[Footnote: Almanna may be translated main; it means
literally all men's; when applied to a road, it would
mean the road along which all the world travel.] or Main
Gja, and Hrafna Gja, or Raven's Gja. In the act of
disruption the sinking mass fell in, as it were, upon
itself, so that one side of the Gja slopes a good deal
back as it ascends; the other side is perfectly
perpendicular, and at the spot I saw it upwards of one
hundred feet high. In the lapse of years the bottom of
the Almanna Gja has become gradually filled up to an even
surface, covered with the most beautiful turf, except
where a river, leaping from the higher plateau over the
precipice, has chosen it for a bed. You must not suppose,
however, that the disruption and land-slip of Thingvalla
took place quite in the spick and span manner the section
might lead you to imagine; in some places the rock has
split asunder very unevenly, and the Hrafna Gja is
altogether a very untidy rent, the sides having fallen
in in many places, and almost filled up the ravine with
ruins. On the other hand, in the Almanna Gja, you can
easily distinguish on the one face marks and formations
exactly corresponding, though at a different level, with
those on the face opposite, so cleanly were they separated.
[Figure: fig-p051.gif with the following caption:
1 Plain of Thingvalla.
2 Lake.
3 Lava plateau.
4 Almanna Gja.
5 Rabna Gja.]
2. Is the sea of lava now lying on the top of the original
surface. Its depth I had no means of ascertaining.
3. Is the level of the surface first formed when the lava
was still hot.
4. Is the plain of Thingvalla, eight miles broad, its
surface shattered into a network of innumerable crevices
and fissures fifty or sixty feet deep, and each wide
enough to have swallowed the entire company of Korah. At
the foot of the plain lies a vast lake, into which,
indeed, it may be said to slope, with a gradual inclination
from the north, the imprisoned waters having burst up
through the lava strata, as it subsided beneath them.
Gazing down through their emerald depths, you can still
follow the pattern traced on the surface of the bottom,
by cracks and chasms similar to those into which the dry
portion of Thingvalla has been shivered.
The accompanying ground plan will, I trust, complete what
is wanting to fill up the picture I so long to conjure
up before the mind's eye. It is the last card I have to
play, and, if unsuccessful, I must give up the task in
despair. But to return to where I left myself, on the
edge of the cliff, gazing down with astonished eyes over
the panorama of land and water embedded at my feet. I
could scarcely speak for pleasure and surprise; Fitz was
equally taken aback, and as for Wilson, he looked as if
he thought we had arrived at the end of the world. After
having allowed us sufficient time to admire the prospect
Sigurdr turned to the left, along the edge of the precipice,
until we reached a narrow pathway accidentally formed
down a longitudinal niche in the splintered face of the
cliff, which led across the bottom, and up the opposite
side of the Gja, into the plain of Thingvalla. By rights
our tents ought to have arrived before us, but when we
reached the little glebe where we expected to find them
pitched, no signs of servants, guides, or horses were to
be seen. As we had not overtaken them ourselves, their
non-appearance was inexplicable. Wilson suggested that,
the cook having died on the road, the rest of the party
must have turned aside to bury him; and that we had passed
unperceived during the interesting ceremony. Be the cause
what it might, the result was not agreeable. We were very
tired, very hungry, and it had just begun to rain.
It is true there was a clergyman's house and a church,
both built of stones covered with turf sods, close by;
at the one, perhaps, we could get milk, and in the other
we could sleep, as our betters--including Madame
Pfeiffer--had done before us; but its inside looked so
dark, and damp, and cold, and charnel-like, that one
really doubted whether lying in the churchyard would not
be snugger. You may guess, then, how great was my relief
when our belated baggage-train was descried against the
sky-line, as it slowly wended its way along the purple
edge of the precipice towards the staircase by which we
had already descended.
Half an hour afterwards the little plot of grass selected
for the site of our encampment was covered over with
poles, boxes, cauldrons, tea-kettles, and all the
paraphernalia of a gipsy settlement. Wilson's Kaffir
experience came at once into play, and under his solemn
but effective superintendence, in less than twenty minutes
the horn-headed tent rose, dry and taut, upon the sward.
Having carpeted the floor with oil-skin rugs, and arranged
our three beds with their clean crisp sheets, blankets,
and coverlets complete, at the back, he proceeded to lay
out the dinner-table at the tent door with as much decorum
as if we were expecting the Archbishop of Canterbury.
All this time the cook, who looked a little pale, and
moved, I observed with difficulty, was mysteriously
closeted with a spirit-lamp inside a diminutive tent of
his own, through the door of which the most delicious
whiffs occasionally permeated. Olaf and his comrades had
driven off the horses to their pastures; and Sigurdr and
I were deep in a game of chess. Luckily, the shower,
which threatened us a moment, had blown over. Though now
almost nine o'clock P.M., it was as bright as mid-day;
the sky burned like a dome of gold, and silence and deep
peace brooded over the fair grass-robed plain, that once
had been so fearfully convulsed.
You may be quite sure our dinner went off merrily; the
tetanus-afflicted salmon proved excellent, the plover
and ptarmigan were done to a turn, the mulligatawny beyond
all praise; but, alas! I regret to add, that he--the
artist, by whose skill these triumphs had been achieved--his
task accomplished,--no longer sustained by the factitious
energy resulting from his professional enthusiasm,--at
last succumbed, and, retiring to the recesses of his
tent, like Psyche in the "Princess," lay down, "and
neither spoke nor stirred."
After another game or two of chess, a pleasant chat, a
gentle stroll, we also turned in; and for the next eight
hours perfect silence reigned throughout our little
encampment, except when Wilson's sob-like snores shook
to their foundation the canvas walls that sheltered him.
When I awoke--I do not know at what hour, for from this
time we kept no account of day or night--the white sunlight
was streaming into the tent, and the whole landscape was
gleaming and glowing in the beauty of one of the hottest
summer-days I ever remember. We breakfasted in our
shirt-sleeves, and I was forced to wrap my head in a
white handkerchief for fear of the sun. As we were all
a little stiff after our ride, I could not resist the
temptation of spending the day where we were, and examining
more leisurely the wonderful features of the neighbourhood.
Independently of its natural curiosities, Thingvalla was
most interesting to me on account of the historical
associations connected with it. Here, long ago, at a
period when feudal despotism was the only government
known throughout Europe, free parliaments used to sit in
peace, and regulate the affairs of the young Republic;
and to this hour the precincts of its Commons House of
Parliament are as distinct and unchanged as on the day
when the high-hearted fathers of the emigration first
consecrated them to the service of a free nation. By a
freak of nature, as the subsiding plain cracked and
shivered into twenty thousand fissures, an irregular oval
area, of about two hundred feet by fifty, was left almost
entirely surrounded by a crevice so deep and broad as to
be utterly impassable;--at one extremity alone a scanty
causeway connected it with the adjoining level, and
allowed of access to its interior. It is true, just at
one point the encircling chasm grows so narrow as to be
within the possibility of a jump; and an ancient worthy,
named Flosi, pursued by his enemies, did actually take
it at a fly; but as leaping an inch short would have
entailed certain drowning in the bright green waters that
sleep forty feet below, you can conceive there was never
much danger of this entrance becoming a thoroughfare. I
confess that for one moment, while contemplating the
scene of Flosi's exploit, I felt,--like a true Briton,--an
idiotic desire to be able to say that I had done the
same; that I survive to write this letter is a proof of
my having come subsequently to my senses.
[Figure: fig-p055.gif with caption as follows:
A The Althing.
B The Hill of Laws.
C The place where Flosi jumped.
D Adjacent Chasms.]
This spot then, erected by nature almost into a fortress,
the founders of the Icelandic constitution chose for the
meetings of their Thing, [Footnote: From thing, to speak.
We have a vestige of the same word in Dingwall, a town
of Ross-shire.] or Parliament, armed guards defended the
entrance, while the grave bonders deliberated in security
within: to this day, at the upper end of the place of
meeting, may be seen the three hammocks, where sat in
state the chiefs and judges of the land.
But those grand old times have long since passed away.
Along the banks of the Oxeraa no longer glisten the tents
and booths of the assembled lieges; no longer stalwart
berserks guard the narrow entrance to the Althing; ravens
alone sit on the sacred Logberg; and the floor of the
old Icelandic House of Commons is ignominiously cropped
by the sheep of the parson. For three hundred years did
the gallant little Republic maintain its independence--three
hundred years of unequalled literary and political vigour.
At last its day of doom drew near. Like the Scotch nobles
in the time of Elizabeth, their own chieftains intrigued
against the liberties of the Icelandic people; and in
1261 the island became an appanage of the Norwegian crown.
Yet even then the deed embodying the concession of their
independence was drawn up in such haughty terms as to
resemble rather the offer of an equal alliance than the
renunciation of imperial rights. Soon, however, the apathy
which invariably benumbs the faculties of a people too
entirely relieved from the discipline and obligation of
self-government, lapped in complete inactivity, moral,
political, and intellectual,--these once stirring islanders.
On the amalgamation of the three Scandinavian monarchies,
at the union of Calmar, the allegiance of the people of
Iceland was passively transferred to the Danish crown.
Ever since that time, Danish proconsuls have administered
their government, and Danish restrictions have regulated
their trade. The traditions of their ancient autonomy
have become as unsubstantial and obsolete as those which
record the vanished fame of their poets and historians,
and the exploits of their mariners. It is true, the
adoption of the Lutheran religion galvanized for a moment
into the semblance of activity the old literary spirit.
A printing-press was introduced as early as 1530, and
ever since the sixteenth century many works of merit have
been produced from time to time by Icelandic genius.
Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope have been translated into
the native tongue; one of the best printed newspapers I
have ever seen is now published at Reykjavik; and the
Colleges of Copenhagen are adorned by many an illustrious
Icelandic scholar; but the glory of the old days is
departed, and it is across a wide desolate flat of ignoble
annals, as dull and arid as their own lava plains, that
the student has to look back upon the glorious drama of
Iceland's early history. As I gazed around on the silent,
deserted plain, and paced to and fro along the untrodden
grass that now clothed the Althing, I could scarcely
believe it had ever been the battle-field where such keen
and energetic wits encountered,--that the fire-scathed
rocks I saw before me were the very same that had once
inspired one of the most successful rhetorical appeals
ever hazarded in a public assembly.
As an account of the debate to which I allude has been
carefully preserved, I may as well give you an abstract
of it. A more characteristic leaf out of the Parliamentary
Annals of Iceland you could scarcely have.
In the summer of the year 1000, when Ethelred the Unready
ruled in England, and fourteen years after Hugh Capet
had succeeded the last Carlovingian on the throne of
France,--the Icelandic legislature was convened for the
consideration of a very important subject--no less
important, indeed, than an inquiry into the merits of a
new religion lately brought into the country by certain
emissaries of Olaf Tryggveson,--the first Christian king
of Norway,--and the same who pulled down London bridge.
The assembly met. The Norse missionaries were called upon
to enunciate to the House the tenets of the faith they
were commissioned to disclose; and the debate began.
Great and fierce was the difference of opinion. The good
old Tory party, supported by all the authority of the
Odin establishment, were violent in opposition. The Whigs
advocated the new arrangement, and, as the king supported
their own views, insisted strongly on the Divine right.
Several liberal members permitted themselves to speak
sarcastically of the Valhalla tap, and the ankles of
Freya. The discussion was at its height, when suddenly
a fearful peal of subterranean thunder roared around the
Althing. "Listen!" cried an orator of the Pagan party;
"how angry is Odin that we should even consider the
subject of a new religion. His fires will consume us."
To which a ready debater on the other side replied, by
"begging leave to ask the honourable gentleman,--with
whom were the gods angry when these rocks were
melted?"--pointing to the devastated plain around him.
Taking advantage of so good a hit, the Treasury "whips"
immediately called for a division; and the Christian
religion was adopted by a large majority.
The first Christian missionaries who came to Iceland seem
to have had a rather peculiar manner of enforcing the
truths of the Gospel. Their leader was a person of the
name of Thangbrand. Like the Protestant clergymen Queen
Elizabeth despatched to convert Ireland, he was bundled
over to Iceland principally because he was too disreputable
to be allowed to live in Norway. The old Chronicler gives
a very quaint description of him. "Thangbrand," he says,
"was a passionate, ungovernable person, and a great
man-slayer; but a good scholar, and clever. Thorvald,
and Veterlid the Scald, composed a lampoon against him;
but he killed them both outright. Thangbrand was two
years in Iceland, and was the death of three men before
he left it."
From the Althing we strolled over to the Almanna Gja,
visiting the Pool of Execution on our way. As I have
already mentioned, a river from the plateau above leaps
over the precipice into the bottom of the Gja, and flows
for a certain distance between its walls. At the foot of
the fall the waters linger for a moment in a dark, deep,
brimming pool, hemmed in by a circle of ruined rocks; to
this pool, in ancient times, all women convicted of
capital crimes were immediately taken, and drowned.
Witchcraft seems to have been the principal weakness of
ladies in those days, throughout the Scandinavian countries.
For a long period no disgrace was attached to its
profession. Odin himself, we are expressly told, was a
great adept, and always found himself very much exhausted
at the end of his performance; which leads me to think
that perhaps he dabbled in electro-biology. At last the
advent of Christianity threw discredit on the practice;
severe punishments were denounced against all who indulged
in it; and, in the end, its mysteries became the monopoly
of the Laplanders.
All criminals, men and women, were tried by juries; and
that the accused had the power of challenging the jurymen
empannelled to try them, appears from the following
extract from the Book of Laws:--"The judges shall go out
on Washday, i.e., Saturday, and continue out for challenges,
until the sun comes on Thingvalla on the Lord's-day."
And again, "The power of challenging shall cease as soon
as the sun can no longer be seen above the western brink
of the chasm, from the Logberg."
Turning aside from what, I dare say, was the scene of
many an unrecorded tragedy, we descended the gorge of
the Almanna Gja, towards the lake; and I took advantage
of the opportunity again to examine its marvellous
construction. The perpendicular walls of rock rose on
either hand from the flat greensward that carpeted its
bottom, pretty much as the waters of the Red Sea must
have risen on each side of the fugitive Israelites. A
blaze of light smote the face of one cliff, while the
other lay in the deepest shadow; and on the rugged surface
of each might still be traced corresponding articulations,
that once had dovetailed into each other, ere the igneous
mass was rent asunder. So unchanged, so recent seemed
the vestiges of this convulsion, that I felt as if I had
been admitted to witness one of nature's grandest and
most violent operations, almost in the very act of its
execution. A walk of about twenty minutes brought us to
the borders of the lake--a glorious expanse of water,
fifteen miles long, by eight miles broad, occupying a
basin formed by the same hills, which must also, I imagine,
have arrested the further progress of the lava torrent.
A lovelier scene I have seldom witnessed. In the foreground
lay huge masses of rock and lava, tossed about like the
ruins of a world; and washed by waters as bright and
green as polished malachite. Beyond, a bevy of distant
mountains, robed by the transparent atmosphere in tints
unknown to Europe, peeped over each other's shoulders
into the silver mirror at their feet, while here and
there from among their purple ridges columns of white
vapour rose like altar smoke toward the tranquil heaven.
On returning home we found dinner waiting for us. I had
invited the clergyman, and a German gentleman who was
lodging with him, to give us the pleasure of their company;
and in ten minutes we had all become the best of friends.
It is true the conversation was carried on in rather a
wild jargon, made up of six different languages--Icelandic,
English, German, Latin, Danish, French--but in spite of
the difficulty with which he expressed himself, it was
impossible not to be struck with the simple earnest
character of my German convive. He was about
five-and-twenty, a "doctor philosophiae," and had come to
Iceland to catch gnats. After having caught gnats in
Iceland, he intended, he said, to spend some years in
catching gnats in Spain.--the privacy of Spanish gnats,
as it appears, not having been hitherto invaded. The
truth is, my guest was an entomologist, and in the pursuit
of the objects of his study was evidently prepared to
approach hardships and danger with a serenity that would
not have been unworthy of the apostle of a new religion.
It was almost touching to hear him describe the intensity
of his joy when perhaps days and nights of fruitless
labours were at last rewarded by the discovery of some
hitherto unknown little fly; and it was with my whole
heart that, at parting, I wished him success in his
career, and the fame that so much conscientious labour
merited. From my allusion to this last reward, however,
he seemed almost to shrink, and, with a sincerity it was
impossible to doubt, disclaimed as ignoble so poor a
motive as a thirst for fame. His was one of those calm
laborious minds, seldom found but among the Teutonic
race, that--pursuing day by day with single-minded energy
some special object--live in a noble obscurity, and die
at last content with the consciousness of having added
one other stone to that tower of knowledge men are building
up toward heaven, even though the world should never
learn what strong and patient hands have placed it there.
The next morning we started for the Geysirs: this time
dividing the baggage-train, and sending on the cook in
light marching order, with the materials for dinner. The
weather still remained unclouded, and each mile we advanced
disclosed some new wonder in the unearthly landscape. A
three hours' ride brought us to the Rabna Gja, the eastern
boundary of Thingvalla, and, winding up its rugged face,
we took our last look over the lovely plain beneath us,
and then manfully set forward across the same kind of
arid lava plateau as that which we had already traversed
before arriving at the Almanna Gja. But instead of the
boundless immensity which had then so much disheartened
us, the present prospect was terminated by a range of
quaint parti-coloured hills, which rose before us in such
fantastic shapes that I could not take my eyes off them.
I do not know whether it was the strong coffee or the
invigorating air that stimulated my imagination; but I
certainly felt convinced I was coming to some mystical
spot--out of space, out of time--where I should suddenly
light upon a green-scaled griffin, or golden-haired
princess, or other bonnie fortune of the olden days.
Certainly a more appropriate scene for such an encounter
could not be conceived, than that which displayed itself,
when we wheeled at last round the flank of the scorched
ridge we had been approaching. A perfectly smooth grassy
plain, about a league square, and shaped like a horse-shoe,
opened before us, encompassed by bare cinder-like hills,
that rose round--red, black, and yellow--in a hundred
uncouth peaks of ash and slag. Not a vestige of vegetation
relieved the aridity of their vitrified sides, while the
verdant carpet at their feet only made the fire-moulded
circle seem more weird and impassable. Had I had a trumpet
and a lance, I should have blown a blast of defiance on
the one, and having shaken the other toward the foul
corners of the world, would have calmly waited to see
what next might betide. Three arrows shot bravely forward
would have probably resulted in the discovery of a
trap-door with an iron ring; but having neither trumpet,
lance, nor arrow, we simply alighted and lunched: yet
even then I could not help thinking how lucky it was
that, not eating dates, we could not inadvertently fling
their stones into the eye of any inquisitive genie who
might be in the neighbourhood.
After the usual hour's rest and change of horses, we
galloped away to the other side of the plain, and, doubling
the further horn of the semicircle, suddenly found
ourselves in a district as unlike the cinder mountains
we had quitted as they had differed from the volcanic
scenery of the day before. On the left lay a long rampart
of green hills, opening up every now and then into Scottish
glens and gorges, while from their roots to the horizon
stretched a vast breadth of meadowland, watered by two
or three rivers, that wound, and twisted, and coiled
about, like blue serpents. Here and there, white volumes
of vapour, that rose in endless wreaths from the ground,
told of mighty cauldrons at work beneath that moist cool
verdant carpet; while large silvery lakes, and flat-topped
isolated hills, relieved the monotony of the level land,
and carried on the eye to where the three snowy peaks of
Mount Hecla shone cold and clear against the sky.