Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
Hamlet.
NO, I did not stay at the sysselman’s; but I had a ride of a
couple of hours, through a bog meadow, and arrived about sunset at
Hraungerthi—_Islandsk_—“Garden of Lava.” This, like many other towns
that may be seen laid down on the map of Iceland, contains nothing but
a farm and farm-house, the residence of a clergyman, and his church.
The pastor owns the farm and pastures, and labors in his own vineyard,
as well as in the vineyard of the Lord. During the week he looks after
his flocks and herds; and on Sunday he gathers his own little flock
of immortals together, and tells them of the green meadows and still
waters that lie in the domain of the Good Shepherd in that bright realm
where winter never comes, and where earthquakes and volcanoes are heard
not. The clergyman of this district is Herre Sigurthur Thorarensen,
and I soon found I had lost nothing by leaving the sysselman’s to come
under his hospitable roof. He was not a _bon vivant_ and a “jolly
good fellow;” but he was a man of sense and learning, a Christian
and a philosopher. He spoke Latin excellently; and his son, Stefan
Thorarensen, could converse fluently in English, as well as in four
or five other languages. I know not when I have enjoyed myself as
pleasantly and profitably as in my visit at this hospitable mansion. I
soon found that I had gained, not lost, by coming here, and that, as in
many other cases, what seems to be a misfortune or inconvenience turns
out for the best.
Mr. Thorarensen had a fine library of books in various languages, and a
copy of the large and elegant map of Iceland that had been lately
published. His house had excellent furniture, and he was everyway as
well lodged as his official neighbor, the sysselman. The church, a few
steps from the house, was a neat wooden building; and in it were two
monumental tablets—rather unusual in Iceland—one with an inscription in
gilt letters to the memory of Mr. Thorarensen’s late wife. Every-thing
in and about this church was in excellent order and good taste. Around
the church were small, green mounds, where—
“The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”
Not a “head-stone,” a “piece of mouldering lath,” or single mark or
inscription was seen. Nothing but the little grass-grown mounds erected
over the dead in one of their churchyards. How simple such a mode of
burial! Shall any of these be forgotten at the sound of the last trump?
Would a “storied urn or animated bust” give them a surer passport to
heaven, or make the sleepers sleep more soundly? Would a lying epitaph
cheat the Great Jehovah, or be admissible testimony at heaven’s bright
gate? Sleep on! “All that breathe shall share thy destiny.” All shall
“mix forever with the elements,” or be a portion of “the clod that
the rude swain turns with his share and treads upon.” When time comes
to an end, and the earth is withered up like a scroll, fame will say
as much for these humble islanders as for the proud sons of genius in
more genial climes—those whose names adorn marble columns and gilt
title-pages.
Mr. Thorarensen and his son showed me their farm, a very neat, well
conducted one, and gave me a good deal of information respecting the
_modus operandi_ of farming in Iceland.
The great bar to improvement here, as in most old countries, is the
objections the people make to change old customs. On the banks of the
Nile and in Syria, in the days of Moses and Aaron and in Solomon’s
time, they plowed with a crooked stick, and for a team used a cow yoked
to a camel, or a ram harnessed to a donkey. To the present day, the cow
and camel and crooked stick scratch up the ground in Syria. In Iceland,
in the days of the Vikings, they had no plows, but dug up their fields
with a spade or a piece of iron. The spade is used to this day, and the
plow is still unknown. In the garden here at Hraungerthi, I saw Swedish
turnips, potatoes, cabbages, lettuce, radishes, parsley, caraway,
horse-radish, angelica, and some other vegetables.
One great difficulty with them in their gardening, is the want of seed.
Their seasons are often short, and the vegetables, though grown
sufficiently for the table, frequently will not go to seed; so that they
must obtain fresh supplies every year from Denmark. Aside from the
expense of this, the vessels that come from Denmark to some of the
Iceland ports arrive but once or twice in the year; and an order for any
article from Copenhagen cannot be executed unless given six months or a
year beforehand—often a longer period than a man will know his wants.
Accustomed as I had been to see plenty of vegetables, it did not seem
like good living to find few articles of food except beef and mutton,
fish, milk, butter, cheese, curds, tallow, and lard—all animal food—with
now and then a little black bread, or barley porridge. At Mr.
Thorarensen’s, I had set before me a fine piece of roast lamb, coffee,
wheat bread, Danish butter, and good wine. These articles, however, are
not all found in the houses of the poorer classes of Iceland. They can
all have mutton and beef, and coffee is a common beverage, and Danish
brandy is rather too common. The most of the Icelanders indulge rather
freely in the use of tobacco (snuff) and brandy. Having few, or, I may
say, no amusements, and families often living so far apart, that for
five or six months—the winter season—their nearest neighbors are not
seen, can it be wondered at that some excitement to the animal spirits
will be sought from stimulants? I never saw a man intoxicated in
Iceland, and am sure drunkenness is not common; but the poorer classes
do often indulge in too much strong drink. They generally keep a bottle
at the head of their beds; and when I have slept in the huts of the
farming peasants—not the better classes—I have always found a bottle of
brandy under the pillow, or at the head of the bed; not probably placed
there for their guest, but as its usual resting-place. I have sometimes
gone into a slight _nosological_ investigation of the contents, but have
never pursued the subject farther. Perhaps I’ll “look into it” at some
future time. I once, while sleeping in a farm-house, waked up, and saw
an Icelander, in another bed in the same room, pull a bottle out from
under his pillow, and give a long pull at the contents, then lie down
again. I profess a complete innocence and ignorance respecting the
peculiar qualities of the Danish brandy drunk in Iceland. If it is not
better than some of the “good and evil spirits” seen in some parts of
the world—Western United States, for example—then I should hardly care
to cultivate a close acquaintance. I never had a “pull” at one of these
“bottle imps;” but I have drunk champagne with His Excellency the
governor of Iceland, and had a very excellent glass of port wine with
mine host of Hraungerthi.
I said the Icelanders took snuff. They do; and a way peculiar to
themselves they have of taking it. Their snuff-boxes are much like
a Scotch snuff-mull. I have seen them made of the horn of a goat, a
calf, or a yearling, and sometimes ivory—the tusk of a walrus or a
sea-horse—and elegantly tipped with silver. They take a little stopper
out of the small end, and pouring out two little parcels of it on
the back of the left hand, apply each nostril, one after the other,
and snuff it up. It is very quickly done, and quite as neatly as the
method we are accustomed to see with us. That is, comparatively
speaking; for, in strict truth, I will scarcely allow the applicability
of any interpretation of the word _neat_ to a practice, one of the
most filthy—chewing always excepted—that ever besmeared and disgraced
human nature. I should have been glad to have been able to report the
Icelanders free from this vice; but in this they have been contaminated
by habits introduced from older civilized countries, and the truth must
be told. Smoking is not so common, though pipes and segars are often
seen in the sea-port towns.
Respecting cultivation on the Iceland farms, the term is scarcely
applicable. The meadow lands are rough by nature, and they make it still
more so by the way they put manure on it, leaving it in heaps. I am told
that the Icelanders imagine that more grass will grow on any given
number of acres if the surface is uneven, from the fact that there is
more area. They forget that the grass grows perpendicularly, and that no
more blades can stand on an uneven than on an even surface. Then, too,
it is so very uneven, that the turf is broken in many places, and, of
course, produces less than as if there were a level, unbroken turf.
Better counsels, however, are beginning to prevail; and many farmers are
leveling down their meadows, and improving their farms; and they find on
trial that level land produces more than that which is covered with
hillocks.
Here, at Hraungerthi, I saw considerable timber, and asking how it was
conveyed here, was told that it was brought on the backs of ponies, just
as every thing else is carried. Not very large timber, some that is four
inches square, and twelve to eighteen feet long, is carried long
distances. One or more pieces are lashed to each side of a horse, and
with one end dragging, they will go from fifteen to twenty miles in a
day. They cannot carry timber that is quite as ponderous as the staff of
Satan, described by Milton—a Norway pine, or “mast of some tall
admiral,” being but “a wand” to it. I asked about their heavy articles
of furniture, and was told that their sofa, bureau, and some other
articles, were made there.
The church of Hraungerthi was the best I had seen out of Reykjavik,
large enough, I should think, to hold two hundred people. Many of the
Iceland churches in the interior of the country, are not more than
twelve feet by eighteen, inside measurement.
I was so well entertained at Hraungerthi, and got so much information
about the country, that I did not leave till one o’clock the day after
my arrival. A fine breakfast was served at nine, coffee having been sent
me in my room as soon as I was up. I know not when I shall ever return
any of the numerous acts of hospitality and kindness extended to me by
the Icelanders; and I greatly fear the opportunity never will come,
unless Icelanders oftener go to America than they ever have. In fact,
since old Eric and his friend sailed to the American continent, near a
thousand years ago, I believe it would be difficult to find an account
of a single Icelander that has ever been in Brother Jonathan’s land. If
ever one does go to America, may I be there to meet him! and if the neck
of at least one champagne bottle doesn’t get wrung off, then—then—then
I’ll see what.
If the Danish government will open the trade of Iceland to the world—an
event not improbable—we might expect some commerce between that country
and this; and then the inhabitants of VINLAND, in their own cities,
could greet the followers and descendants of Eric and Heriulf.