I’ve traversed many a mountain strand,
Abroad and in my native land,
And it hath been my lot to tread,
Where safety more than pleasure led;
Thus many a waste I’ve wandered o’er,
Clomb many a crag, crossed many a moor;
But, by my halidome,
A scene so rude, so wild as this,
It ne’er hath been my lot to pass,
Where’er I happ’d to roam.
SCOTT.
AFTER our sojourn of two days in explorations of Mount Hekla, we took
leave of the farmer of Næfrholt and his family, and traveled towards the
southwest coast, the Reykir Springs, and the Sulphur Mountains. There
are some pleasing and original customs among the Icelanders; and with
these are their ways of saluting, at meeting and parting. Young and old,
male and female, have the same affectionate greeting and parting
compliments. They first shake hands, then embrace with arms about each
other’s necks, and then bring their lips in close contact. I have
sometimes fancied, when they took their faces apart, that I could hear a
slight _clicking_ sound; but this might have been imagination. When I
have been kindly entertained at a house, and especially if there have
been one or two pretty girls in the family, I have at parting adopted
the same kind of salute. Some of these compliments came off at the base
of Mount Hekla on the morning of July 30th. This day I had a charming
ride. Our road for some distance lay through a wood, and I have before
spoken of the stately grandeur of an Iceland forest. In addition to the
usual birch and willow trees, some of which were a little higher than
our horses’ backs, there were many bearing a small berry—the “blue
berry” they called it; and this is the only thing of the fruit kind in
all Iceland. They are eaten by the natives, usually with milk or cream,
and wherever they are found are highly prized. I have tasted them, but
they seem almost destitute of flavor. It takes a hot sun to give flavor
to fruit, and old Sol does not give much of his caloric to this country.
What would these northern people think of a luscious peach, just as it
is picked from a tree in New Jersey? One species of rose is found in
Iceland—the _Rosa Hibernica_; and I suppose they (the roses) hardly know
the difference between Iceland and Ireland. I have frequently observed
these rose bushes here, but I have never yet seen them in flower. A rose
in Iceland would be a sight. You might as well expect to see
“Roses in December, ice in June.”
Here, too, we found that most beautiful of all the shrubs and flowers of
Iceland, the fragrant heath. It is very plentiful, and of the same
species so common in the Highlands of Scotland. Here it is of small
size, seldom more than a foot in height. It is one of the first
vegetables found growing on the lava beds. It seems to grow on a medium
soil between the naked barren lava and the fertile meadows. Nearly one
half of Iceland is covered with heath, and some day it may be fertile
enough to produce grass. I have been told more than once that this
beautiful shrub will not grow in North America, but I cannot believe it.
In Europe and the northern isles, and Africa and Madeira, there are over
a hundred different varieties of heath. Why will not some
horticulturists rear a good variety, and try them from various climes,
Madeira, Scotland, and Iceland, and get some of them naturalized with us
in America, that they might cover our barren hills and waysides, and
adorn our gardens and fields? The heath and the ivy—two plants almost
unknown in America—are more beautiful and do more in Great Britain to
cover up and adorn barren hills and old walls and ruins than all other
vegetation, and yet they are rarely seen with us. I have been told,
however, that the late lamented Mr. Downing has planted and naturalized
the beautiful evergreen ivy, obtaining it from England. Let gardeners
and farmers blush or boast, neither nature nor cultivation has adorned
our hills with one nor ten plants that look half so beautiful as the
blooming heather that covers the hills of far-off northern Iceland. The
same species that grows here, I have seen in the Orkney and Shetland
Islands, the Hebrides, the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, England,
Ireland, France, Germany, Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It also
grows in Africa, as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, the Cape heaths
forming the most beautiful varieties of floral contributions that are
seen at the splendid Chiswick flower-shows in London. Wilkes, in his
Exploring Expedition, describes and pictures the forests of heath in
Madeira, the trees nearly or quite a foot in diameter, and forty or
fifty feet in height. I have an idea of offering a prize for the most
beautiful variety of heath that will flourish in the open air in our
Northern States, and then I think I will import some Iceland heath, and
carry off the reward myself! Perhaps some of our horticultural societies
will take the hint, go to work, and get it all done before I get back to
America. Leaving Næfrholt, we took our back track as far as Skarth,
where I had stayed all night, and slept in the church a few days before.
The farmer seemed glad to see me, gave me “a grip of his flipper,” and a
fine bowl of milk. I returned the grip, gave him a piece of silver,
mounted my horse, and off we galloped to the southwest. If the world was
not “all before us where to choose,” all Iceland was, and on we
journeyed. Some hours’ travel brought us to the banks of the Thiorsá,
and we prepared to face its turbulent and mighty current. Any one who
supposes that that little white spot in the Arctic sea, called Iceland,
cannot produce a river worthy of the name, had better try to swim across
this one. I should far rather breast the Hellespont, and follow Leander.
Larger than the Hudson at Newburgh, swift as an arrow, white with clay
from the mountains, and cold as ice,—really it is the most formidable
stream in appearance that I have ever seen. But we had ferried it once,
and could again; and a frail skiff put off from the opposite shore to
take us across. The only ferryman was a small boy, and so I manned one
oar myself. The guide sat in the stern of the boat, and led the horses
as they swam after us. The boy could not row evenly with me; the current
bore us furiously down the stream; the boat leaked badly; and, by the
time we were in the middle of the river, the horses got unmanageable,
nearly upset our frail craft, and finally broke loose altogether, and
floated and swam down the stream, the tips of their noses and their ears
just out of water. We let the horses go, and rowed like good fellows,
and landed on the west side of the river, but a good long way farther
down than the point opposite where we started. The poor ponies followed
the boat as well as they could, and after a while all came ashore, some
in one place, and some in another. We now traveled directly down the
Thiorsá, towards the south coast, bordering the Atlantic. We had a fine
journey through the valley of this great river. There was no crossing
except at the ferries; but the fine farming region, and a wish to get a
near view of the Westmann Islands, and, if possible, visit them, induced
me to make a long and circuitous journey on the southern coast. The
weather was clear and fine, and Hekla, and the Eyjafjalla and Tindfjalla
Jokulls stood up in bold relief against the eastern sky. The Eyjafjalla
Jokull, as its name imports—Mountain of Islands—shows, on its broad,
sloping summit, several knobs that stand up like islands. Near the top,
where it inclines towards the west, I could see a broad, deep chasm,
filled with snow. This pit must be of immense depth, for while it is
nearly filled with snow it is plainly visible for over thirty miles. On
the more even summit of the Tindfjalla Jokull, there are several little
elevations like islands or miniature mountains. Hekla looks black, clear
to the summit, except now and then a small spot of snow. I do not know
where those writers get their information from, regarding this mountain,
when they speak of the “three-coned Hekla.” From different points of
compass, including nearly every position whence Hekla can be seen, and
also from a sojourn on its summit, I must say that I have never seen
three cones, nor even two. From all sides, the highest point rises in
one single cone, like the profiles of most other volcanoes. On arriving
at the top, it is rather broad and flat, as I have mentioned; but this
is not observed from a distance. It is steeper than Ætna, but not so
steep as Vesuvius. That old Madam Pfeiffer should speak of Hekla as
having three cones, and _no crater at all_, is exactly in accordance
with the most of her statements about Iceland. Where she does not
knowingly tell direct falsehoods, the guesses she makes about those
regions that she does not visit—while stating that she does—show her to
be bad at guess-work, and poorly informed about the country. The valleys
of the Hvitá, the Thiorsá, and the Markarfliot, south, southwest, and
west of Hekla, comprise the largest tract of grass land in all Iceland.
A large share of it is in cultivated farms, and the rest is bog. In
drawing near to the coast, how magnificent the Westmann Islands appear!
Rising up like columns, they stand from one to two thousand feet above
the ocean. Formed of perpendicular, basaltic rocks, these and other
islands of the north of Europe rank with the most splendid coast-scenery
in the world. The Westmann Islands are most difficult to approach. The
place of landing is so treacherous, that unless the weather is calm and
the sea very still, a landing cannot be effected. A high cascade on the
main land of Iceland, near the town of Holt, is a sort of weatherometer
that decides whether a boat can put off with a prospect of gaining the
island. This cascade is one long stream of spray, formed by a small
brook falling a height of 800 feet. In windy weather, the spray is blown
entirely away, so that from the landing no cascade is in sight. If it is
still enough for this cascade to appear constantly two days in
succession, then the sea is usually calm enough to allow boats to land,
and they venture out. In the winter, it sometimes happens that for weeks
no boats can pass between the islands and the main shore.
The Westmann Islands—Icelandic, _Vestmannaeyjar_—were settled by a
colony of Irish slaves, in 875, one year after the first settlement of
Iceland. A Norwegian pirate cruising in the Atlantic, came upon the
coast of Ireland, landed, and captured forty or fifty persons, men,
women, and children, and carried them off as slaves. Before he got home,
they rose on their captors, slew them, and went ashore at the first land
they met. This was on the largest of the Westmann Islands; that name
being given them by the Icelanders, as these people came from the west.
Christianity came here with these Irish people; and to this day,
crosses, croziers, and other articles of a like nature are dug up on the
island, and were undoubtedly carried here by the first settlers. The
islands are fourteen in number; but only four of them produce any
vegetation or pasturage, and of these only one is inhabited. This is
very appropriately called Heimaey or Home Island. This is fifteen miles
from the coast, and forty-five from Hekla. On this island is a harbor,
partly encircled by a high, perpendicular rock. Here they land and
embark in boats. A precipitous path leads to the top of the island,
where the people, with their habitations, a few sheep, and their little
church, remain two thousand feet above the ocean. The islands are
basaltic, like Fingal’s Cave and the Giant’s Causeway; but, instead of
being one or two hundred feet in height, rise like immense columns,
nearly half a mile above the sea. The inhabitants draw their entire
subsistence from the ocean and the cliffs, catching codfish and killing
sea-birds, myriads of which haunt the rocks of their sea-girt shores.
The sea-fowl furnish large quantities of feathers. Some of the birds are
used for food, and some for fuel. They split them open, dry them, and
then burn them, feathers and all. From the accounts given of this novel
sort of firewood, the odor rising from it must be “most tolerable, and
not to be endured”! The birds most used for food are young puffins—the
_Fratercula arctica_—a rather small sea-bird, with a bill shaped like a
short, thick plow coulter. In England and Scotland, they are called the
coulter-neb puffin. This beak is a most wonderful one, large to
deformity—nearly as bulky as all the rest of the bird’s head. There are
several circular marks entirely round it, making it look like a small
barrel with the hoops on it. But do not these hardy islanders show skill
and daring in the pursuit of birds and eggs for subsistence? Wonder how
the Yankees would take the birds? Shoot them with rifles, I suppose,
“knocking their daylights out,” one at a time. But these islanders do
not take this slow method—not they. In the egg season they go to the top
of the cliffs, and, putting a rope round a man’s waist, let him down the
side of the perpendicular rock, one, two, or three hundred feet; and on
arriving at the long, narrow, horizontal shelves, he proceeds to fill a
large bag with the brittle treasures deposited by the birds. Getting his
bag full, he and his eggs are drawn to the top by his companions. If the
rope breaks, or is cut off by the sharp corners of the rocks, the
luckless duck-egging fowler is precipitated to the bottom, perhaps two
thousand feet into the sea, or is dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
Accidents happen but rarely, and here these hardy men glean a scanty
subsistence. At a later period in the season, they go and get the young
birds.
If the old birds object, they are ready for them, and serve them sailor
fashion, knocking them down with a handspike. The old often fight
desperately for their young, and will not give up till their necks are
broken or their brains knocked out with a club. Where the cliffs are not
accessible from the top, they go round the bottom in boats, and show a
wonderful agility and daring in climbing the most terrible precipices.
They furnish nothing for export on these islands, except dried and
salted codfish and feathers. With these they procure their few
necessaries and luxuries, consisting principally of clothing, tobacco
and snuff, spirits, fish-hooks and lines, and salt. The habit of living
entirely on fish and sea-fowl produces a disease among them, that
carries off all their children before they are seven years of age. I am
told that unless they are taken to the main shore to be brought up, not
one single one would live through childhood. Some well-informed
Icelanders have told me that the inhabitants of the Westmann Islands
would live as well, and be as free from disease, as the natives of
Iceland, were it not for their intemperance. Give a people few or no
luxuries—bread and vegetables as food being almost unknown—and expose
them to great fatigue, wet, cold, and danger; and would we not suppose
ardent spirits would be acceptable? The inhabitants of the far-off St.
Kilda, the most western of the Western Isles of Scotland, are said to
lose all their children that are kept on the island, and from the same
causes that occasion the mortality on the Westmann Islands. These
islands form a separate Syssel or county, and they have a church, and
usually two clergymen. Their church was rebuilt of stone, at the expense
of the Danish government, in 1774, and is said to be one of the best in
Iceland. It is supported by tithes, still raised here according to the
Norwegian mode. Christianity was brought here with the first settlers
from Ireland, and here it still remains; and I have sometimes wondered
if, during the changes of a thousand years, any of the brogue of the
Tipperary boys, or the lads of Connaught, could be discerned in their
conversation. Probably it has all been frozen up, or exchanged for the
more meliffluous tones of the followers of Odin and Thor.
Doubly secure as these inhabitants are, by their poverty and their
almost inaccessible cliffs, one would suppose that they would be secure
from any warlike or piratical depredations. Notwithstanding this, they
have twice been attacked and pillaged by sea-rovers. As early as the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, piratical cruisers—many of them
fitted out in the English and French ports—came north; and plunder,
rapine, and murder desolated all the western and southern coasts of
Iceland. One English pirate, named John, was noted for his success and
daring. He was called “Gentleman John,” being probably, like the Greek
cruiser,
——“the mildest manner’d man
That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat
With all true breeding of a gentleman.”
This courteous corsair came to the Westmann Islands in 1614, pillaged
the church, and carried off their sacred relics. He probably knew the
inhabitants were descendants of the Hibernians, and only showed the
spirit of an Englishman towards the Irish. He also plundered their
houses, and no doubt from the contents of their beds managed to feather
his own nest considerably. He returned to Great Britain, but King James
I. caught and punished him, and with the true honesty of a Scotchman,
returned their church ornaments. In 1627, a vessel of Turkish or
Algerine pirates, after plundering several places on the eastern and
southern coasts of Iceland, landed on the Westmann Islands. They
murdered between forty and fifty of the inhabitants, plundered the
church and set it on fire, robbed the houses, carried off all the food,
clothing, and valuables, and then burnt their habitations. They took
near four hundred men, women, and children prisoners, bound them in
fetters, took them on board their vessel, and carried them in captivity
to Algiers. There were two clergymen among them, one of whom, Jon
Thorsteinson, was murdered at the time. He was the first translator of
the Psalms of David into Icelandic verse. He also translated the Book of
Genesis, and some other parts of the Bible, in a similar manner. He is
spoken of in Icelandic history as the “martyr.” The other clergyman,
Olaf Egilson, with his wife and children, and the rest of the prisoners,
were sold into slavery in Algiers.
Mr. Egilson got away two years after, and wrote an account of their
sufferings and privations, which was afterwards published in Danish.
It was not until 1636, nine years after their capture, that the
unfortunate Icelanders were released, and then only by being ransomed
by the king of Denmark. Their treatment and sufferings can be imagined;
only thirty-seven of the whole number survived, and of these but
thirteen persons lived to regain their native island. Notwithstanding
the sufferings, calamities, and hardships of the people, the Westmann
Islands continue to be inhabited.
Since the earthquakes and great volcanic eruptions of 1783, the fish in
the neighborhood of the Westmann Islands, and all along the south coast
of Iceland, have nearly all disappeared, so that the principal
dependence of the inhabitants is on the sea-fowl. Besides the puffin,
they use for food the fulmar—_Procellaria glacialis_. For their winter
supply, they salt them very slightly, and pack them down in barrels. I
wonder how one of these poor mortals, accustomed to so little variety,
would relish such a dinner as they serve up at the London Tavern, the
Astor, or the Revere House! Thor and Epicurus! He would probably surfeit
himself, unless it so happened that he could relish none of their
dishes, and refused to eat.
But my pony’s head is turned towards the west, and I am probably as near
the Westmann Islands as I ever shall be. The disappearing spray of the
“Driving Cascade” shows a rough and stormy coast; so good-bye to the
contented islanders, their sea-girt cliffs, and their sea-bird food.