“And yet but lately there was seen e’en here,
The winter in a lovely dress appear.”
PHILLIPS.
ON a bright and beautiful morning, as my agreeable company of the day
previous disappeared behind the walls of the Almannagjá, my small party
turned towards the east, the bridle-path leading through a forest
several miles in extent. Before getting into the thickest of the wood,
we found the ground covered with immense rocks of lava, and look which
way we would, except a few feet of the path directly before us, the
country appeared quite impassable. It may excite a smile to talk of a
forest, with the largest trees but six or seven feet high; but these
patches of shrubbery dispersed over Iceland, are of great value to the
people. They are composed principally of birch and willow. Though
nothing but scraggy brush, it is used to make roofs to their houses, and
much of it is burned into charcoal for their blacksmithing. I have seen
one of their coalpits where they were burning charcoal, and a bushel
basket would have nearly covered it. Attached to every farm-house is a
“smithy,” where scythes, pitchforks, spades, horse-shoes, and other
articles, are made. Every man is a blacksmith; and some travelers have
asserted that the clergy are the best shoers of horses in the land. A
Gretna Green blacksmith will answer in case of emergency for a
clergyman; and Sir George Mackenzie, while traveling here, had his horse
shod several times by Iceland priests. I have not yet had an opportunity
of testing the skill of one of these clerical blacksmiths. They have, at
least, a poetical license for practising the two trades; though perhaps
they do not put the shoe on the horse as much as formerly, but
———————“grown more holy,
Just like the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,—
A modern Ancient Pistol, by the hilts!”
We crossed one of those deep chasms or cracks in the lava, so common in
volcanic regions. Here a natural bridge of lava was left, apparently on
purpose for a road across it. While riding along in this miniature
forest, a large flock or brood of ptarmigans flew up before us. This,
one of the fine game-birds of the mountainous parts of Scotland, is very
common in Iceland. From being long out of the habit of shooting, I
believe the murderous propensities bred in my youth—with “dad’s old
musket”—have pretty nearly all evaporated. And why should I regret it? A
more cheerful or happy sight than flocks of beautiful birds, young and
old, cannot be seen. Then see the terrible contrast of “sulphurous smoke
and dreadful slaughter,” that follows the “fowler’s murder-aiming eye,”
and all for “sport.” The ptarmigan, I believe, is seldom found in
America. It is about the size of the partridge of the State of New York,
a greyish brown in summer, and turning quite white in winter. The
Icelanders call this bird the _reaper_. Had they game laws here—and
thank heaven they don’t require them—it would not be permitted to shoot
this bird at this season. The young in this flock, though able to fly
short distances, were not over half grown. I have a bit of a confession
to make, and I may as well make it now. The day that I was traveling was
Sunday! I met several parties of Icelanders, traveling also; the
immediate object of our journeying being different: they were going to
church, and I was going to see the Geysers. The parties I met were going
towards the Thingvalla church, and had on their Sunday’s best. They were
all on horseback, the universal way of traveling in this country.
Indeed, indeed, it was very queer, the riding of the young Icelandic
ladies. These pretty damsels rode just like their brothers. My pen
refuses a more elaborate and bifurcated description. The matrons all had
a very convenient kind of side-saddle. It was like an arm-chair, the
back and arms forming part of a circle, all in one piece. The dame rides
exactly sideways, at a right angle with her horse, her feet placed on a
sort of wooden step. The saddle must be pretty heavy, but the little
animals and their riders seemed to get along very well. There was
nothing peculiar about the costume of the females, except the little
black caps with long silk tassels, universally worn in Iceland, in doors
and out, in place of any other cap or bonnet.
We journeyed towards the south, skirting the shore of the lake some
five miles, and then turned to the east, climbing a sharp and steep
mountain, but not of great height. From the top we had a fine view
of the surrounding country, and to the west, the broad lake, the
“Thingvalla vatn.” Across the lake, some ten miles distant—though,
from the magical purity of the atmosphere, it seemed but a stone’s
throw—was a range of mountains, sloping down to the water’s edge, with
patches of snow on their sides. Directly beneath us, at the foot of
the mountain, lay the lake with its myriads of trout, and its water a
thousand feet deep. Two abrupt islands rise high above the surface.
They are mere hills of lava and volcanic matter, without a particle of
vegetation. They are called Sandey and Nesey. We traveled some little
distance on the broad, flat surface of the mountain, and crossed—by
descending into it—one of the deep lava chasms. We did not descend,
in going down the mountain to the east, as much as we had ascended;
but found it spread itself out into a broad table-land, a number of
hundred feet higher than the lake. With long ranges of mountains before
us, we traveled several miles over a most desolate volcanic region,
completely covered with lava rocks, scoriæ, and volcanic sand. Like all
the lava-covered country, it was broken up in huge, irregular masses,
and very cavernous, in some places showing caves thirty or forty feet
deep. No description or picture will give a good idea of the old lava
on the surface of the ground, to a person who has never been in a
volcanic country. Not the roughest lime-stone region I have ever seen
will bear the slightest comparison with the lava-covered districts—near
two-thirds of the surface—of Iceland. In written descriptions of
volcanic regions, we often see mention made of “streams of lava.” These
streams in other countries are usually down the sides of mountains, but
here in Iceland they extend for miles along the surface of the level
ground, and we are puzzled to know where it came from, for usually we
see no crater or mountain anywhere near. I have seen these “streams”
standing up in bold relief, a black, rough, horrid mass, from ten to
a hundred feet deep, several hundred yards wide, and one or two miles
in length. Brydone, in his observations of Mt. Ætna, pulled all the
old theologians about his ears by making a calculation respecting the
age of the lava, and proving conclusively—to himself—that some of the
lava streams from Ætna were fourteen thousand years old. I believe,
however, that philosophers have to own themselves baffled in trying to
get at the age of lava. After cooling—which often takes some years—and
breaking up by the expansion of the air in it, the lava is usually
nearly or quite black. After several hundred years it turns a little
more towards a brown, or rather gets grey with age, and is covered with
a very slight coating of one of the most inferior of the mosses. Very
old lava often gets quite rotten, light, and porous, and in this state
is frequently very red. Take a thick piece of zinc and break it with a
hammer, and you will have a rough surface that, multiplied ten thousand
times, will give some idea of a stream of lava. The word “horrible,”
both in the Icelandic and in English descriptions, is often and most
appropriately applied to the fields of lava.
As we traveled east and approached nearer and nearer the range of
mountains, the way became much smoother till we found ourselves on a
plain of black, volcanic sand. Near the base of the mountain range
before us, the guide took me aside a hundred yards or so to see a
curious volcanic crater called the Tin Tron. It stands near twenty feet
above the surface of the ground, like a chimney, but on climbing up the
side of it and looking down into it, it appears like a well, but the
cavity grows much wider below the surface of the ground. On throwing in
a stone, after a little period, it quashed in a bed of water, seemingly
some fifty feet below where we stood. One side of it was partly broken
away, so we did not have to climb clear to the top of it to look down
the aperture. I broke off some pieces of lava from the top of the crater
with my hands, and found it very soft, light, and porous. This lava was
a beautiful purple, and some of it a bright red color. I brought away
several samples. We wound round the mountain and descended into a broad
and fertile valley called the “_Laugardalr_,” or vale of warm springs.
Broad meadows surrounded us, and we could see the steam rising from
numerous hot springs in the distance. This valley appeared like an
immense amphitheatre surrounded by mountains. I know not that a painter
could make much of it, but the Laugardalr is a fine landscape. It is not
like a vale in Derbyshire, or a country scene on the banks of the
Connecticut. No forests, no grain fields, orchards, fences, or houses,
and yet it is a scene of great interest, and not easily forgotten.
I had plenty of time, as we wound our way slowly down the hillside from
the elevated table land, and an opportunity to observe the peculiarities
of the country. Certain little green hillocks to my now more practised
eye showed themselves to me as habitations. To the left lay a smooth
lake, and in bright lines through the green meadow land were several
white looking rivers. On every side were high mountains, many of them
covered on the tops with snow. Here I got the first view of Hekla,
though more than forty miles distant. It was black nearly to the top,
where were some small snow banks. This valley, including much that is
beyond the Laugardalr, is one of the most extensive and fertile farming
districts in Iceland. It extends nearly one hundred miles south to the
Atlantic ocean, and is bounded on the east and southeast by Mt. Hekla
and the Tindfjalla and Eyjafjalla Jokulls. This tract of country is
watered by Iceland’s largest rivers; the Hvitá or White river, the
Brúará, the Túngufljot, the Laxá, and the Thjorsá.
We stopped near the first farm-house, and had the saddles taken off,
that the ponies could recruit a little on the fine meadow grass, while
we went through that very necessary daily ceremony of dining. The farmer
sent me out some excellent milk in a Staffordshire bowl, and soon after
he and his wife and daughter came out to see me hide it under my jacket.
Madame Pfeiffer, in her snarling, ill-tempered journal, complains
greatly of the idle curiosity of the people in crowding about and
looking at her. From what I heard of her, she was so haughty that the
simple and hospitable Icelanders could not approach her near enough to
show her any attentions. I exhausted my little stock of Icelandic in
talking with the farmer, praised his farm, his cows, the milk, his
country, his wife and daughter, called the latter handsome—“_fallegh
stulkey_”—what a lie!—and giving him a piece of silver, which he seemed
to like better than all the “fair words”—“butter without parsneps”—and,
jumping into our saddles, away we went.
We passed near the small lake, the _Laugarvatn_, and saw the steam
rising from the hot springs near it, but being out of our way we did not
visit them. Several hot springs have their source in the bottom of the
lake, and only reveal their existence by the steam that rises from the
surface of the water. We got into a fine road in a large meadow or
bottom land, and I was having a fine gallop across the plain, when the
guide called to me to turn aside. I was greatly provoked on his taking
me a mile out of the way to show me a cave in the hill side, which he
seemed to think was a great curiosity. This wonderful cavern was about
twenty feet deep! I “blowed him up” well for a stupid fellow, and told
him he need not show a cave like that to an American, for we had caves
that extended under ground farther than from there to the Geysers—some
ten miles ahead—and cared very little for such a fox burrow as that. He
said he showed it to English gentlemen, and they thought it very grand!
Well, I told him, he might show it to English gentlemen, but he better
not to Yankees, if he consulted his reputation as a guide. Rising a hill
we saw to our right another lake, the _Apavatn_. We crossed the Brúará
or Bridge river, the only river in Iceland—with one exception, the
_Jokulsá_, in the east country—that has a bridge over it. This bridge
does not span the river by any means, but it merely crosses a chasm or
deep place in the middle of the stream. Our horses waded over the rocky
bottom and shallow water forty or fifty yards, when we came to a deep
chasm, perhaps ten yards across, and over this a slight wooden
structure, about six feet wide, was thrown. In this chasm the water is a
most furious torrent, roaring some fifty feet below the bridge. Our
horses were some frightened, and required considerable urging to get
them to cross the frail bridge. The chasm commences but a little way up
the river from the bridge, and there the greatest share of the water in
the river pours into it, forming a furious and singular cataract. I
stopped my horse a few moments on the bridge, and looked at the angry
torrent as it rushed beneath me. The water, except where broken into
foam, has a deep green appearance. On the road from Thingvalla to the
Geysers, nearly all the way, we had mountains on our left, and fine
fertile meadows on the right, towards the south. A great deal of the
way, a ridge of lava extends along the foot of the mountain, and
sometimes, for a long distance, I noticed a strip of fine meadow land
between the foot of the mountain and this ridge of lava, the meadow as
well as the strip of lava being several hundred yards wide. How this
came to be so I could not tell, unless it happened that, after the last
eruption of lava, large quantities of ashes were thrown out of the
mountain, covering the lava for some distance from its base, and thus
forming a coat of soil where now the green meadow is seen. As I have
mentioned before, nearly every foot of land in Iceland shows proofs of
volcanic origin, and, without doubt, the entire island was formed by
volcanic action. At whatever period that took place, if mortal man could
have seen it, there would have been a picture of the power of the
Almighty most awful to behold. What a scene! A tract of land forty
thousand square miles in extent, rising amidst fire and smoke and
earthquakes, from the bottom of the ocean. The proofs of subterranean
fire shown at the present day, in the occasional action of the
volcanoes, and constant spouting of numerous geysers and hot springs of
water and boiling mud, exhibit scenes of sublimity and grandeur
unequaled on the face of the globe.
Crossing a high ridge of lava and winding around the Bjarnarfell
mountain, we came in sight of the Geysers, with the clouds of steam
rising up, at the base of a hill about three miles from us. We crossed
some small streams that came from the Geysers, and observed that the
waters were covered with a gilded kind of metallic lustre, such as we
often see in stagnant pools. This arose, undoubtedly, from some metallic
property in the water itself. Shakspeare, whose eye never missed an
appearance of nature, usual or unusual, observed this. In _Antony and
Cleopatra_, a man had been off on some expedition, and had no doubt
“seen the elephant” somewhere on his route, for on his return one of his
comrades said to him,
——“thou didst drink the gilded puddle
That beasts would cough at.”
These waters are very good for immersion, if one wants an outward
application in the shape of a hot bath, but I think for drinking I would
imbibe the “gilded puddle” in Warwickshire rather than suck the slimy
waters that flow from the Geysers. Eager to see these wonders of nature,
I spurred my pony up to the margin of the basin of the Great Geyser,
and, though in a quiescent state, I shall never forget its appearance
while memory holds her seat in my brain. The guide soon led the way to
the farmhouse and church of Haukadalr, nearly a mile to the east, where
we were to pass the night. A drizzling rain had been falling; I was wet,
and greatly fatigued by the unusual exercise of riding on horseback, and
glad to get some rest, and defer my examination of the place and its
curiosities until the next day. The farmhouse, with its furniture, was
better than the average in Iceland, and offered passable accommodations
for a weary traveler. After a cup of tea, taken from stores in my own
knapsack, I went to my room, crawled under the bed, and soon fell
asleep.