in those days, throughout the Scandinavian countries. For a long
period, no disgrace was attached to its profession. Odin himself, we
are expressly told, was a great adept, and always found himself very
much exhausted at the end of his performance; which leads me to think
that, perhaps, he dabbled in electro-biology.
Turning aside from what, I dare say, was the scene of many an
unrecorded tragedy, we descended the gorge of the Almanna Gja, towards
the lake; and I took advantage of the opportunity again to examine
its marvellous construction. The perpendicular walls of rock rose on
either hand from the flat greensward that carpeted its bottom, pretty
much as the waters of the Red Sea must have risen on each side of the
fugitive Israelites. A blaze of light smote the face of one cliff,
while the other lay in the deepest shadow; and on the rugged surface
of each might still be traced corresponding articulations, that once
had dovetailed into each other, ere the igneous mass was rent asunder.
So unchanged, so recent seemed the vestiges of this convulsion, that I
felt as if I had been admitted to witness one of nature’s grandest and
most violent operations, almost in the very act of its execution. A
walk of about twenty minutes brought us to the borders of the lake--a
glorious expanse of water, fifteen miles long, by eight miles broad,
occupying a basin formed by the same hills, which must also, I imagine,
have arrested the further progress of the lava torrent. A lovelier
scene I have seldom witnessed. In the foreground lay huge masses of
rock and lava, tossed about like the ruins of a world, and washed by
waters as bright and green as polished malachite. Beyond, a bevy of
distant mountains, robed by the transparent atmosphere in tints unknown
to Europe, peeped over each other’s shoulders into the silver mirror at
their feet, while here and there from among their purple ridges columns
of white vapour rose like altar smoke towards the tranquil heaven.
The next morning we started for the Geysers; this time dividing the
baggage-train, and sending on the cook in light marching order, with
the materials for dinner. The weather still remained unclouded, and
each mile we advanced disclosed some new wonder in the unearthly
landscape. A three hours’ ride brought us to the Rabna Gja, the eastern
boundary of Thingvalla, and, winding up its rugged face, we took our
last look over the lovely plain beneath us, and then manfully set
across the same kind of arid lava plateau as that which we had already
traversed before arriving at the Almanna Gja.
_Letters from High Latitude, being some account of a voyage in the
schooner yacht Foam in 1856_ (London, 1859).
FOOTNOTE:
[4] The plain of Thingvalla is in a great measure clothed with birch
brushwood.
LAND’S END AND LOGAN ROCK
(_ENGLAND_)
JOHN AYRTON PARIS
“The sunbeams tremble, and the purple light
Illumes the dark Bolerium;--seat of storms,
High are his granite rocks; his frowning brow
Hangs o’er the smiling ocean. In his caves,
Where sleep the haggard spirits of the storm,
Wild dreary are the schistose rocks around,
Encircled by the waves, where to the breeze
The haggard cormorant shrieks; and far beyond
Are seen the cloud-like islands, grey in mists.”
Sir H. Davy.
In an excursion to the _Land’s End_ the traveller will meet with
several intermediate objects well worthy his attention, more worthy,
perhaps, than the celebrated promontory itself, as being monuments
of the highest antiquity in the kingdom. They consist of Druidical
circles, cairns, or circular heaps of stones, cromlechs, crosses,
military entrenchments, and the obscure remains of castles.
Having arrived at the celebrated promontory, we descend a rapid slope,
which brings us to a bold group of rocks, composing the western
extremity of our island. Some years ago a military officer who visited
this spot, was rash enough to descend on horseback; the horse soon
became unruly, plunged, reared, and, fearful to relate, fell backwards
over the precipice, and rolling from rock to rock was dashed to atoms
before it reached the sea. The rider was for some time unable to
disengage himself, but at length by a desperate effort he threw himself
off, and was happily caught by some fragments of rock, at the very
brink of the precipice, where he remained in a state of insensibility
until assistance could be afforded him! The awful spot is marked by the
figure of a horseshoe, traced on the turf with a deep incision, which
is cleared out from time to time, in order to preserve it as a monument
of rashness which could alone be equalled by the good fortune with
which it was attended.
Why any promontory in an island should be exclusively denominated the
Land’s End, it is difficult to understand; yet so powerful is the charm
of a name, that many persons have visited it on no other account; the
intelligent tourist, however, will receive a much more substantial
gratification from his visit; the great geological interest of the spot
will afford him an ample source of entertainment and instruction, while
the magnificence of its convulsed scenery, the ceaseless roar, and deep
intonation of the ocean, and the wild shrieks of the cormorant, all
combine to awaken the blended sensations of awe and admiration.
The cliff which bounds this extremity is rather abrupt than elevated,
not being more than sixty feet above the level of the sea. It is
composed entirely of granite, the forms of which present a very
extraordinary appearance, assuming in some places the resemblance
of _shafts_ that had been regularly cut with the chisel; in others,
regular equidistant fissures divide the rock into horizontal masses,
and give it the character of basaltic columns; in other places, again,
the impetuous waves of the ocean have opened, for their retreat,
gigantic arches, through which the angry billows roll and bellow with
tremendous fury.
Several of these rocks from their grotesque forms have acquired
whimsical appellations, as that of the _Armed Knight_, the _Irish
Lady_, etc. An inclining rock on the side of a craggy headland, south
of the Land’s End, has obtained the name of _Dr. Johnson’s Head_, and
visitors after having heard the appellation seldom fail to acknowledge
that it bears some resemblance to the physiognomy of that extraordinary
man.
On the north, this rocky scene is terminated by a promontory 229 feet
above the level of the sea, called _Cape Cornwall_, between which and
the Land’s End, the coast retires, and forms _Whitesand Bay_; a name
which it derives from the peculiar whiteness of the sand, and amongst
which the naturalist will find several rare microscopic shells. There
are, besides, some historical recollections which invest this spot with
interest. It was in this bay that Stephen landed on his first arrival
in England; as did King John, on his return from Ireland; and Perkin
Warbeck, in the prosecution of those claims to the Crown to which some
late writers have been disposed to consider that he was entitled, as
the real son of Edward the Fourth. In the rocks near the southern
termination of _Whitesand Bay_ may be seen the junction of the granite
and slate; large veins of the former may also be observed to traverse
the latter in all directions.
We now return to the Land’s End,--from which we should proceed to visit
a promontory called “Castle Treryn,” where is situated the celebrated
“Logan Stone.” If we pursue our route along the cliffs, it will be
found to be several miles southeast of the Land’s End, although by
taking the direct and usual road across the country, it is not more
than two miles distant; but the geologist must walk, or ride along
the coast on horseback, and we can assure him that he will be amply
recompensed for his trouble.
From the Cape on which the signal station is situated, the rock scenery
is particularly magnificent, exhibiting an admirable specimen of the
manner, and forms, into which granite disintegrates. About forty yards
from this Cape is the promontory called Tol-Pedn-Penwith, which in the
Cornish language signifies the _holed headland in Penwith_. The name is
derived from a singular chasm, known by the appellation of the Funnel
Rock; it is a vast perpendicular excavation in the granite, resembling
in figure an inverted cone, and has been evidently produced by the
gradual decomposition of one of those vertical veins with which this
part of the coast is so frequently intersected. By a circuitous route
you may descend to the bottom of the cavern, into which the sea flows
at high water. Here the Cornish chough (_Corvus Graculus_) has built
its nest for several years, a bird which is very common about the rocky
parts of this coast, and may be distinguished by its red legs and bill,
and the violaceous blackness of its feathers. This promontory forms the
western extremity of the Mount’s Bay. The antiquary will discover in
this spot, the vestiges of one of the ancient “Cliff Castles,” which
were little else than stone walls, stretching across necks of land from
cliff to cliff. The only geological phenomenon worthy of particular
notice is a large and beautiful contemporaneous vein of _red_ granite
containing schorl; is one foot in width, and may be seen for about
forty feet in length.
Continuing our route around the coast we at length arrive at Castle
Treryn. Its name is derived from the supposition of its having been
the site of an ancient British fortress, of which there are still some
obscure traces, although the wild and rugged appearance of the rocks
indicate nothing like art.
[Illustration: ROCKING STONES, LAND’S END, CORNWALL.]
The foundation of the whole is a stupendous group of granite rocks,
which rise in pyramidal clusters to a prodigious altitude, and overhang
the sea. On one of those pyramids is situated the celebrated “Logan
Stone,” which is an immense block of granite weighing about sixty tons.
The surface in contact with the under rock is of very small extent,
and the whole mass is so nicely balanced, that, notwithstanding its
magnitude, the strength of a single man applied to its under edge is
sufficient to change its centre of gravity, and though at first in
a degree scarcely perceptible, yet the repetition of such impulses,
at each return of the stone, produces at length a very sensible
oscillation! As soon as the astonishment which this phenomenon excites
has in some measure subsided, the stranger anxiously inquires how, and
whence the stone originated--was it elevated by human means, or was it
produced by the agency of natural causes? Those who are in the habit
of viewing mountain masses with geological eyes, will readily discover
that the only chisel ever employed has been the tooth of time--the
only artist engaged, the elements. Granite usually disintegrates into
rhomboidal and tabular masses, which by the farther operation of air
and moisture gradually lose their solid angles, and approach the
spheroidal form. _De Luc_ observed, in the giant mountains of Silesia,
spheroids of this description so piled upon each other as to resemble
Dutch cheeses; and appearances, no less illustrative of the phenomenon,
may be seen from the signal station to which we have just alluded. The
fact of the upper part of the cliff being more exposed to atmospheric
agency, than the parts beneath, will sufficiently explain why these
rounded masses so frequently rest on blocks which still preserve the
tabular form; and since such spheroidal blocks must obviously rest
in that position in which their lesser axes are perpendicular to the
horizon, it is equally evident that whenever an adequate force is
applied they must vibrate on their point of support.
Although we are thus led to deny the Druidical _origin_ of this stone,
for which so many zealous antiquaries have contended, still we by
no means intend to deny that the Druids employed it as an engine of
superstition; it is indeed very probable that, having observed so
uncommon a property, they dexterously contrived to make it answer
the purposes of an ordeal, and by regarding it as the _touchstone_
of truth, acquitted or condemned the accused by its motions. Mason
poetically alludes to this supposed property in the following lines:
“Behold yon huge
And unknown sphere of living adamant,
Which, pois’d by magic, rests its central weight
On yonder pointed rock: firm as it seems,
Such is its strange, and virtuous property,
It moves obsequious to the gentlest touch
Of him whose heart is pure, but to a traitor,
Tho’ e’en a giant’s prowess nerv’d his arm,
It stands as fix’d as--Snowdon.”
The rocks are covered with a species of _Byssus_ long and rough to
the touch, forming a kind of hoary beard; in many places they are
deeply furrowed, carrying with them a singular air of antiquity, which
combines with the whole of the romantic scenery to awaken in the minds
of the poet and enthusiast the recollection of the Druidical ages. The
botanist will observe the common Thrift--(_Statice Armeria_) imparting
a glowing tinge to the scanty vegetation of the spot, and, by growing
within the crevices of the rocks, affording a very picturesque contrast
to their massive fabric. Here, too, the _Daucus Maritimus_, or wild
carrot; _Sedum Telephium_, _Saxifraga Stellaris_, and _Asplenium
Marinum_, may be found in abundance.
The granite in this spot is extremely beautiful on account of its
porphyritic appearance; the crystals of feldspar are numerous and
distinct; in some places the rock is traversed by veins of red
feldspar, and of black tourmaline, or schorl, of which the crystalline
forms of the prisms, on account of their close aggregation, are very
indistinct. Here may also be observed a contemporaneous vein of _schorl
rock_ in the granite, nearly two feet wide, highly inclined and very
short, and not having any distinct walls. On the western side of
the Logan Rock is a cavern, formed by the decomposition of a vein of
granite, the feldspar of which assumes a brilliant flesh-red and lilac
colour; and, where it is polished by the sea, exceeding even in beauty
the _Serpentine caverns_ at the Lizard.
_A Guide to the Mount’s Bay and the Land’s End_ (London, 2d Ed., 1824).
MOUNT HEKLA[5]
(_ICELAND_)
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
The Hekla of our ingenuous childhood, when we believed in the “Seven
Wonders of the World,” was a mighty cone, a “pillar of heaven,” upon
whose dreadful summit white, black, and sanguine red lay in streaks and
patches, with volumes of sooty smoke and lurid flames, and a pitchy
sky. The whole was somewhat like the impossible illustrations of
Vesuvian eruptions, in body-colours, plus the ice proper to Iceland.
The Hekla of reality, No. 5 in the island scale, is a commonplace
heap, half the height of Hermon, and a mere pigmy compared with the
Andine peaks, rising detached from the plains, about three and a
half miles in circumference, backed by the snows of Tindafjall and
Torfajökull, and supporting a sky-line that varies greatly with the
angle under which it is seen. Travellers usually make it a three-horned
Parnassus, with the central knob highest--which is not really the
case. From the south-west, it shows now four, then five, distinct
points; the north-western lip of the northern crater, which hides the
true apex; the south-western lip of the same; the north-eastern lip of
the southern crater, which appears the culminating point, and the two
eastern edges of the southern bowls. A pair of white patches represents
the “eternal snows.” On the right of the picture is the steep, but
utterly unimportant Thrihyrningr, crowned with its benchmark; to the
left, the Skardsfjall, variegated green and black; and in the centre,
the Bjólfell, a western buttress of the main building, which becomes
alternately a saddleback, a dorsum, and an elephant’s head, trunk, and
shoulders.
We came upon the valley of the Western Rángá[6] at a rough point, a
gash in the hard yellow turf-clad clay, dotted with rough lava blocks,
and with masses of conglomerate, hollowed, turned, and polished by
water: the shape was a succession of S, and the left side was the
more tormented. Above the ford a dwarf cascade had been formed by
the lava of ’45, which caused the waters to boil, and below the ford
jumped a second, where the stream forks. We then entered an Iceland
“forest,” at least four feet high; the “chapparal” was composed of red
willow (_Salix purpurea_), of Grá-vidir, woolly-leaved willow (_Sulix
lapponum_), the “tree under which the devil flayed the goats”--a
diabolical difficulty, when the bush is a foot high--and the awful
and venerable birch, “_la demoiselle des fôrets_,” which has so often
“blushed with patrician blood.” About mid-afternoon we reached
Næfrholt (birch-bark hill), the “fashionable” place for the ascent, and
we at once inquired for the guide. Upon the _carpe diem_ principle, he
had gone to Reykjavik with the view of drinking his late gains; but
we had time to organize another, and even alpenstocks with rings and
spikes are to be found at the farm-house. Everything was painfully
tourist.
In the evening we scaled the stiff slope of earth and Palagonite
which lies behind, or east of Næfrholt; this crupper of Bjólfell, the
Elephant Mountain, gives perhaps harder work than any part of Hekla on
the normal line of ascent. From the summit we looked down upon a dwarf
basin, with a lakelet of fresh water, which had a slightly (carbonic)
acid taste, and which must have contained lime, as we found two kinds
of shells, both uncommonly thin and fragile. Three species of weeds
floated off the clean sandstrips. Walking northward to a deserted
byre, we found the drain gushing under ground from sand and rock,
forming a distinct river-valley, and eventually feeding the Western
Rángá. This “Vatn” is not in the map; though far from certain that it
is not mentioned by Mackenzie, we named it the “Unknown Lake.” Before
night fell we received a message that three English girls and their
party proposed to join us. This was a “scare,” but happily the Miss
Hopes proved plucky as they were young and pretty, and we rejoiced in
offering this pleasant affront of the feminine foot to that grim old
_solitaire_, Father Hekla.