Akureyri—Dr. Jon. A. Hjaltalin—temperature of sea and air—Icelandic
gloves—curious custom—state of agriculture—imported seed a
failure—schools of agriculture—reason for neglect of farming—a fact
worth noting—stock raising—quality of grass—wool trade—desirability of
direct trade with England—obstacles—necessity for improvement in
fibre—peculiarity of Iceland sheep—their number—weight of wool—we go
ashore—shark oil factory—a few facts about the shark fishery—the only
trees in Iceland—the Falls of the Glera—shipping ponies—“Jack’s” love
for animals—value of ponies—homeward bound—a strange scenic
effect—within the Arctic Circle—a courteous judge—close time for birds
and animals in Iceland—indigenous birds—the Great Auk—Langenes—in a
fog—deep sea soundings—we land at Thurso—conclusion.
--------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
--------------
The following illustrations, drawn by Mr Alexander Shepherd, A.M., of
Bradford, have been prepared—with a few exceptions—from original
photographs taken by the author:—
PLATE I.
1 John o’ Groats House.
2 Duncansby Head.
3 The S. S. Camoens in dock, Leith.
4 Saloon of S. S. Camoens.
5 Amateur Photographers on board of S. S. Camoens.
PLATE II.
1 Heimaey and Heimaeyklett, from the Cemetery.
2 Lava Cairn on Helgafell.
3 An Icelandic whaleboat.
4 The Church at Heimaey.
5 Altar and Candelabrum of ditto.
PLATE III.
1 Turf-and-rubble-cottage, Heimaey.
2 The Althingis Hus, Heimaey.
3 Woman riding man-fashion.
4 Drying birds for fuel.
PLATE IV.
1 View of Reykjavik.
2 Icelandic woman wearing holiday head-dress.
3 „ „ „ “Hufa” or National do.
4 Snaefellsjökull from the sea.
5 Building stone houses in Reykjavik. Quarrying stone
in middle of street. Labourers with hand barrow.
6 The Cathedral and Althing, Reykjavik.
7 Lava plain, near the Observatory, do.
PLATE V.
1 The Almannagja from the South.
2 Lake Thingvellavatn and Hengill.
3 Rocks on summit of Almannagja.
4 A rest by the way.
5 The Almannagja from the North.
PLATE VI.
1 The Upper Fall of the Oxara, Thingvellir.
2 The Lögberg, Thingvellir.
3 View of plain at „
4 The Parsonage, „
5 „ Church, „
6 Execution Pool, „
7 Train of pack-ponies „
PLATE VII.
1 The Bruera and Bridge.
2 Washing clothes in the “laugs,” or hot springs.
3 Tourists’ tents at the Geysirs.
4 The Great Geysir.
5 The Strokr in the sulks.
6 „ in action.
PLATE VIII.
1 Landing place at Akureyri.
2 One of the five trees at „
3 Principal store „
4 Fishing in the Glera „
5 Waterfall of the „ „
6 Shipping ponies „
NOTE.—The route followed is indicated upon the front cover, which has
been specially designed by the writer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
PLATE I.
1 John o’ Groat’s House.—2 Duncansby Head.
3 The S. S. Camoens in dock, Leith.—4 Saloon of S. S. Camoens.
5 Amateur Photographers on board of S. S. Camoens.
]
--------------------------------------------------
FROM ENGLAND TO ICELAND.
--------------
“This is a traveller, Sir, has ploughed up sea so far
Till both the poles have knocked; has seen the sun
Take coach, and can distinguish the colour
Of his horses and their kinds.”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Far away on the very verge of the Arctic Circle, where the dark waters
of the North Atlantic sweep on to meet the ice-floes of the Polar Sea,
lies the Ultima Thule of the ancients—the Iceland of to-day.
To poets and historians who wrote before and immediately after the
dawning of the Christian era it was a land of mystery, “an island hid by
snow and winter,” as one of them has well expressed it, and even to us,
whose lot has been cast in more enlightened days, it is to some extent a
land of mystery still. Modern science has unlocked many of its secrets,
and explained many of its marvels, but there are, in this great
wonderland of Europe to-day, problems yet unsolved, and regions yet
untraversed, which await the scientific enquirer and the adventurous
explorer.
It is not, however, in either of these capacities that I invite the
reader to accompany me on a trip to Iceland. I make no pretension to be
either the one or the other. It is rather as a companion bent on
enjoying to the full a summer holiday on one of the least-frequented
bye-paths of the Northern Hemisphere; as an admirer of Nature amid her
strangest phenomena, and in her sternest, as well as in her kindliest
moods; as a wanderer familiar with much of the world and with many of
its ways; as an interested observer who has noted the conditions of life
among savage and civilised, in many a foreign clime; as a business man,
keenly alive to the increasing necessity for new markets for our
products and manufactures; and as an advanced political student, to whom
there is much that is both instructive and attractive in the story of
the little community, which for more than a thousand years, in
loneliness and isolation, and amid alternate seasons of deepest
winter-gloom and midnight summer-sunshine, has “lived and moved and had
its being,” heedless of the social revolutions which have broadened the
foundations of human liberty, and comparatively unaffected by the
dynastic changes that have drenched Europe with blood, wasted its
resources, hindered its progress, and turned it, even in this nineteenth
century, into an armed camp of professional cut-throats.
Colonised in 874 by some of the bravest and boldest blood of
Scandinavia, Iceland for four hundred years remained an independent
commonwealth. In 1262 she passed under the yoke of Norway, and
subsequently in 1380 under that of Denmark, whose suzerainty she
acknowledges to-day.
Famed in early times for the power and prowess of her vikings, and for
the genius of her skalds or song writers, she has not only created a
language, of which it has been said that “no one who has not read the
masterpieces written in Icelandic can judge fairly of the capacity,
force, and sweetness of this most classic tongue,” but has made it the
medium of bequeathing to the world, in her historical “sagas”—or prose
epics—a wealth of information regarding the deeds and heroes of the
Teutonic race, which has been of priceless value to the historians of
Europe.
With the loss of her independence, however, she gradually declined in
self-respect, and speedily sank into a state of apathy and lethargic
hopelessness from which, thank Heaven, she is at last beginning to
arouse herself. Rip-van-Winkle-like she has recently risen from a sleep
of centuries, and having, by peaceful agitation, succeeded in obtaining
the right of Parliamentary self-government, there seems to be every
prospect that—in spite of their poverty, and the natural disadvantages
under which they labour—her sons will yet prove themselves worthy of
their high ancestry, and redeem their country from the decadence into
which they have unhappily permitted her to sink.
It is in a spirit of hopefulness for her future, that I take up my pen
to record my impressions of both country and people, as well as with a
sincere desire that I may succeed in creating an interest in, and
furnishing some useful information regarding, a land about which
Englishmen generally know little and perhaps care less.
So much by way of preface. Let me now ask the reader to suppose that we
have started together from a busy manufacturing town in the West Riding
of Yorkshire, and are hurrying on to Edinburgh by Midland Express to
catch the S.S. Camoens, advertised to sail from Leith, at noon on the
8th of July, 1885. We pass Settle, that most charming of Yorkshire
country towns, nestling at the foot of its fine background of encircling
hills, stop for a few minutes for refreshments at Carlisle, where in the
days of the old Border feuds many a Scottish reiver met with a short
shrift and a sudden death, and an hour later cross the Tweed, loved and
immortalised by “The Great Unknown.”
We look with all a Yorkshireman’s interest upon the shed roofs and
smoking chimneys of Hawick and Galashiels, which remind us that we are
travelling through the great textile manufacturing district of Scotland.
We see Melrose, not indeed “by moonlight and alone,” but in the “summer
gloaming” and over the heads of a small crowd of canny Scots who are
thronging the station, and thinking not of “the brave days of old,” not
of princes and prelates, of abbeys and abbots, of monks and monasteries,
but of the state of the wool market, of the prospects of trade, of
“hanks,” “pirns,” and “shots,” and of “warp” and “weft” and “web,” and
of the hundred and one other prosaic matters which demand the attention
of the industrious weaver, who has supplanted the red-handed warrior;
and whose shuttle, as it clicks from morn till night, tells of better
times for mankind than those when the sound most frequently heard in
these same streets was the clash of swords, and the clang of armed men.
We are on our way to a land whose poverty is great and whose progress
has been slow, but as we recall the fact that, according to Macaulay,
Scotland from “having been one of the most turbulent countries in
Europe, has become one of the most highly civilised, one of the most
flourishing, one of the most tranquil;” that according to Froude “she
has scored a deeper mark upon the world’s history than any nation either
ancient or modern, perhaps the Athenians and Jews excepted,” we feel
that the Icelander need never despair, if he will but try to bring about
the regeneration of his country by pursuing, and seeking to perfect
himself in, the peaceful arts of industry.
Night has banished twilight when we reach Edinburgh, and after a trip to
Leith by tram to see the vessel that is to be our home “on the ocean
wave” for the next two or three weeks, we retire to rest, “perchance to
dream” of the discomforts inseparable from “a life on the rolling deep.”
On the following morning we sail from Leith punctually at the appointed
hour, and within five minutes after leaving the quay are face to face
with what seems likely to prove a catastrophe. We are gliding down
between the massive sea walls that line the channel of entrance to the
docks, when a battered old tug, having several mud-barges in tow, steers
right across our course. There is no room in which to turn, and a
collision seems inevitable. Just, however, at the instant when we are
expecting to see the little boat cut in two she manages, somehow or
other, to swing clear of our bows as we forge past. A sound of crashing
timber is heard as her stern is forced against one of the barges behind
her. A solitary seaman, who appears to be both captain and crew, rushes
to the bulwarks, and in a dancing rage shakes his clenched fist at us in
impotent fury, at the same time pouring forth a torrent of vituperation
of which fortunately only a few words reach our ears, though if judged
by the little we hear, his language is certainly strong enough to have
travelled further.
The sun is shining pleasantly from a bright blue sky, and the landmarks
of “Auld Reekie” stand out grandly on the horizon behind the intervening
wilderness of roofs and chimneys that slope upwards from port to
capital. Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags, the Calton Hill, the Castle,
the Scott Monument, and other picturesque features which combine to make
Edinburgh, what it undoubtedly is, the most beautiful city in the world,
are all clearly discernible by the naked eye.
On the shores of the Firth, as we steam towards Granton, before heading
for the ocean, lie the lovely seaside resorts which add so much to the
pleasures of life in the Scottish metropolis. Having transferred the
managing agent to a gaily painted tug, we circle round and steer
north-east, passing on our left the cultivated slopes and quiet little
coast-towns of the kingdom of Fife, while away ahead, over our starboard
bow, rises the shadowy form of the famous Bass Rock, whose name is
associated with some of the grimmest tragedies of Scottish history, and
in whose dungeons, in the dark days of ecclesiastical tyranny and
persecution, so many of those “of whom the world was not worthy,” were
left to perish miserably.
Keeping well in towards the land we make steady progress at the rate of
about nine knots per hour, and have sighted and passed the lights of
Aberdeen before bed-time. Early on the following morning we find
ourselves off Duncansby Head, the extreme north-east point of Scotland,
a bold and dangerous promontory. Not a tree nor a human habitation is to
be seen on the landscape till we round the point, when we all rush to
the bridge, glass in hand, to take a look at John o’ Groat’s House, a
rather pretentious-looking new hotel built in the Scottish baronial
style of architecture, and situated near the beach, within a stone’s
throw of the Pentland Firth, whose powerful tide, so dreaded in stormy
weather, is breaking heavily upon the rocks.
A flag-staff in the centre of a mound on the left of the hotel, is
pointed out as marking the original site of Mr John de Grout’s
residence. In some old maps, however, this is indicated upon the summit
of Duncansby Head. A small cairn of stones erected there seems to
support the theory of those antiquarians who are inclined to accept
these maps as correct, and who contend that in the old piratical days it
was much more usual for a man to build his house, as the eagle builds
its eyrie, upon some bold cliff or headland whence he could watch for
danger, and prepare to meet it; than upon a flat, or in a hollow, where
he would be liable to be surprised. Be this as it may, it is a
satisfaction to all of us to see a spot which geographical circumstances
have rendered so interesting.
Passing through the channel, between Stroma and South Ronaldsha, two of
the Orkney Islands, and leaving the Skerries with their two lighthouses
behind us, we shape our course for the north-west.
“As we pace along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches”
the outlines of Dunnet Head the most northerly, and Cape Wrath the most
significantly named, point on the wild and rockbound coast of Scotland,
gradually fade from view, and long before nightfall we are out in the
open sea, and experiencing the unpleasant effects of a heavy swell in
the North Atlantic. Towards evening the breeze freshens though the
passengers do not. Seats at table began to be vacant early yesterday,
and these increase in number “as” the ship and “the moments roll.” Even
I, who have hitherto defied Neptune on many a stormy ocean in both
hemispheres succumb at last, and begin to study the waves with a
pathetic interest, and to find myself saying, in the words of the old
song, “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?”
On the morning of the third day out, (Saturday, July 11th), the breeze
increases to a strength of about nine windforce, equivalent to what is
known among seamen as “a fresh gale,” ten being “a strong gale,” eleven
“a storm,” and twelve “a hurricane.” The waves are tolerably high, being
estimated by our captain at from ten to fifteen feet above sea-level or
from twenty to twenty-five feet from hollow to crest, and the Camoens,
which rolls fearfully, is a mere plaything under such conditions. It is
needless to say that the number of invalids does not decrease.
During the afternoon the wind moderates, and shortly before dinner we
sight the coast of Iceland, whose highest mountain, Orœfajökull (6,426
feet), with its snow-clad crest and slopes, and extensive glaciers is
distinctly visible through the clear bright air at a distance of more
than seventy miles. A very considerable portion of the surface of
Iceland is covered with glaciers, which feed the mountain torrents, and
the gradual subsidence of which forms not one of the least of the
terrible dangers that constantly threaten immense tracts of country with
destruction. Orœfa is the apex, or coast extremity, of Vatnajökull, the
largest of these, an icefield, which covers an area of between 3,000 and
4,000 square miles, or about one-twelfth of the total area of the
island. The word “jökull,”—meaning ice hill—is attached as a terminal to
the names of all mountains on which glaciers are known to exist.
As we gradually near the land Orœfa rises grandly beyond the low level
plain that lies like a long black line between its base and the ocean.
This plain, of the extent of which we can form no conception from the
sea, stretches away back to the coast range for a distance of about
thirty miles, and is at least about twice that length from east to west.
The fogs which are continually, and often very unexpectedly, encountered
in these latitudes render it a source of anxiety to navigators, who not
unfrequently find themselves aground before they are conscious of
danger, there being neither lights nor landmarks to guide them. Though
but sparsely peopled, it is covered with nutritious grass, and has
become the great pony-breeding district of Iceland.
Ever since we began to steer north the days have been growing longer,
and night having now quite disappeared, we are able to read small print
by the light of the sun at what the chronometer indicates as midnight,
and can distinguish the coast quite clearly at an hour when in more
southern latitudes it would be shrouded in darkness.
It is not till after 1 a.m., as we are passing Portland Point, and its
wonderful water-worn arch and fantastic group of basaltic needle-rocks,
that we go down to our berths, comforted by the captain’s assurance that
if we do not find ourselves high and dry upon the summit of some
volcanic cone which may suddenly rise under us “from the bottom of the
deep blue sea,” we may expect to be lying safely at anchor off the
Westmann’s Islands long before it is time to get up. In 1783, a month
previous to the outbreak of the Shaptarjökull—the most terrible eruption
that has ever occurred in Iceland—a submarine volcano near what are
called the Fire Rocks, forty miles south-west of Cape Reykjanes, burst
forth and covered the sea with pumice stone to such a depth and extent
that ships were impeded by it. Within a few months the volcano
disappeared, but now forms a dangerous reef.
Having been in Java six months after the catastrophe at Krakatoa, which
in August, 1883, destroyed thirty thousand human beings; having seen the
vast fields of pumice stone then floating in the Indian Ocean and in the
Java Sea; and sailed in a steamer which, while lying in the Straits of
Sunda, two days subsequent to the dreadful disaster above referred to,
had a marvellous escape, only succeeding with the greatest difficulty in
forcing her way through the immense mass of volcanic scum that covered
the ocean for hundreds of miles round about to a depth of several feet;
having seen evidences of the fearful nature of a submarine outburst in
the huge breaches, in the massive sea wall at Batavia, made by the spent
force of the great wave which—more than a hundred miles away—had
absolutely swept two thriving cities—Anjers and Telokbetong—out of
existence; and having slept at the foot of Gedeh, a burning mountain at
Scindanlaija, which only a few years ago caused great destruction of
life and property at Tjandoer, the captain’s grim joke has a
significance for me that it might not otherwise have possessed. It does
not, however, disturb my rest.
On awaking, the absence of motion, and a strange stillness unbroken by
the horrid grinding of the propeller—that greatest of all the bêtes
noires of the ocean traveller—satisfy me that we have safely reached
port at last. Hurrying on deck I find myself gazing upon a scene of wild
grandeur and picturesque beauty, which charms and impresses me, and
whose attractiveness increases as I become familiar with its details.
We are lying at anchor, in smooth water, in a pretty little bay situated
on the north shore of Heimaey—(Home Isle)—the largest of the group known
as the Vestmanneyjar or Westmann’s Islands. About a mile ahead of us, on
the left shore, and partly hidden behind a rampart of black weed-covered
rocks, lies the collection of wooden sheds, and huts, and
turf-and-rubble dwellings, in which a total population of five hundred
and ten souls lives, and carries on its chief occupation of fish-curing.
The town extends from the sea inland towards Helgafell, a volcanic cone
about 750 feet high, whose shelving stone-strewn slopes, and jagged
cairn-crowned crest, standing out clearly against the bright blue
cloudless sky, form a fine background to the view in that direction.
Turning our eyes away from Helgafell and Heimaey, and with a passing
glance at the pretty little Danish sloops moored opposite the wharf, we
face to the right about, where a gigantic rocky mountain promontory,
with two huge humps known respectively as Heimaeyklett and Ystaklett,
stretches itself, like a protecting arm, between us and the western sea.
Its precipitous inaccessible overhanging cliffs tower hundreds of feet
above the deep blue waters that kiss its feet, and every ledge and nook,
and cranny of the bold brown beetling crags that frown down upon us is
crowded with sea-fowl, whose screams as they watch us from their places
of vantage on the rock, or fly in tens of thousands above our heads,
fill the air with a continuous clamour. From the verge of the precipice
grass-grown slopes incline steeply upwards to the summits of both humps,
and on these a few sheep can be seen grazing in places where, to all
appearance, there is scarcely foothold, even for a goat.
The clearness and purity of the atmosphere in this part of the world,
when the weather is fine,—which is not very often,—has been remarked by
many travellers. It would be impossible for us to view the scene around
us under more favourable conditions in this respect. On the coast of the
mainland, distant ten or twelve miles across the intervening Strait,
Myrdalsjökull, another well-known and beautiful volcano, asserts itself
magnificently amid the lower cones by which it is surrounded. Its white
peak, pure as an angel’s robe, its glaciers, and its slopes on which
purple and silver meet at the snow-line, gleam in glorious loveliness
under the morning sunshine.
In mid-channel Elirey and Bjarnarey, two brown-faced weather-worn
basaltic island-rocks, with crowns of brightest emerald, rise almost
perpendicularly out of the shimmering sea, not only heightening the
effect of the scene by affording a resting-place for the eye, but
forming a striking and picturesque addition to one of the most beautiful
panoramas I have seen. We are loth to leave the deck even for breakfast,
but console ourselves with the reflection that we shall be able to see a
good deal during the twelve hours at our disposal before the time fixed
for sailing.
Though it is Sunday morning, the cargo is meanwhile being rapidly
transferred to the large whale boats, which began to fetch it soon after
our arrival, and from the number of men employed, and the evident bustle
and excitement on shore, I conclude that the little white church, which
forms the most conspicuous object on the outskirts of the town, will
have plenty of room for the accommodation of strangers, and that the
poor præstur will not improbably have to preach to a “beggarly array of
empty benches.”
The coming of the Camoens is a great event in the lonely Westmann’s
Islands. It not only breaks the monotony of what must be a dull and
dreary existence, but is a source of general rejoicing amongst all
classes of the community, for her freight is precious in the eyes of a
people who are compelled to depend upon an outside, and to them far-away
world, not only for the very means of life, but for many of the
comforts, and all the luxuries, which their limited means will permit
them to enjoy. I come to the conclusion, therefore, that the recording
angel who with a tear blotted out Uncle Toby’s oath will bend a
pardoning eye upon what to some would appear to be Sabbath desecration,
but what is really and in the truest sense a work of necessity.
--------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
“Yet still even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feast though small,
He sees his little lot, the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.”
GOLDSMITH.
“Who’s for shore?” cries the captain immediately after breakfast. “I
am,” “and I,” “and I,” respond about a dozen of us, and in a few minutes
we are afloat in the gig, and steering towards Heimaey. We soon find
ourselves in very shallow water, and passing over, and between, a number
of black reefs, which must not only be dangerous to the fishing craft in
stormy weather, but present a grand sight
“When there’s a gale a blowin’, and the waves run in and break
On the shore with a roar like thunder, and the brown cliffs seem to
shake.”
The weather is rarely such that the Camoens can lie at her present
anchorage, for during the north and north-east gales the bay is “a hell
of waters” which it is impossible to enter.
I am reminded very strongly of another lovely summer Sunday morning
nearly two years ago, when my companion and myself landed, under exactly
similar circumstances, on the very spot where Captain Cook first put
foot on the shores of New Zealand. In the pier at Heimaey, crowded with
men and women, and in the wooden huts beyond it on the hill side, and
along the beach, I seem to see Gisborne once more.
But how different the social conditions and prospects of the two
communities,—of the Danish and the British colonist! Iceland with an
area of 40,000 square miles—little less than that of the North Island of
New Zealand, which contains 44,000,—was colonised a thousand years ago;
New Zealand a hundred years ago. Yet the population of the one, which in
the year 1100 was estimated at 50,000 has, after a lapse of nearly eight
centuries, only increased to 72,000, while the other is inhabited to-day
by half a million of people of European descent. Both countries are of
volcanic origin, both are subject to earthquakes, both boast of their
burning mountains and geysers. One, however, to use an expression more
forcible than elegant which fell from the lips of a sailor on the
Camoens, is “naething but a dawmed cinder,” the other is, comparatively
speaking, a Paradise.
As I stand on the pier a few minutes later and watch the busy gangs of
women and girls engaged in carrying sacks of flour on handbarrows to the
neighbouring stores; or stroll among the hardy fishermen who are loafing
about in groups, eagerly discussing the news brought by our good ship;
or exchange smiles with the neatly-dressed, bright-looking,
good-featured little lads and lassies, who are looking on with childish
curiosity; I cannot help wishing that I could spirit them all away to
the “Brighter Britain” in the Southern Seas, where Nature has bestowed
her blessings upon man with bounteous profusion. I suppose, however,
that were I to tell the people round me what is passing through my mind
there is scarcely a man among them who would not turn his eyes all the
more fondly towards the little cot where he was born and bred, and where
he no doubt hopes “to die at home at last.”
“Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill that lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast;
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind’s roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.”
Meanwhile, the women, who are working in couples, toil like ponies, and
the crews of the whale boats are of course actively employed; but it
seems to me that some of the strong men who are looking on, with their
hands in their pockets, and their pipes in their mouths, ought to be
between the shafts of the handbarrows instead of “their sisters and
their cousins and their aunts.” It would be unfair to forget that they
take their share of work, as well as of danger and hardship, during the
fishing season; but I am afraid that the condition of woman in Iceland
is no better than in the fishing and agricultural districts of England
and Scotland, though probably scarcely so bad as that of the girls whom
I have seen slaving round the coal pits of Lancashire.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
PLATE II.
1 Heimaey and Heimaeyklett, from the Cemetery.
2 Lava Cairn on Helgafell.—3 An Icelandic Whaleboat.
4 The Church at Heimaey.—5 Altar and Candelabrum of Church.
]
Let me describe the appearance of the people near me. “Place aux dames;”
of course, if only as a compliment to their industry. They are strong
fresh-faced fair-haired maids and matrons, who regard us modestly, but
curiously, out of cold pale-blue long-lashed eyes, as they trot
backwards and forwards with an energy and an alertness which speak
volumes for their physical powers. As a rule they are by no means
pretty, but there are, of course, exceptions, and here and there we see
a face which would attract notice, even in an English ball-room, where,
I have no hesitation in saying, one may look for—and find—the loveliest
women in the world. Their figures are not good, as is to be expected
from their mode of life, and owe nothing to their dress, which is
exceedingly plain and unbecoming, though, no doubt, warm and
comfortable. Their gowns, made of linsey-woolsey, or similar heavy
material, are sombre in colour, unrelieved by a single bit of bright
ribbon, or a yard of trimming, tight-sleeved, and just short enough in
the skirt to afford every opportunity of admiring a shapely foot, a neat
ankle, or a well-turned leg, were there any or either of these to
admire, which unfortunately there is not. A loose cotton jacket, a
coloured apron, thick grey worsted stockings, and peculiar sheepskin
shoes, pointed at the toes, without soles, and sewn into shape by
cross-stitching, complete their costume. The latter, which would make
very comfortable slippers, seem to be ill-adapted for a country whose
roads,—where there are any,—are so rough and stone-strewn, but are
nevertheless generally worn, imported boots and shoes being rarely seen
among the poorer classes. The hair, which is generally fair, is smoothed
down neatly on each side of the brow, and plaited at the back into two
long queues which are looped up, and fastened to the crown of the head,
in such a fashion as to form cross-festoons.
Every woman, however, has on one distinctive article of attire, the
“hufa,” or national head-dress, a small knitted cap, in shape resembling
a night-cap, worn jauntily on either side of the head—generally on the
left—like the forage cap of a British hussar. It is invariably black, no
other colour being used, is made of either silk or wool, and is
ornamented with a heavy black silk tassel which hangs down as far as the
shoulder from a brass, silver-gilt, or solid silver ferrule about two
inches long, and half an inch in diameter, that adds greatly to its
smartness.
The men, bronzed and bearded, are dressed in rough woollen jackets and
trousers, wear caps, billycocks or sou-westers, and bear a strong family
likeness to “oor fisher folk at hame,” the only thing which strikes us
as peculiar being the sheepskin shoes to which I have already referred.
Our worthy captain—one of the kindest-hearted and most genial men I have
ever met, and certainly the most obliging skipper I have ever sailed
with,—informs me that the Westmann’s Islands were originally so called
because they were discovered, and occupied, by emigrants from Ireland,
who are said to have been the first Icelandic colonists. On this point
let me quote Dr Jon A. Hjaltalin, one of the best informed and most
reliable authorities in Iceland, a gentleman who has lectured in many
towns in England, and to whom I had the pleasure of being introduced at
Akureyri. In a little historical pamphlet which he wrote on the occasion
of the “Thousandth Anniversary of the Norwegian Settlement in Iceland,”
and which he has been kind enough to send me since my return, Dr
Hjaltalin says “If we can believe the Irish monk Dicuil the Irish were
the first discoverers of Iceland. Dicuil, who wrote his book ‘De mensura
orbis terrarum’ about the year 825, states that, some thirty years
before, clerics had told him that they had been to an island far to the
north, where there had been daylight throughout the night at the summer
solstice, and where they were able to do whatever they wanted by night
as well as by day. Local names, preserved to this day, as well as the
records of the old Icelanders, prove the fact that Irish monks had
visited the island before the Norwegians.”
Subsequently the Scandinavian settlement took place, and emigrants
arrived from the Orkneys, the North of Scotland, and Ireland. It is not
surprising, therefore, that I should remark to my companion, as we leave
the pier, that if the children of Heimaey were at a port in my own
country, instead of where they are I should pass them without notice; it
is so evident they spring from the same stock as ourselves. It is worthy
of note before I leave this subject, “that the Irish do not seem to have
met with any human being, or aborigines, when they discovered Iceland,
nor have any traces of such been found in later times.”
Passing between the two lines of female porters, who are ascending and
descending like the angels on Jacob’s ladder, we turn to the right into
a narrow macadamised path, or street, containing several little
dwelling-houses, two or three sheds or stores crammed with imported
produce, and a number of rough wooden huts filled with fish either cured
or in process of being cured. Outside each of the latter stands a deal
table on which the fish are prepared, the heads being cut off and dried
for home consumption, and the remainder set aside for export.
These dried cods’ heads tied up in bundles, and ready for conveyance
into the interior on pony-back, may be seen everywhere, and you will
probably not meet a single train of ponies, on any track in the whole
country, whose load does not include some of these necessary articles of
diet. I am told on enquiry that they are worth about a penny each, which
I consider a high price, and that, in times of scarcity, after all the
flesh has been carefully picked off, the very bones are often eaten,
having first been softened in buttermilk. The offal is thrown to the
dogs and ponies, which sometimes also get the powdered fish bones when
these can be spared by the family. In rear of some of the houses in the
outskirts we observe large square platforms built of round undressed
lava stones, and raised about a foot from the ground. On these the fish
are exposed to dry in the sun.
The stench in this neighbourhood exceeds the combined odours of the nine
and forty distinct smells for which Cologne is said to be remarkable,
and is such that, with our noses in the air, and taking care to sniff as
seldom as possible, we hurry on towards Helgafell, which we have made up
our minds to ascend before returning to the Camoens for lunch. We stop
for a moment at the house of the Syslumann or Sheriff to say au revoir
to our friend the captain who has some business to transact with this
official. Then we strike across a few fields so thickly covered with
stones of every shape and size that it seems as if Heaven must have
rained them from the skies; jump one or two low stone fences; stumble
over some of the thousands of green frost-made hummocks that form such a
curious feature of the landscape; tramp along the bottom of several of
the foot-deep winding rain-channels that are commonly used as paths; and
then boldly attack the precipitous mountain slope. Up, up, up we go, now
slipping upon black shifting volcanic sand; now tramping upon
sharp-edged fragments of lava; now clambering up very steep places on
hands and knees; and not unfrequently pausing to take breath, and to
wipe the perspiration from our brows at some friendly boulder, which
affords us secure foothold, or the opportunity of sitting down.
We arrive at the edge of the crater at last, and descend into its grassy
hollow, where a few sheep are quietly grazing. Making a final rush
towards the cairns which some of our companions have already reached, we
see a panorama on every side of us to which no other name than
magnificent can possibly be applied. In front on the distant mainland
both Hekla and Myrdalsjökull rise in all their snowy beauty; and the
islands of Elirey and Bjarnarey, the harbour with its shipping, and
guardian promontory, the little straggling town stretching along the
beach and inland towards the farmhouses on its outskirts that stand
within their small stone-fenced enclosures or crofts under grass or
potatoes,—green spots which look like so many oases in a waste of
treeless barrenness—are all spread out before us. On our right and on
our left, and behind us, washing the shores of the low encircling line
of hills that beats back its surges, is the Atlantic Ocean, studded with
huge island-rocks of various shapes and sizes,—(including one which we
specially note on account of its extraordinary resemblance to a
haystack)—and so calm and peaceful under the flood of sunshine that
pours down upon its glassy surface from the blue heavens above, that one
can scarce believe that it is so often a source of dread and danger and
death to the poor fishermen of Heimaey.
We spend half an hour in gazing admiringly upon the scene before us, and
then reluctantly, but rapidly, make our way down the hillside towards
the little white-washed church, at which we arrive shortly before the
hour of service. The præstur, or pastor, and a few of his flock are
standing outside in serious conversation, and we take advantage of the
opportunity to enter. There is only one door, which is under the
hexagonal belfry, whose clock with three dials is a hopeful sign in a
place where one sees so many evidences of poverty and so few of
progress. There are six windows with diamond panes, and the interior has
a clean and comfortable appearance. A chastely decorated altar, railed
off in front, occupies the end opposite the porchway. A handsome
candelabrum, a well-executed painting of a sacred subject, and two
smaller pictures, one on either side of the latter, greatly add to the
general effect, which is altogether rather pretty.
It is near the hour of prayer, and men, women, and children may be seen
approaching from different directions. The sobriety and seriousness of
their demeanour, the neatness and cleanliness of their dress, and the
general air of well-being and well-doing which characterises them,
impress me favourably, and I cannot help recalling the fact that in many
of our crowded cities at home, there are at the same moment, thousands,
aye tens of thousands of people, who though rich in comparison with the
members of this little Icelandic congregation would be unable, even if
they were willing, to go to church so comfortably and so respectably
clad. It occurs to me that there may be advantages even in a life of
poverty and isolation. I remember that Cæsar, in his commentaries, over
which I used to pore in my school days, records the fact that of the
three great tribes among whom Gaul was divided in his time the Belgæ
were the bravest, “because,” as he puts it, “merchants had least access
to them to import those things which tended to effeminate their minds.”
As I remember the passage it occurs to me that the Icelander ought
perhaps to be grateful to Heaven for the poverty which protects him from
“luxury’s contagion weak and vile,” and leaves him in possession of
virtues which under other circumstances he might have been unable to
retain.
The established form of religion in Iceland is that of the Lutheran
Church, which superseded Roman Catholicism between 1540 and 1551, as the
latter had superseded Paganism in the year 1000, at which time the
worship of Thor and Odin and the other deities of Scandinavia prevailed.
The story of the manner in which Christianity was introduced is an
interesting one. At a meeting of the Althing, or Parliament, it was
proposed to abolish heathenism, but the proposition was strongly
opposed, and there appeared to be danger of a war of religions, which
was, however, happily averted by the judgment of the Speaker, or
President of the Althing, who influenced by the bribes,—perhaps even
more than by the arguments,—of the Christians accepted the task of
proposing such legislation as would satisfy both parties. The curious
manner in which he prepared himself for, and effected this undertaking
is thus referred to by Dr Hjaltalin, who says “He (the President) went
to bed, and covered himself up for twenty-four hours. Then he rose, and
called all the assembled multitude to follow him to the Lögberg or Law
Rock. On arriving there he explained the serious consequences to which
the disruption of the Commonwealth was likely to lead. ‘If we have not
laws and religion in common,’ said he, ‘our peace is gone.’ Such was the
persuasive power of his words that both parties promised to keep the
laws propounded by him. He then proposed that all Icelanders should
become Christians by being baptised, but to pacify the heathen party,
suggested that they should be permitted to worship the old gods and to
eat horseflesh in secret. If the latter, however, was done in the
presence of witnesses, it was to be punished with outlawry. These
propositions were accepted by both parties, and thus Christianity was
established in the land.” Would that all religious differences could be
as happily settled now-a-days by the exercise of a little mutual
forbearance, and in reliance upon the old adage, “magna est veritas et
prævalebit.”
From God’s house we proceed to God’s acre, a small rectangular area in
two divisions enclosed within four walls of turf and rubble, and covered
with a number of green mounds, from two to three feet high, each marking
a grave. One or two of these are railed round, and iron crosses have
been placed on others—(in one instance a quaint and artistically-carved
headstone)—but in nineteen cases out of twenty the Westmann’s Islanders
seem to share, not the ostentatious pride and vainglory of the great
emperor Shah Jehan, who built for himself and a favourite wife the
grandest and most costly sepulchre in the world, the famous Tag Mahal at
Agra; but rather the touching humility of his daughter, whose pious wish
engraved on the simple stone that marks her last resting place amid the
ruined tombs of Delhi, is beautifully expressed in these words, which I
remember listening to with a feeling of reverence as our guide
translated them: “Let no rich canopy cover my head; grass alone is the
only covering for the poor in spirit.”
On our way from the city of the dead to the pier we have once more to
pass through the city of the living, and the first shanty that there
attracts our attention is the “Thing Hus,” or Parliament house, which is
really the Town Hall, although dignified with a higher title. It is a
shabby little wooden shed, to extend or reconstruct which on the same
scale would not cost many pence in the pound on even the rateable value
of Heimaey.
Near it are several curious-looking dwellings, one of which we stop to
examine. I will attempt to describe it. Imagine a low one-storied
building, irregular in shape, and looking as if it had been built by
instalments to provide room for a crib for every separate addition to
the owner’s family. The roof is made of shingle, but the walls, built
principally of rough undressed lava stones, imbedded in layers of turf
which bind them together and fill up the chinks, are thick and
substantial. Entrance is effected through a low wooden porchway leading
into a long narrow dark passage, with turf-and-rubble walls, and a mud
floor. This passage admits to another which crosses it at right angles,
and is if possible dingier still. Into this second passage the doors of
several stuffy, inconvenient, badly-ventilated, smoke-filled dens—(it
would be a libel on the English language to call them rooms)—open. The
cooking is carried on in the “Eld hus” (Fire House) or kitchen, and the
smoke escapes into the chimney through a hole in the roof. The whole of
the exterior, except parts of the shingle roof, is covered with green
sods, which convert it into an inhabited tumulus, on which the grass
flourishes so luxuriantly that it seems a pity the half-starved ponies
cannot walk on the perpendicular like the house fly, for if they could
they might find excellent pasture on the walls and roof of the mansion
before us.
There are a number of more modern houses built of wood, roofed with
shingle, and painted drab. We enter one of these on the courteous
invitation of the doctor, who has just been good enough to explain to us
in very broken English that the ghastly-looking, mutilated, long-billed,
dark-feathered objects which are hanging from a sort of miniature
goalpost in an adjoining croft are the bodies of sea-fowl which have
been killed, and are being dried for—“For what! Sir?” we ask in
surprise? “For fuel,” is the reply. “The breast having been removed for
food the remainder of the bird will probably be used to cook it.” I have
eaten meals in South Africa prepared over a fire made of cakes of dried
cow-dung; I have warmed myself in New Zealand and in the American
backwoods at a log fire; I have been half-stifled in a Highland shieling
by the smoke of a peat fire; I have drunk many a cup of tea in Japan
infused with water boiled on a smouldering fire of charcoal ashes, but
this is the first time among savage or uncivilised that I have come
across fuel for a dried-bird fire. “Necessity,” I remark, “is said to be
the ‘mother of invention.’ If so the life of a Patent Office official in
Iceland ought to be no sinecure, for ‘necessity’ stares one in the face
everywhere.”
The doctor’s residence,—a humble one for the only consulting physician
and surgeon in the Westmann’s Islands,—seems to consist of little more
than what the Scotch call a “but” and a “ben.” It is scantily and
plainly furnished, and contrasts somewhat ludicrously with the gilded
salons of some of his professional brethren in the chief city of the
adjacent island of Great Britain who, with perhaps little more skill and
knowledge but greater opportunities than those of our kindly host,
pocket fees, in the course of a single forenoon, which exceed the total
annual income received by the Icelandic Esculapius for looking after the
health of an entire community. From this reference to the social
surroundings of a leading citizen,—one of an élite which scarcely
includes more than the Syslumann (Sheriff), the præstur (parson), the
doctor, and a vice-consul or two,—it will be inferred that the
Westmann’s Islands cannot boast many people of fashion or “culchaw,” and
that the population generally is a very humble one.
After lunch, having obtained permission to take one of the ship’s boats,
we row ourselves to the caves of Heimaklett and Ystaklett, and spend an
hour in sailing into these, in awakening the echoes, and in ineffectual
attempts, at the risk of broken bones and worn-out unmentionables, to
scale the cliffs, and get among the screaming puffins that literally
darken the air above us as they dart or circle over our heads. Then we
go ashore again and take another saunter through the streets, and then
dinner-hour arrives, and our experiences of the Westmann’s Islands for
the present come to an end.
About 9.0 p.m. we sail for Reykjavik, and as we are slowly steaming out
of the bay, a whale boat, manned by six rowers, rounds Ystaklett and
makes for Heimaey. An Icelander from America, who has just joined us,
says that the occupants of the boat having sighted the Camoens on the
previous evening have come over from the mainland to buy provisions. He
tells me that his countrymen are miserably poor, and that this year they
are even worse off than usual, the fishing having proved a failure for
the third year in succession, and the grass being late and scarce in
consequence of the inclemency of the weather. Fancy a state of being in
which an entire community literally depends for existence upon the fish
it catches in a stormy sea, and the grass yielded by its untilled
pastures! He adds that on the mainland people are even poorer than on
the islands, and mentions the case of a woman who recently made her way
on foot along the coast, and crossed the Straits in an open boat, to beg
bread for her starving children. She was so emaciated and so weak and
worn out from famine and exhaustion that she had to be carried from the
pier to a place of shelter.
The charity of the poor towards the poor is proverbial.
Few, save the poor, feel for the poor,
The rich know not how hard
It is to be of needful rest
And needful food debarr’d.
The poverty-stricken Icelander is no exception to a rule that happily
applies to all mankind. Out of their scanty and insufficient store the
people of Heimaey supplied the poor creature with food for herself and
family, and sent her on her way rejoicing.
In the course of conversation with my informant, who was once a clerk in
a store in the Westmann’s Islands, but has for some years been earning
65 dols. a month as a foreman platelayer on the Denver and Rio Grande
Railway, I learn that a number of his countrymen have emigrated to
America during recent years, not a few of whom have joined the Mormons.
One almost regrets that the whole population cannot be deported en
masse, but with local self-government, increasing knowledge, and the
stimulus of unrestricted trade, it is not improbable that the
Icelander,—who has hitherto been “contentit wi’ little” and “canty wi’
mair,”—may yet succeed in making something out of his inhospitable
country, whose progress has been so hindered and handicapped by the
ravages of fire, frost, flood and famine.
It is not with Nature alone that he has to contend. He has but few
sources of wealth, and even these until comparatively recently have been
prevented from development by iniquitous laws imposed upon him by the
Danish Government whose subject he is. Did I say sources of wealth? I
withdraw the words. Let me rather say means of existence. Until a few
years ago—when the Leith firm to whom our good ship belongs began to
open up a trade with his country on the basis of ready-money, which they
imported from Denmark for the purpose,—he scarcely knew what money was
like, except in the petty transactions of daily life.
Between 1600 and 1788 he was shut out by the most tyrannous restrictive
legislation, from direct commercial intercourse with the world, being
compelled to do all his business with a few Danish Trading Companies,
who had, by heavy payments, secured from Government the privilege of
absolute monopoly. These companies took from the Icelander his dried
fish, his shark oil, his wool, and his skins, and gave him in exchange
the barest necessaries, and such articles as were absolutely
indispensable in his simple mode of life. On all imports the importer,
being master of the situation, naturally put enormous profits.
The consequence of a business thus conducted on the basis of what is
known as “the tick and truck system” was that not only the commercial
prosperity, but the improvement of the social and intellectual
well-being of the population were grievously retarded. And as if to
render the condition of the Icelander more hopeless and intolerable
still the Danish Government by law prohibited him from building or
purchasing a decked vessel; a high-handed and one-sided policy the
object of which was to make the monopoly of the trading companies more
secure, and by the establishment of protection in its worst form to
enrich the mother country at the expense of its great island-colony.
It is unnecessary to dwell too strongly upon the iniquity of the past
policy pursued by Denmark, and it would ill become a Briton to do so in
the face of the fact that a similar line of action adopted by the
British Parliament years ago led to the almost total extinction of the
Irish woollen trade. When we behold the mote that is in our brother’s
eye it is well to consider the beam that is in our own.
In 1788 there was a break in the cloud of misrule which had so long
over-shadowed Iceland. The law relating to decked vessels was repealed,
and the power of the monopolists broken to a certain extent, inasmuch as
not only Danes, but all Danish subjects,—(which of course included the
Icelanders)—were permitted to engage in foreign trade. On the 25th of
April, 1854, the last vestige of monopoly was swept away, and from that
date until the present hour, the ports of the country have been open to
the traders of the whole world. Let us hope that the present policy
which has happily inaugurated a better state of things, both politically
and commercially, may result in an improved condition of the people, and
in the development of the resources of the country; and that the sun of
prosperity may rise and shine upon a land which has enjoyed few natural
advantages, and which has hitherto been prevented, by the unwisdom of
its rulers, from turning even these to the best account.
The Icelander is accused by his detractors of being lethargic, indolent,
and wanting in ambition and enterprise. If he be so, and I am not
disposed to deny it, the reason is, in my opinion, not far to seek. No
man will work under conditions similar to those imposed upon the
galley-slave, and to enrich either trader or landed proprietor who has
him at his mercy, and who, whether by a hateful system of monopoly, or
by unjust and oppressive laws, can prevent him from enjoying the fruits
of his labour. Take away from a man or from a nation the incentive to
exertion, by denying him or them the legitimate rewards of toil, and
there must be moral and material deterioration. It has been so in
Iceland, as it has been in that unhappy country whose sons were its
first discoverers, and for much of whose misery and discontent and crime
we, as a nation, are seriously responsible. Happily in both cases rulers
have become alive to a higher sense of their duties, and now see that it
is only by drastic reforms and just laws that they can bring about
political regeneration.
More happily still the people recognising the force and truth of the
Laureate’s words:—
“Are figs of thistles? or grapes of thorns?
How can a despot set men free?”
have taken their future, to a great extent, into their own hands, and
are looking forward to better times in the immediate future. May the
results in both countries be shown by their marked improvement in social
and moral well-being, and by their progress in all those things which
tend to exalt nations, and which alone can make them great!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
PLATE III.
1 Turf and rubble-cottage, Heimaey.
2 The Althingis Hus, Heimaey.—3 Woman riding man-fashion.
4 Drying birds for fuel.
]
--------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
When I was at home I was in a better place,
But travellers must be content.—SHAKESPEARE.
Last night after leaving the Westmann’s Islands we lingered on deck till
the weird rocks that stud the ocean on the west of Heimaey had become
mere black specks on the silver sea, and the Midnight Sun, which had
just set, was filling the heavens with a halo of crimson and gold as he
rose once more on the distant horizon where sea and sky met.
But nevertheless we were up early this morning to gaze curiously on the
capital of Iceland which we find ourselves rapidly nearing about
breakfast time. On our left a huge whale-backed mountain-island rises
magnificently from the calm blue sea, almost within a stone’s throw of
the extreme point of the barren treeless promontory that stretches away
for a mile or two in the direction of the town. An iron beacon near the
shore, and a few wooden out-buildings and a farm house on the ridge, are
the only objects in the immediate foreground; and there is not a sign of
cultivation of any kind to be seen anywhere. A round tower—the
Observatory—crowns the summit of the promontory and overlooks the
strange collection of dingy painted weather-board houses, huts, and
sheds, which form the city of Reykjavik, and which extend down the slope
to the black, weed-strewn, rock-bound shore, where two or three shelving
wooden piers, several barn-like stores, a number of small boats, a few
fishing smacks, and a group of men engaged in mending their nets, can be
distinguished without the aid of a glass. A church,—whose ugly little
tower, or belfry, thrusts itself pretentiously above the roofs of the
buildings that cluster round it,—and several public institutions, not
one of which possesses the shadow of a claim to architectural beauty,
are prominent simply because of the humility of the houses that surround
them. But neither these nor any of the other objects over which our
restless eyes wander within a radius of half-a-dozen miles at all
prepossess us in favour of Reykjavik and its suburbs, which do not
indeed bear comparison even with a small colonial settlement in the
earliest days of its existence. It is difficult to believe that the city
we are approaching was founded by a band of adventurous Norsemen more
than a thousand years ago, and in the primitive appearance of the
capital of his country we see another evidence of the poverty and
indolence of the Icelander. From a flagstaff in a prominent position the
Danish ensign flutters in the breeze, and a good deal of bunting is also
displayed on several of the Consulates and stores in honour of our
arrival.
As we slowly creep on towards our anchorage, past several dangerous
reefs, bare at low water, an extensive panorama lies spread out before
us. The sterile water-worn snow-streaked slopes of a very common-place
mountain chain on our left, and an extensive wilderness of barren heath
which touches the grey-clouded sky on the horizon on our right, contrast
strangely with the black irregular fantastic peaks of the volcanic range
that rises picturesquely behind—though at a great distance beyond—the
city, and form an interesting picture in which nothing is so striking as
the want of life and warmth and colour.
A three-masted sailing ship, three schooners, one yacht, a few fishing
boats, and a battered old coal hulk, are riding at anchor in the
roadstead, each and all of them
“As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
Not a sound indicative of human existence is carried to our ears from
ship or shore to break the silence which settles down upon us as our
engines suddenly stop, and leave us to drift slowly on to our anchorage.
The deep stillness on land and sea and in the streets of the apparently
deserted city remind me of Campbell’s famous lines—
“Ships were drifting with the dead
To shores where all was dumb,”
and I am just beginning to wonder what manner of people they are who can
exist without noise, when the clarion cry of a rooster rings through the
air and re-assures me. It recalls a good story which I heard at the
dinner-table the other day of a cock in Iceland which, deceived by the
absence of night, crowed itself to death during the summer solstice,
under a mistaken sense of duty. Lord Dufferin, whose “Letters from High
Latitudes” are well worth reading, is credited with the authorship of
this amusing exaggeration.
Presently, however, we observe two or three boats put off from one of
the piers, and in a few minutes are boarded by guides and
hotel-proprietors. We arrange with one of the former, by name Thorgrimur
Gudmundsen,—a big, strapping, intelligent-looking fellow, who stands
over six feet high in his stocking soles,—to accompany us to
Thingvellir, the Geysirs, and Hengill, and to have ponies ready for an
early start to-morrow.
On landing at the pier a little later we are met with the inevitable
stench from the fish-stores, and after securing rooms at the Island
Hotel—(Island is the Icelandic word for Iceland not for island)—we
stroll out to see the city. Being desirous of a breath of fresh air we
flee from the horrors of the many stenches and from the dirty dusty
uneven uncausewayed streets, and bend our steps almost instinctively in
the direction of the Observatory, preferring rather to look down upon
the city from a purer atmosphere, and to command a view of it and its
surroundings from a respectful distance, than to stand gaping at its
one-and-two-storied, black-roofed, drab-painted, weather-board huts,
which form an aggregation of impressive ugliness that has a tendency to
induce melancholia. Thick mists are settling down upon the summits and
slopes of the distant hills, and there are signs of a change for the
worse in the weather which make us rather anxious, for to-morrow we are
to commence a ride of at least a hundred and fifty miles through a
country where there is little or no accommodation for the storm-bound
traveller.
But the sun is shining out pleasantly, though not too powerfully, and
the air is clear, bracing, and invigorating, so we dismiss our fears,
and turn our attention to the scene before us. There is not a single
tree, nor even a bush a foot high, nor one square yard of cultivated
land anywhere. The hilly plateau on which we stand is traversed, for a
few miles, by a brown dusty macadamised road—almost the only one in the
island we are informed—on each side of which, for miles around, nothing
is to be seen but vast fields of lava, hundreds of acres of undulating
country covered with stones and boulders, so thickly strewn that, there
is scarcely room for a blade of grass to grow between any two of them,
were a blade of grass so unwise as to attempt such a feat.
We miss the rustling leaves, the green springy turf, the yellow waving
corn, the rippling streams, and the song of lark, or thrush, or
blackbird, or even the chirping of the despised sparrow, as we look upon
the panorama before us with an interest which arises chiefly from its
absolute want of these or any other features which render a landscape
attractive.
As we sit and chat about our experiences in many a foreign land, and
institute comparisons between the view before us and others that we have
travelled much further to see, our minds naturally go back to the time
more than ten centuries ago, when Ingolfr and his companions—fleeing
from Norway to Iceland—because as the sagas quaintly say, “it was the
only place within their reach at the time where they could live
undisturbed by kings and evil-doers,”—first sighted the snow-capped
peaks of Orœfa, and prepared to land on the silent shore.
As they approach nearer to the coast they throw overboard the pillars of
the chief’s high seat which they have brought with them, in the belief
that, directed by the gods, these will be carried by the tide to a spot
divinely selected for the new settlement. But alas! during the night
they lose sight of the floating pillars that were to guide them, and on
landing look for them in vain. Three years pass away, and still the
search is fruitless. At length the long-lost pillars are found on the
present site of the capital, and there, in reliance upon the directing
providence of the gods, Ingolfr and his little company settle.
Their new town must of course receive a name, so it is called Reykjavik,
or Smoking Village, because on approaching the bay the wondering
Norsemen saw steam—which they not unnaturally mistook for smoke—issuing
from the earth in various parts of the coast.
Such is an outline of the founding of the city before us. Its progress
has been slow, and its population to-day, set down at about 2,500, is
probably not much greater than it was seven or eight hundred years ago.
But we live in stirring times, and may, therefore, be allowed to hope
that under present conditions, which are much more favourable than at
any previous period of its history, Reykjavik may yet become the
thriving capital of a country redeemed from desolation by the patriotic
enterprise and energy of a free and enlightened nation.
Then will these words of their national anthem
“Eldgamla Isafold,
Astkœra fósturmold,
Fjallkonan fríth;
Mögum thin muntu kœr.
Methan lönd girthir sœr
Og gumar girnast mœr,
Gljár sól á hlíth.”
acquire a deeper meaning as they fall from the lips of a grateful
people, who see their fatherland gradually becoming great and happy as
it steadily triumphs over the difficulties and obstacles with which
Nature, in an angry mood, seems to have tried her best to retard its
progress and hinder its prosperity.
The words above quoted are interesting as an example of Icelandic. Dr
Hjaltalin having kindly furnished me with the following literal
translation: “Iceland old as fire, beloved native land, fair mountain
bride, thou wilt be dear to thy sons, while the sea surrounds the land,
and men’s desire is to maidens, and the sun shines on the hillside,” I
have endeavoured to turn it into English verse without materially
deviating from the original words and metre.
Fair Iceland, old as fire,
Mountain bride our hearts’ desire
Sweet fosterland.
While woman loved shall be
By man; or sun shines free;
While land is girt by sea
Thou shalt be dear.
The tune to which the anthem is sung—God Save the Queen—is claimed by
the Icelander.
As we are on the point of returning to the ship for lunch we espy a
couple of neatly dressed maidens, one of whom is rather pretty. We
succeed in making the latter understand by signs that we are exceedingly
anxious to take her portrait that we may carry it with us across the
seas, and flattered by the attention, and willing to oblige, she
consents with a modest blush which we are able particularly to observe,
because her face is clean, which is more than can be said for the
Icelanders generally, who, if report be true, dislike cold water when
applied to the skin, or unless mixed with corn brandy.
This objection would seem to be inherited, and as Mark Twain says, “to
run in the blood like wooden legs,” if we are to believe the traditions
of early history, for it is recorded that the greatest objection of the
Pagans to Christianity arose from the necessity of being baptised. This
difficulty was only overcome by an agreement that the ceremony should be
performed by immersion in one of the “Laugs” or hot-springs.
We are fortunate in getting into conversation with a Dane, who is mixing
mortar for the walls of a stone dwelling-house in course of erection in
a side street, and at the same time superintending two labourers who are
busily engaged in carrying stones on a handbarrow.
The first thing we note is that the rough blocks are actually being
quarried out of some large boulders which lie embedded in the middle of
the street in which we are standing, and must therefore have seriously
obstructed traffic had there been any to obstruct. Our friend the
builder, who speaks very good English, having lived in Scotland for some
time, tells us that he came to the country three years ago, and that,
though a sailor by profession, he has the distinguished honour of being
the first man to build a stone house in Iceland. When he proposed to
make the attempt he was greeted with derision, it being considered
impossible to work lava stone. “But,” says he, emphatically, “I knowed
better, and I done it.” He has now erected several substantial buildings
in Reykjavik which he points out with modest pride.
We learn from him that he pays his labourers 2 kroner and 75 öre per day
of eleven hours, being at the rate of 25 öre per hour. Let me remark
here that the kroner is a Danish silver coin value thirteen pence
half-penny sterling, and that it contains 100 öre; the labourer’s daily
wage therefore reckoned in English money amounts to about 3s 1d. Skilled
workmen earn from 3 kroner (3s 4½d) to 3 kroner and 50 öre (3s 11d) per
day. The hours of labour are from 6.0 a.m. till 7.0 p.m., one hour each
being allowed for breakfast and dinner. There is no half holiday, but
Sunday is strictly observed as a day of rest and devotion. Flour at
present costs about 18 kroner (20s 3d) per bag of 200lb, about the same
as in England, and beef—seldom eaten—from 25 to 40 öre (3½d to 5½d) per
lb, or from 45 to 50 öre (6d to 6¾d) when scarce, or very fat and good.
There is no such thing as a butcher’s shop in Reykjavik, but as the
Scotsman said “every one kills himself,” taking care to apportion the
animal before he does so. The people generally, however, live upon
dried-fish, flour-cakes, rye-bread, butter, and curds. Female servants
are paid about 40 kroner (45s) per annum, men receiving from 60 to 70.
They are, of course, boarded and lodged, and one of the items of their
allowance of food is 2lbs of butter per week.
Every woman must be able to milk, and every man must know how to shoe a
horse, as I understand every Icelander does from the Bishop—who is the
greatest and richest man in the country—downwards. Sugar-candy is
commonly used instead of sugar to sweeten tea or coffee, the reason
given by the captain of the Camoens being that it is not so apt to melt
in damp weather. Our informant’s explanation is as follows: “Sugar-candy
don’t run away in their mouths.” The Icelander evidently prefers, if I
may use a common expression, to roll the candy like a sweet morsel under
his tongue.
We enquire the cost of rent, and, pointing to the house of a tailor
close by, he informs us that it is let for 20 kroner (22s 6d) per month,
and contained three rooms and a kitchen.
The cowskin shoes, so universally worn, cost from 2 kroner upwards. It
is a custom of the women in Iceland when they are “donned,” as we say in
Yorkshire, to wear a bright coloured apron, a white front to the bodice,
and a bow at the back, like that of the Japanese girls, made of a length
of stuff one fathom (6 feet) long.
A marriage license costs 36 kroner (40s 6d), and people can be married
either in church or in their own homes if they prefer it, and at any
hour, according to the sensible custom which also prevails in Scotland.
The præsturs or parsons, who exercise great influence in the country,
are especially careful that the women shall be educated, and I was
reliably assured that no woman has much chance of securing a husband who
is not able to teach her children at least the elements of education.
There used to be a law forbidding a man to marry unless he owned “one
hundred of land”—land worth 120 ells of Vathmál or homespun—or “a
six-oared boat in trim.”
We subsequently learnt that our informant unfortunately introduced the
measles into Reykjavik on his arrival three years ago, and that the
dreadful disease spreading like wildfire, carried off no fewer than 37
persons in the thousand of the entire population of the island. Iceland
has always been subject to plague, pestilence and famine, as well as to
the havoc and desolation wrought by volcanic outbursts. In the
seventeenth century many of its unfortunate inhabitants were carried
into slavery by Algerine pirates; in 1707 from 16,000 to 18,000 people
died of small-pox out of a total population of 50,000; in 1759 famine
swept off 10,000 persons, and between the years 1781 and 1785 other
9,000 perished from the same cause. Starvation again made fearful
ravages amongst them in 1824 and 1825; in 1827 an epidemic decimated the
survivors, and there have been frequent minor calamities since. One
finds it difficult to understand how it is that, in the course of a
thousand years, the population has never exceeded the 72,000 which is
its total to-day; but the continued recurrence of such disasters as
those just mentioned, and the ravages of fire, frost, flood, and famine
help to explain the matter. It is impossible to think without a shudder
of the horrors and miseries which must have been endured by a people so
circumstanced.
I have, however, been digressing, and must return to our friend, the
builder, who proves to be quite a mine of information. We question him
about the climate, and learn that it is by no means so severe as
foreigners generally suppose, the registered mean temperature at
Reykjavik of the whole year being 39deg., of summer 53deg., and of
winter 29deg. At Akureyri, which is further north, these figures are
respectively 32deg., 45deg., and 20deg. Rain falls heavily night and day
at frequent intervals during the months of August and September, but
from September till November the weather is fairly good. During winter
the days are necessarily short, there being, at Reykjavik, only 3 hours
and 58 min. of sunlight on the shortest day, and 20 hours, 54 min. on
the longest. A great deal depends, however, upon what people call
daylight. There are some men who would argue that in England we have
daylight in November. At midsummer in the north the sun never sets for a
whole week, and at mid-winter it never rises for a corresponding period.
Summer is so short and variable as to remind one of the Scotsman’s
advice to a friend who was about to visit North Britain: “When you get
there,” said he, “don’t take off your overcoat till midsummer day, and
put it on again the day after.”
When summer comes it is customary for people at its commencement to wish
one another “a good summer,” just as we wish one another “A Happy New
Year.” The words used by our informant in communicating this fact are
rather amusing. They are as follows: “A man will say to you, ‘I wish you
a good summer,’ and perhaps it will be snewin’ like blazes.” The
expression “snewin’ like blazes” is worthy of the great Irish
Parliamentary orator who “smelt a rat and saw it floating in the air,”
but who nevertheless determined “to nip it in the bud.” Bidding our
friend “Good day,” with many thanks for his courtesy, and being still as
inquisitive as a Yankee interviewer, we stroll down to the Althing or
Parliament House in search of another victim who is willing to be
cross-examined. We find one in a pleasant-mannered young Clerk of the
House, who shows us over the building, the largest and finest in
Iceland, substantially built of dressed stone, and situated on one side
of a small public park or garden, which contains a statue of
Thorwaldsen, the great sculptor, whose father was a native of Iceland.
We are conducted by our guide first to the Lower, and next to the Upper
Chamber: both of which are plain square rooms of moderate size,
containing seats and desks for the members and a rostrum for the
president. They are simply furnished, unrelieved by elaborate
decoration, and quite large enough for those who occupy them when
Parliament is sitting.
The Lower House consists of twenty-four members, except immediately
after a general election, when thirty members take their seats as the
representatives of the people. Of these thirty, however, six are at once
transferred to the Upper House by the vote of a majority of their
colleagues, where with six others nominated by the Crown,—making twelve
in all,—they form the Senate or House of Lords. Each of these assemblies
is presided over by a President, who receives an official salary.
Members of both chambers are paid 6 kroner (6s 9d) per day, while
Parliament is sitting, and receive in addition their travelling expenses
to and from Reykjavik.
No man is eligible or qualified for a seat in either house unless he is
a Danish subject, not less than thirty years of age, and has resided in
Danish dominions for at least five years. The franchise is possessed by
“all officials, ecclesiastics, university graduates, students who sign
themselves ‘Candidat,’” holders of farms on lease, those who pay a
minimum of eight kroner per annum in government taxes, and country
people who pay cess, or parish rates, provided they are of unblemished
character, at least twenty-five years of age, and have resided not less
than twelve months in an electoral district. Women are excluded from the
franchise as in all other civilised (?) countries; so are minors,
paupers and criminals.
The total revenue of the country in 1884 was 863,932 kroner, in round
numbers about £48,000, and was derived, according to the official year
book which our informant kindly turns up for us, from the following
sources:—(a) Land tax levied on farmers only, (b) cattle tax, (c) house
tax, (d) income tax, (e) sale of property tax, (f) tax on incomes from
other sources, (g) tax on tithes, (h) tax on exports, (i) tax on
imports, (j) tax on tobacco, (k) post office revenue, (l) light and
harbour dues.
Deferring any further notes with reference to the history of government
till we reach the famous spot at Thingvellir where, a thousand years
ago, the ancient Althing was wont to assemble, we return to the ship to
tiffin, to find that a few seats at table will be vacant when we start
for Akureyri on Saturday, as several of our little company have already
secured quarters ashore with the intention of remaining in the country
till the next voyage of the Camoens. These are an enthusiastic angler
who has visited Iceland several times, and who has taken an excellent
trout-stream on lease; a young city merchant,—also a disciple of Isaak
Walton—a very nice fellow, the up-turned ends of whose attenuated
moustache, however, are so wonderfully waxed that one almost longs to
try to hang a hat and coat upon them; an officer of a crack regiment of
dragoons who was at Majuba, and who knows South Africa well; a
kind-hearted sociable old clergyman who put himself to great trouble to
arrange a whist party at an early stage of the voyage,—not on his own
account, but with a view of making some of us happier,—and who hopes to
return to his parish in Suffolk with recruited energies after having
made the ascent of Hekla, and bumped his poor bones over the lava-fields
of South-Western Iceland; and last—but by no means least in his own
estimation—a pawkie talkative self-opinionated exceedingly well-informed
old Scotsman, who is burning with ardour to make a weary journey across
the Sprengisandr (bursting sands) desert, and to ascend to the very
crater of a famous volcano called Askja; a feat which on a previous
visit he was unfortunately prevented from doing. He is perhaps not so
much animated by a desire to increase the world’s knowledge as to
“smash” another traveller who, having had the coveted honour of reading
a paper before the Royal Geographical Society, inconsiderately omitted
to mention his indebtedness for a good deal of information to notes
supplied to him by our injured friend.
The remainder of our compagnons de voyage—who are “jolly companions
every one”—are going on with us to Akureyri and will stay by the ship
like ourselves till we get back to Scotland. They include two brothers
of Scotch parentage but born in England, who like myself are constantly
engaged in amateur photography; two young sparks from a Midland town
famous for the loveliness of its ladies and the beauty of its lace, and
who are familiarly known in the smoke-room as “Me and Arthur;” a tall,
dark, agreeable philologist from the Cumberland fells who reads but does
not speak Icelandic; and three gentlemen from London, viz:—an embryo
barrister, nephew of one of the greatest living novelists; a budding
shipbroker who, though a genuine Cockney, greatly admires Burns’ poems
which he has read from beginning to end, including the glossary (!); and
a fine-looking, handsome young fellow who would make splendid food for
powder should he choose the army as a profession, as his father and
grandfathers and great-grandfathers have done before him.
Everybody has been good-tempered, our worthy skipper setting the
example, and granting us a degree of freedom in little things which many
a less genial man would have refused. The stewards and stewardess have
been most attentive to our wants, and exceedingly obliging; our table
has been well supplied with necessaries and luxuries, and the voyage has
hitherto been a pleasant one. It is astonishing how men thrown together
on board an ocean-going steamer fraternise with one another, and it is
always a real regret to me when a little community, formed under such
circumstances, begins to break up. Partings, however, are constantly
experienced in this world.
“Friend after friend departs
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That hath not here an end.”
All we can do therefore is to bid our friends “Good-bye,” and to hope
that they may each and all have “a good time,” as a Yankee would say,
not only during their stay in Iceland, but on the voyage of life.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
PLATE IV.
1 View of Reykjavik.—2 Woman wearing holiday head-dress.
3 Woman wearing “Hufa.”—4 Snaefellsjökull.—5 Building stone
houses, Reykjavik.—6 Cathedral and Parliament House, Reykjavik.
7 Lava plain, near the Observatory, Reykjavik.
]
--------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
“Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,
And marvel men should quit their easy chair
The toilsome way, and long long league to trace,
Oh! there is a sweetness in the mountain air
And life, that bloated ease can never hope to share.”
BYRON.
There are no pleasanter memories of an ocean voyage than those that
cluster round what is known afloat as “a Sing Song,” when a little group
of fellows, whom fate has thrown together for a week or two, gather
together on deck, under the bright blue starlit sky, and to the
accompaniment of banjo or guitar, make the night-air melodious—or
otherwise—with song and chorus.
Fletcher of Saltoun, a famous Scottish patriot, is credited with the
oft-quoted saying “Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who
shall make its laws.” I have often felt how natural is the aspiration
thus expressed, and never more than when the monotony of life at sea has
been relieved by the willing efforts of a few sweet singers. But if the
man who writes the words of a stirring song be such a benefactor what
shall we say of the professionally-despised musician whose rattling
choruses, full of melody, and easily learnt, make the strangers who sing
them feel like old friends? My own opinion is that, had he any choice in
the matter, he could desire no greater reward than the appreciation with
which his music is sung by a grateful little company, such as I have
just referred to.
Last night a few of us held “a Sing Song” in the large room of the
Island Hotel, and spent our first evening ashore most enjoyably. The
captain had brought his violin with him, by invitation, and as we drew
our chairs round a little table near the piano, we were presently joined
in a cup of café noir by a pleasant and highly-intelligent Icelander,
who was introduced as editor or proprietor of a newspaper; by our guide,
Thorgrimur Gudmundsen, who came to report progress in his arrangements
for the morrow; and by a fellow-Yorkshireman, who has been enjoying a
few weeks’ sport on some of the trout streams, and who returns to
England with us on Saturday. Giving our melodious instincts full play,
we treated the company in the adjoining bar to a little vocal and
instrumental music, which made up for its occasional want of tune and
precision by its unmistakeable heartiness.
It also unearthed a young Yankee “masher,” whose get-up and general
appearance, as he suddenly appeared in the doorway and approached our
merry circle, caused us to pause in the midst of a chorus to gaze at him
with undisguised astonishment and open-mouthed admiration. It was his
costume rather than his personal beauty—though he was a good-looking
young fellow—that provoked us to the unpardonable rudeness of staring.
Let me try to describe it. He was attired in a short loose velveteen
coatee, elaborately braided, and cut away in front in such a fashion as
to expose a maximum of white shirt front admirably displayed by a
minimum of velvet waistcoat. On his head he wore a little round tweed
billycock in shape like a milk-bowl, and he had managed by a supreme
effort to thrust his shapely legs into knee-breeches, tight as the skin
of a kettledrum, and fastened at the knees with buckles; while his
calves, evidently a source of reverential pride from the care taken to
show them off to advantage, stretched a pair of superfine stockings to
such an extent as to make one tremble for the stitches. His feet were
encased in a natty pair of patent leather shoes ornamented, on each
instep, with a large bunch of black ribbon, and a pair of silver buckles
which if melted down into United States currency would probably have
yielded dollars enough to pay his hotel bill for a week; and his tout
ensemble suggested alternate thoughts of a London flunkey, a tailor’s
block, and Apollo Belvidere.
His accent was just sufficiently nasal to leave no doubt on our minds as
to his nationality, even if he had omitted—as he did not—to inform us
that he hailed from
“The Land of the West, the land of the free,
Where mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea.”
He proved himself a good fellow, and a pleasant companion, however; was
troubled with little or none of the bashfulness which is such a
distinguishing characteristic of his countrymen; and soon contributed to
the harmony of the evening by singing several songs, one of
which,—described by him as an “Amurican Stoodent Sawng,”—exercised such
a fascination over us on account of its “catching” melody, and the ease
with which we picked up the chorus, that we made the rafters ring with
it at least a dozen times before we broke up. I wrote it down from
memory as soon as I got the piano to myself, and here are the words of
the first verse, and also the air which I have transposed into the tonic
sol-fa notation for the convenience of the printer.
AMERICAN STUDENT SONG.
KEY C
s |s :d’ :d’ | d’ :r’ :d’ |t : r’ :— |— : : s|
When I was a stu-dent of Ca—diz, I
|s : t : d’ |r’: l : t |d’ :— :d’ |d’ : : s|
played on my Spanish guitar; Ching! Ching! I
╰───────────╯
Chorus.
|s : d’ : d’ | d’ :r’:d’ |t :r’ :— | — : : s|
used to make love to the ladies. I
|s : t : d’ | r’ :l :t |d’ :— :d’ |d’: :— |
think of them now when a— far. Ching! Ching!
╰───────────╯
Chorus.
CHORUS.
| d’ : s : s | d’ :s : s |s : t :—.t |t : — : l|
Ring, ching, ching, Ring, ching, ching, Ring out ye bells, Oh!
| s :t :- .t |t: — :l |s :d’ :—.d’|d’ :— :— |
Ring out ye bells. Oh! Ring out ye bells.
| d’ : s : s | d’ :s : s |s : t :—.t |t : — : l|
Ring, ching, ching, Ring, ching, ching. Ring out ye bells. I
|s : t : d’ |r’: l : t |d’ :— :d’ | d’ : |
play on my Spanish guitar; Ching! Ching!
╰───────────╯
Chorus.
Stimulated by the applause with which his efforts were received our
friend the captain astonished us with the pathos he managed to put into
“The flowers o’ the forest,” “Auld Robin Gray,” and “Robin Adair,” while
his bowing and “double stopping” suggested thoughts (we were in an
imaginative humour be it remembered) of a combination of Paganini,
Sivori, Vieuxtemps, and Carrodus.
At a late hour the would-be explorer of the mysteries of Askja stirred
to the depths of his contentious soul by the competition of rival
performers, produced an accordion on which he proved himself to be no
mean performer.
“A sound of revelry was heard by night” in Reykjavik to which its
peaceful inhabitants were probably unaccustomed, and the “Nicht drave on
wi’ sangs and clatter.” The Icelandic editor, delighted with our
efforts, invited us to take wine with him, and a bottle of sherry was
accordingly brought in and duly emptied with mutual good wishes and much
clinking of glasses. Then an Englishman present insisted upon returning
the compliment, and the mirth and fun were growing fast and furious when
the gentleman with the accordion—who was a staunch teetotaller—thrilled
us with the inspiriting strains of a Scotch reel. Instantly half a dozen
of us sprang to our feet and
“Reeled and set, and crossed and cleekit,
Till ilka carline swat and reekit.”
For the next quarter of an hour I verily believe that the little knot of
Danish sea-captains, who had by this time established themselves in a
distant corner of the room, and the studious boy who was poring over a
book by the light of the midnight sun that streamed in through the
unblinded windows, looked upon us as a party of lunatics who had escaped
from an English asylum.
“But pleasures are like poppies spread,”
The time came round to go to bed.
So to bed we went, with the generally expressed wish that we might all
meet again under similar circumstances on our return from our trip into
the interior.
At ten o’clock this morning (July 14th) our guide arrived with the
ponies, and on looking out of the hotel window we saw seven sturdy
little animals of various colours standing in the lane outside. There
are no carriages or wheeled conveyances of any kind in Iceland; at any
rate none that I have as yet seen, with the exception of a solitary
handcart of American manufacture, which does not appear to have been
much longer in the country than ourselves. All travelling is done on
pony-back, and every man, woman and child is accustomed to the saddle
from infancy. Two ponies have been provided for each of us, including
the guide, and one for our baggage, making seven in all. A brief
reference to the arrangements made with our guide yesterday may be
interesting and useful to intending tourists. We are to pay two kroner
(2s 3d) per day for each of the seven ponies which form our cavalcade;
and the guide’s fee is five kroner (5s 7½d) per day with food, or six
kroner (6s 9d) without. In addition to these items there will be a
charge of twenty öre (2¾d) per diem for pasturage for each of the
ponies, so that our daily expenses for ponies and guide, reckoning the
fee of the latter at 6s 9d, will amount to 24s in all, or 12s each
person. In addition, however, we have had to provide a supply of bread
and tinned provisions for four days, and shall have to pay for bed and
breakfast at the parsonage or farmhouse where we may stay for the night;
the usual charge for such accommodation being about three kroner. The
daily total, including the cost of the food we have purchased, will
therefore be not much less than a pound a day, which is what the tourist
may expect it to cost him.
We are disappointed to find that our valises must be unpacked, and the
few necessary articles of clothing which we have decided to take with us
transferred to the two strong wooden boxes which already contain our
stock of provisions, and which have been slung across the back of our
pack-pony, where they rest upon a pad of dry turf to prevent chafing.
There is no help for it, however, for our guide assures us that we are
about to ride over a country so rough that no ordinary straps or buckles
can stand the jolting, and that it is also absolutely necessary to
equalise the burden of the patient little creature that is to carry our
baggage. We accordingly submit, and while the transfer is being arranged
my companion disappears and presently returns wearing a pair of huge
wading boots, and a yellow oilskin sou’wester. The former we
subsequently find to be quite indispensable in the case of anyone who
objects to wet feet, for there are fords innumerable to cross between
the capital and the Geysirs.
At length, our preparations being completed, we mount, and driving the
three spare ponies and our baggage-carrier—(which are allowed to run
perfectly free)—before us we ride off up the hill towards the
Observatory. We have scarcely proceeded more than half-a-mile on our
journey when we hear a wild shout behind us, and are presently joined by
the captain of the Camoens, who comes tearing along on a sturdy little
brute, and begins to enliven the proceedings by sending us all off at
full gallop, which he does by a free use of one of the short-handled
flat-thonged whips common in Iceland.
He rides like a “centaur,” not like a “sailor,” but not having served an
apprenticeship to the circus business myself, and being as yet rather
strange to the saddle, I am not altogether sorry when he reins up to
return to town. It would afford me much pleasure to have his company all
the way, but I am afraid I should only enjoy it at the risk of a broken
neck, for the road over which we are trotting is one of the roughest of
which I have ever had experience, and having a lively recollection of
colonial roads that is saying a good deal. At the first important ford
we halt for a few minutes along with seven of our shipmates who have
formed an expedition of their own under the care of one of Zoega’s men.
Zoega, I may observe, is a well-known man in Reykjavik, and has long
been recognised as the chief of the fraternity of guides.
From this point the road gradually ascends, now crossing some wild
mountain stream, cold as the snow and ice that feed it, and clear as the
blue sky that it reflects; now winding, in and out, round the bases of
ranges of barren stone-strewn treeless hills, heart-breaking in their
monotony of unloveliness; and now traversing the dreary uncultivated
unfenced plain, on which, at rare intervals, a little turf-covered farm
house, with its adjoining folds and outbuildings, may occasionally be
seen standing in the midst of the “tun,” or “home-field,” whose
luxuriant grass tinged by the yellow butter-cup, refreshes the wearied
eye, and forms a pleasant contrast, to the desolation that reigns
everywhere around.
The melancholy cry of the curlew as it flies above our heads is the only
sound—except the clatter of our ponies’ hoofs—that breaks the deep
stillness, and the pretty wild flowers that—like the seed spoken of in
the parable of “The Sower”—have “sprung up in stony places,” are the
only other living things that seem to whisper a word of hopefulness to
the despairing landscape. If people were but willing to look for it,
there is always something to beautify the dreariest desert, just as
there is always some tender spot even in the hardest heart, some good
thought in the most selfish mind, and some good deed even in the vilest
life. How many men travel only to indulge in constant carping and
captious criticism; to find fault with everything they see, and to abuse
everybody they meet. How many seem even to turn away their eyes lest
they should observe anything which they might be tempted to admire.
Iceland is no place for such men, for they would find too much
occupation, and make themselves and their companions miserable by their
continual growling. Happily there are none such in our party.
But the sky begins to grow grey and clouded. Not a streak of blue is to
be seen either before or behind us, and the deep shadows that fill the
fissures and ravines of the distant hills are clearly defined against
the brown weather-beaten water-worn slopes. As we plod along we are at
pains to examine the nature and depth of the soil where opportunity
occurs, and soon come to the conclusion that there must be tens of
thousands of acres of land in Iceland which might be brought under the
plough. From the bright appearance of the “tun” to which I have already
referred, as well as from the fact that potatoes and turnips are grown
in small patches, here and there, as food for man and beast, we are
forced to conclude that the absence of cultivation must be due quite as
much to the want of energy and enterprise of the farmer, as to want of
capital, or the recurrence of unfavourable seasons. On this point,
however, I shall be able to speak more authoritatively after we have
seen more of the country and learnt more of its natural conditions.
About 2.0 p.m. we halt for dinner, and to give the ponies a rest and a
feed. By this time a Scotch mist has begun to fall and the air has grown
much colder; but as we recline on a damp grassy bank with a chunk of dry
bread in one hand and a portion of stringy Australian beef in the other,
the weather does not materially interfere with our enjoyment. After a
stoppage of about an hour we on-saddle and resume our journey, but soon
pull up for a minute or two on the edge of a stretch of flat country
literally covered, as far as the eye can see, with stones and boulders
large and small.
There is no path through this lava-desert, but the route is indicated by
the scratches and marks made upon the rocks by the shoes of the trains
of ponies that daily travel to and fro between the capital and the
interior; and at points where the ground is higher than the general
level, large heaps of stones, or cairns, have been erected to guide the
traveller when the country is under snow. As my pony steps cautiously,
but confidently, upon this lava field, I begin to wish that I had
insured my life in the Accidental. I also recognise the wisdom of the
wily old Scotsman who played the accordion last night, who not having a
single tooth in his head has prudently prepared himself for his journey
over the Sprengisandr by bringing with him a small case in which to
place and pocket his false teeth, that he may not inadvertently swallow
them, or gash his poor gums, when stumbling over a tract of country like
that before us.
After a long and fatiguing march across this stone-strewn waste we once
more get on to turf, only, however, to find ourselves riding along a
succession of the deep narrow rain channels, which form almost the only
paths throughout Iceland. These wind in and out among the millions of
grave-like frost-made mounds that give the landscape for many miles
round the appearance of a huge cemetery, and remind me somewhat of the
ant-hills so common in parts of South Africa, save that they are green
instead of brown. Indeed the resemblance between the scenery of Iceland
and that of many parts of Cape Colony is very striking, the chief points
of difference being the numerous streams of clear running water and the
prevalence of snow on the mountain peaks and slopes.
It is no easy matter, even for an accomplished horseman, to ride across
country in Iceland, for when the pony is not picking its way painfully
over a wilderness of stones, it is probably ambling between two rows of
these frost-mounds, which are often so near each other on account of the
narrowness of the track, and so high, that if the rider be not careful
to keep a sharp look-out ahead and to tuck in his toes he is liable to
come into contact, with them, and to find himself pitched out of the
saddle, especially as the girths are never properly tightened.
If, however, he should come to grief, as he may expect to do
occasionally, he has the satisfaction of knowing that, if he do not
break his neck in the fall, he need fear nothing from his pony, for more
docile hardy willing and good-tempered little creatures than the Iceland
ponies do not exist. During the summer the grass of the home-field is
reserved exclusively for the cattle, whose lot in winter even under the
most favourable conditions is often one of semi-starvation. But the poor
pony, after a summer of hard work and no corn, is turned out in winter
to try to find wild-grass enough to keep him alive till the melting
snows give him another chance of putting some flesh on his emaciated
frame.
About 7 p.m. we sight Lake Thingvellavatn, the second largest lake in
Iceland, a fine sheet of fresh water about twenty-five miles in
circumference, in the middle of which rise two or three small islands
black as night, and absolutely destitute of vegetation. These and the
surrounding ranges of barren hills, deeply shaded in tones of dark brown
and black, are reflected upon the glassy surface of the dull blue-gray
waters, and serve but to intensify the gloomy grandeur of a picture
which is only relieved from its oppressive blackness by the white peaks
and snow-streaked slopes of the distant mountains, prominent among
which, away to the south, towers the rugged form of Hengill. The scene
is one that would inspire a Dante or a Doré by its wild and weird
magnificence.
An hour later, we stand upon the summit of the Almannagja—(“‘all men’ or
‘great’ rift,”)—so called because in ancient times “all the people” met
upon its eastern flank during the sitting of the Althing or Parliament.
It is one of the great sights of Iceland, so we pause to observe and
describe it, before descending the steep and rugged path which leads to
the valley below. The Almannagja is the result of a rupture or gigantic
crack caused by the subsidence of the lava-field, which stretches away
for many a mile beyond it, though at a considerably lower level. Two
huge walls, from two to three miles in length, have thus been formed one
on each side of a narrow defile. That on the left, said to be about 180
feet in height, is absolutely perpendicular; is cracked in ten thousand
times ten thousand places; and looks like an immense barrier built by
Titanic hands. That on the right, which is about 80 feet lower, has
evidently fallen away from the precipitous rock opposite; but the two
together as they frown down upon the ravine below, give the scene such
an appearance of gloom and desolation that it seems a fitting entrance
to the Infernal regions.
The summits of both cliffs are covered, all along the sky-line, with
rocks of various shapes and sizes, some of which overhang in a manner
which seems to threaten destruction to the train of men and ponies below
that sink into insignificance in comparison with the majesty of their
surroundings.