“And call aloud your names as you pass along my grave,

For haply shall the voice of you revive the bones of me.

I have fasted with my friends during life and in my death;

I will feast with you the day when the meeting shall be free.”

We may compare the sentiment with that of the Roman epitaph,

“Hic propter viam positus

Ut dicant prætereuntes

Lolli, vale!”

And one might quote by the score such inscriptions as--

“Have, anima dulcis!”

which breathe only the most tender melancholy. This sentiment,

apparently unknown to the rugged and realistic soul of the north, is

felt deepest in the brightest climates, for instance, amongst the

Hindús, and generally the races which inhabit the “Lands of the Sun.”

Nor amongst the Arabs do we find the abominable heroines of Scandinavia;

“the grimmest and hardest hearted of all women,” adulteresses all and

murderesses, justifying the Norsk proverb, “Woman’s counsel is ever cold

(cruel).”

The eastern shore of the Naze Firth then showed Thórðarhöfði, a majestic

headland of black lava, coiled and writhed, whose central hollows are

striped with yellow clay washed from above; whose upper crags lodge the

eagle and his brood, and whose base is caverned by the ceaseless

onslaughts of the waves. At first it seems an island, backed by its

lakelet, the Höfðarvatn, but it is connected with its mainland by strips

of natural causeway to the north and south, not unlike Etruscan

Orbetello. Wild strawberries are said to flourish in the well-sheltered

hollows. From about Grafarós it wears the aspect of a couchant lion,

and doubtless it was of old, like Helgafell, a Holy Hill. The Thórðr who

gave it a name was an “illuster and vailzeand compioun” of Irish blood

and fifth in descent from Ragnar Loðbrok (hairy-breeks),[85] one of the

most unpleasantly truculent persons in Scandinavian myth. His epicedium

or death-song, of course composed for and not by him, the only refrain

of whose twenty-nine stanzas is--

“We hewed with the hanger” (Hiuggom ver með hiaurvi--_Pugnavimus ensibus_),

very adequately represents his sentiments and his career: it reads as if

it had been inspired by the Destroying Angel. The sooner this style of

literature, which deals in every manner of---- cide from parricide to

vulpecide, becomes obsolete in Iceland the better. Imagine a decent,

respectable Protestant paterfamilias, by way of whiling away the long

winter evenings, reading out these revolting and remorseless horrors to

his wife and daughters: I should feel as if treated to the Curse of

Ernulphus.

The next feature was Hofsós, a scattered settlement, with its chapel,

first a pagan temple and then a Catholic church; it is marked by a hill

rising bluff above the Unadalr (“Wone” or dwell vale), a little stream

which accounts for the term “oyce.” A mile or so farther south lies

Grafarós, and here we anchored, after a pleasant cruise of fourteen

hours from Borðeyri. This comptoir, chosen by Mr Henderson of Glasgow,

is very badly placed: the norther raises a surf which can make landing

impossible for a fortnight, and, as we could see, the south wind at once

breaks the Skagafjörð into dangerous waves. Surely safe ground could be

found under the lee of the grand Thórðar-head.

* * * * *

_July 3._

Apparently the rule in Iceland is, that a fine day brings foul weather,

and July 3 was no exception. As we rose, a solid bank of rain stood high

in the north, and presently the Storm-King rode forth, beating down the

white heads of the angry billows. It was Ahriman waging eternal war with

Hormuzd; the battle of Osiris and Typhon; the war of Baldur and Loki. In

the course of the day, the gale forged round almost to the south, and

the alternations of mist, drizzle, and bright sunshine formed an

Ossianic framing highly appropriate to the picture: like the Scottish

Highlands, it would have looked ridiculously out of place under an

Italian sky.

The Skagafjörð is held to be one of the most picturesque, as well as

fertile and populous, districts in Iceland, wanting only the “hair of

the earth animal”--wood. The firth, a riverine sea-arm, ten miles broad,

is the embouchure of that formidable stream the Jökulsá Vestri

(western), which, like the Blandá or Blandwater, drains the central

Hofsjökull--the southern face, Arnarfellsjökull, discharging the much

more important Thjórsá. Flowing from south to north, before feeding the

bay, it bifurcates, forming a delta known as Hegranes (Hern-naze)

Island, and famed for beauty. On both sides, rugged and precipitous

shores are divided by ravines and valleys which, after an hour’s rain,

pour turbid yellow streams into the dull-green receptacle. The southern

part of the western bank is subtended by the Tindastóll (peak-host), a

well-known name: older travellers talk of “precious stones, probably

opals,” being found in abundance among its ravines, of onyx, zeolite,

and chalcedony, and of “caves containing curious crystals.” To the north

and south, the wall-coping is broken and jagged; the middle length shows

straight and regular lines, with numerous strata symmetrically piled.

The eastern shore of Skagafjörð, near the anchorage-ground, is of black

sand and shingle, with columnar basalt in places, and capped by a long

bare “Melbakki” some seventy feet high: its background rises in detached

hills and lines of bluff, counter-parts of the Tindastóll in miniature,

and copiously streaked with snow. The regular steps and stratified lines

here dip to the north.

The bottom of the firth disclosed a grand landscape of sky. Now a glint

of sunshine settled upon snowy top and glaucous slope, then a white mist

robed and capped the shadowy mountains, catching the reflection of

Bifrost, the bridge of the gods, a fragment of gaudy rainbow. Anon a

span of pale-blue firmament contrasted with the mackerels’ backs and

mares’ tales to windward; whilst to leeward the dark curtain of purple

cloud, hanging in rugged edges over the red and black hills, made the

distances dim, dimmer, and dimmest. The inevitable accompaniments of

this feature were the ghostly forms of pale birds fighting with the

wind; the _âmes perdues_ which attract the voyager’s eye on the

beautiful Bosphorus.

We landed to inspect the “one-horse” settlement of Grafarós, which

consists of a small temporary landing-place, a tarred store, sundry

stone-and-peat huts, and a double-storied red house flying a flag; a few

farms are scattered about inland, as well as on the shore. A single

schooner lay at anchor. North of the comptoir, and forming a bay in the

bare raised bank, is the “ostium” of the Deildardalr (dole-dale)[86]

river, a tenth-class Icelandic stream, which, despite its low degree,

can look first-rate in violence. There is a ford near the settlement,

but elsewhere the water courses over a succession of steps and ledges,

which would deter anything but that wild horse who is known to swim the

wilder flood. By this time we had seen enough of “Hofs,” and we

contented ourselves with strolling up the warm and genial valley, a bed

of violets.

Grafarós was formerly, and is still at times, frequented by English

smacks in search of whale and seal oil. These cockle-shells, manned by

four and five men, the “little friggits” of our ancestors, not larger

than the Icelandic “sharker,” work their course by dead reckoning and

often come to grief. It is the terminus of our voyage, and we could only

regret that the “Jón” had not orders to make a circuit of the

island--regrets tempered, however, by the thought that we had seen by

far the fiercer and the more interesting half. No better or easier way

than this to form a general idea of the formation; it requires only

supplementing by a few cross-cuts through the interior.

The students had all left us, and here our now pleasant party broke up.

The bishop’s daughter and her two friends had the choice of riding some

twenty miles round the Skagafjörð head, or of crossing it by boat, an

easy process which, however, did not seem to have charms for them. We

bade affectionate farewell to Síra Guttormr, whose beat is from Rípr

(the crag) in Helganes to Keta near the north-eastern extremity of the

Húnavatn peninsula--he seems to look upon it as a mean place. The

reverend has no pay, properly so called, and his “living” is expressed

by the contributions of his parishioners: truly a man must have a

vocation for such a life!

Late in the afternoon the “Jón” turned his head northwards, and on July

6 steamed into Reykjavik harbour. We shook hands with our excellent

captain, and heartily wished him every success, and bade an adieu which

was destined to be an _au revoir_.

CHAPTER XI.

TO HEKLA AND THE GEYSIR IN HAUKADALR.[87]

This is indeed a Cockney trip, but a visit to Iceland without it would

be much like Dante’s Commedia with the Inferno omitted.

SECTION I.--TO KRÍSUVÍK, THE WESTERN SULPHUR-FIELD.

Mr Chapman and I determined to secure comparative novelty by a “hysteron

proteron,” beginning with the “Cope” and ending with the Gusher and the

Thingplain Lake.

We hastily collected the small quantity of _harnoys de gueule_

absolutely required--man eats less when travelling, and more when

voyaging. Our stores represented a ham, one serving for one mouth per

month; a couple of sausages, to be avoided when thirst is threatened;

four loaves of rye-bread (each 6 lbs. = one man per week); snuff,

cigars, and pigtail for friendship; small change for £5; and, lastly,

two mighty kegs of schnapps, the load of one-twelfth our carriage. The

Fylgjumaðr (leader) was Paudl (Páll) Eyúlfsson, before mentioned as the

“French guide;” our Lestamaðr (“last” driver) was “Smalls,” _alias_

Sigrbjörn Björnsson, fourteen years old, and four feet nothing: we are

careful to see that they do not monopolise the very best of the eight

riding-horses. We ourselves at once become Martednn (Marteinn)

Kaupmansson and Ríkarður Burtonsson; and thus having borrowed as much

local colouring as possible, we leave, nothing loath, the hard-soft

bosom of semi-civilisation.

Spurring hotly over ground now familiar (July 8, 1872), we delayed a few

minutes at Foss-vogr to inspect the “sedimentary and sandstone

stratifications,” found so interesting by older travellers in a purely

volcanic island. They suggested, in early times, to daring spirits that

granite might not be Plutonic, and they made the devil-may-care doubt

even the eruptive origin of basalt. The travels of Von Waltershausen

have settled Foss-vogr and its Palagonite.

There was nothing to keep us at Hafnafjörð, after a longing glance at

the “Jón Sigurðsson,” which lay in harbour. A man happened to mention

that the one herd of reindeer still haunting this part of the island had

been lately seen; it was not our fate to sight them.

At four P.M. we inspected the Kaldá--an exceptional feature. Rising from

a little tarn in the northern flank of the lone hill Helgafell, it winds

westward down a shapely river-valley. Half of the stream suddenly

disappears in a hollow of the right bank, a little below the farm

crossed by the high road or path, and the remainder follows suit about

two miles farther down. The feature suggested a limitation of the

accepted dictum, “Calcareous rocks are almost the only ones in which

great caverns and long winding passages are found.” This is true of

water-made passages, where carbonic acid has dissolved the limestone;

the cooling of the upper lava crust has the same effect in Plutonic

formations. The course of the Kaldá is very badly traced in the great

map; nor does the latter show where the lower stream reappears.

The next feature of importance was the Lángahlíð, a stepped and

buttressed block of trap like Esja, the Akrafjall, and the Skarðsheiði.

A tolerably regular triangle to the south-west, it acts bastion to the

great lava-plateau which extends from the Thingvallavatn, and our

morrow’s ride will subtend its southern flank. Immediately below

the western slopes, which are regular, lies the Kleifavatn

(cliff-water),[88] a lake of intensely gloomy shore. The dark waters,

ending south in a swamp, were lashed by the wind into mimic waves, and

the shores were grisly masses, standing and fallen, of dark Palagonite,

a conglomerate of small and large breccia, easily washed into gaps and

clefts, arches and caverns. I could not but remember the Lake of Hums so

similar, and yet so different, under the glowing Syrian sky; the

picturesque contrasts of cultivation and desert contrasting with the

lava-bound water, and the memory-haunted stream which once found a mouth

at Rome--

“In Tiberim defluxit Orontes.”

Cutting across a hill-brow we sighted a tall, white plume whose fibrils,

causing many a cough, suggested the end of this day’s march. The

Icelandic traveller who has not read “The Great Sulphur Cure” of Dr

Robert Pairman, often lands with the idea that inhaling sulphur-vapour

is unwholesome, as the sulphuric acid and the sulphuretted hydrogen are

decidedly unpleasant: he soon corrects the impression, finding the

people of the two great brimstone centres exceptionally healthy. The

Krísuvík diggings are upon a line of volcanic hills, running from

north-north-east to south-south-west, and their irregular and tormented

flanks contrast sharply with the monotonous Lángahlíð wall, rising

opposite them. The “Ketill” (caldron) of Krísuvík, a huge “corrie,”

whence the puffs come, lies high up: the four “Brennisteins Námur” are

low upon the eastern flank, with the little blue pond, Grænavatn,

farther to the south. The scene is that of solfataras generally, a

distempered land of disordered cuticle, bright red, brass-yellow,

slate-grey, pink, purple, pale green, brown-black, and leprous white;

the water is milky and slimy, and even the dwarf willow and juniper

cease to grow. “Exhalations of sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen,

steam, and sulphur, burst in wild disorder from the hot ground.”[89]

Martednn looked at Ríkarður, and _vice versâ_; both had expected not a

single block, a mere patch, but a sulphur region to be measured by many

square miles.

We passed two huts, one of iron, the other of wood, with ore-heaps lying

around them, and, scrambling through a bog, we rode up to the Krísuvík

chapel and the three-gabled farm-house of a little widow, Mrs Ingveldr

Hannesdóttir. The district is tolerably populous; on the flanks of the

various rises we counted five farms, fringed with haystacks, under

sticks and turf, and white ponies dotted the long, swampy expanse,

between the Krísuvíkfell, a lump north of the chapel, the Arnarfjall to

the south-east, capped by a spitz or bec, and the long slope leading to

the Krísuvíkurberg, the precipice some 200 feet tall which boldly faces

the Deucaledonian main. Unhappily Henderson’s fine port is utterly

absent; on the other hand, it is said that an easy line of tramway has

been traced from the head of the Kleifavatn to Hafnafjörð.

The day’s work surprised us, we had not yet realised the shortness of

the distances travelled over. This mild march also has been called a

“maniac ride”--“one of the wildest in the world.” It is, however, only

fair to own that we took the lake road, which is not laid down in the

map, and that a few yards on either side of the way would offer as many

difficulties as the horseman, however ambitious, could desire.

The steepleless chapel, which was not worse than that of Blúdán, had

lost its key, and when the latter was found, the cabin proved a store

and a lumber-room: clothes hung to the seats, milk stood to cream, and

salt barrels cumbered the floor. A coffin, unfurnished, also stood on a

beam: the idea underlying this premature precaution is that it prolongs

the owner’s life. Here the chapel is the “mountain-stove” of Norway, the

Indian traveller’s bungalow, and the Sind mosque in which Kafirs ate

pork and drank wine. We pitched the tent near the byres, where broken

bottles showed the habits of civilisation, and slept despite the normal

evil, cold feet caused by riding in a hard head-wind. The frequent weary

halts to adjust pack-saddles should be utilised for restoring

circulation. “_Les picotements sont plus incommodes que le froid

lui-même_,” justly remarks M. Gaimard’s expedition; and the French

doctor advises the feet to be gradually warmed, or they will swell and

cause _demangeaisons_, which prevent rest. Above all things avoid the

Brazilian wrinkle, so valuable against damp in tropical climates--a

glassful of spirits poured into the riding-boots. We must not leave the

sulphur-field without some notice of the supply.

From Captain, now Commodore, Commerell’s Reports, dated Leith, July 9,

1857, we learn that “the mines of Krisuvik were worked from 1723 to

1730, with considerable profit; during that year, all the sulphur

consumed in Denmark and Norway and the Duchies was obtained from there,

but one of the owners, who had also been the director in Iceland, dying,

the mines were abandoned in consequence.

“In 1833, a merchant of Copenhagen, a Mr Kenidzen, obtained one large

cargo of sulphur from Krisuvik; the affair was managed through an agent

or factor, whose mismanagement was the principal cause of failure, since

then only a few tons having been taken by the peasants for home use.

“The actual extent of the sulphur beds it is quite impossible to

calculate; but from Krisuvik to Hengill (the mountain mass south-west of

the Thingvallavatn) forty-seven have been discovered, the distance of

the latter (former?) place to Havnefiord (Hafnafjörð) is from fourteen

to fifteen miles, but the road is much more hilly. The deposit of

sulphur I personally saw at Krisuvik must amount to many thousand tons;

hitherto the sulphur taken away has been reproduced in two or three

years, all the mines, or nearly all, being in a living state. Sulphur in

a pure state, I have little doubt, could be supplied at Havnefiord for

£1 per ton.”

We are also told that “Dr Hjaltalín, an Icelander and mineralogist, who

was ordered by the Danish Government to report on the sulphur beds,

informed Captain Commerell that those at Krisuvik could be worked very

easily, producing a large amount of sulphur, and as a speculation would

pay very well indeed.”

I need not here enter into the history of the Krísuvík diggings since

the date of Commander Commerell’s report, or during Mr Bushby’s

concession. Suffice it to say that the concession has now been granted

to Englishmen, and that Messrs Randall and Thorne, Curtis and Seymour,

are the actual owners. Until 1873, I believe, nothing has been done in

the working line--we shall hope to see more activity soon.

After expressing my surprise, as bound to do, at the smallness of the

Krísuvík area, it is only fair to own that Commander Commerell’s third

paragraph, if correct, is most hopeful. The supply which is puffed away

in air can be controlled by walls and roofs, upon which the vapour would

be deposited, and thus the period of renewal would probably be reduced

from two or three years to the same number of months. As regards Dr W.

Lauder Lindsay’s assertion that whilst crude Sicilian sulphur contains

80 to 90 per cent, of pure ore, and that of Krísuvík from 96·39 to

98·20, I am unable to pronounce judgment; but my suspicion is that

severely picked specimens were used as averages.

Since my return from Iceland, Mr Charles W. Vincent, F.C.E., published

in the _Journal of the Society of Arts_ (January 17, 1873), a valuable

paper “On the Sulphur Deposits of Krisuvik, Iceland.” It is here

reprinted with his express permission: the importance of the subject

will excuse its length, and the reader will exercise his undoubted right

of “skipping.”

“The canton of Krisuvik, in the south-west corner of Iceland, has long

attracted great interest, on account of its boiling mud caldrons, hot

springs, and above all, its ‘living’ sulphur mines; these are all

arranged in lines, evidently corresponding to the great volcanic

diagonal line stretching from Cape Reykjanes to the Lake of Myvatn.[90]

At the present time the greatest amount of volcanic activity is

manifested at the southern end of this line.

“In the last century it was the northern end of the volcanic diagonal,

near about Myvatn, where, according to the Icelandic records, the kind

of pseudo-volcanic action was most vigorous, by which the boiling

springs are set in operation and the sulphur deposits are formed; but a

violent eruption of the mud volcano Krabla, to a great extent buried the

then active strata beneath enormous masses of volcanic mud and ashes, so

that the energy has been probably transferred along the line

southwards.[91]

“The Krisuvik springs are in a valley beneath some high mountains. They

are reached by a track, so narrow that there is no more than room to

enable horses to pass along it--across the brink and along the side of a

vast hollow, termed the ‘kettle.’ Following this rude track, the

‘Ketilstip,’ the summit of the range of hills, is reached which

overlooks Krisuvik. In the midst of a green and extensive morass,

interspersed with a few lakes, are caldrons of boiling mud, some of them

fifteen feet in diameter, numberless jets of steam, and boiling mud

issuing from the ground, in many instances to the height of six or eight

feet. Sir George Mackenzie (who was accompanied by Sir Henry, then

Doctor, Holland, now the President of the Royal Institution), in his

justly-celebrated ‘Travels in Iceland, in 1810,’ gives a vivid

word-picture of the scene. ‘It is impossible,’ he writes, ‘to convey

adequate ideas of the wonders of its terrors. The sensation of a person,

even of firm nerves, standing on a support which feebly sustains him,

where literally fire and brimstone are in incessant action, having

before his eyes tremendous proofs of what is going on beneath him,

enveloped in thick vapours, his ears stunned with thundering

noises--these can hardly be expressed in words, and can only be

conceived by those who have experienced them.’[92]

“On the other side of the mountains subterranean heat is also

manifested, and hot springs, accompanied by sulphur beds, are also

found; but they have not been as thoroughly examined

[Illustration: THE KRISUVIK MINES

OR

SULPHUR MOUNTAINS]

as those in the valley, and are represented as being less active.

“Mr Seymour, who has spent many months at Krisuvik, tells me that the

sulphur beds on this side have been submerged by the clays washed down

by the winter rains, and are, for the most part, now completely

overgrown with grass. On digging beneath the surface, however, the

sulphur earth is found to be only a short distance down, and on analysis

the percentage of sulphur in one bed, 116 yards long, running up the

side of the mountain, was discovered to range between 64 and 65·5. Here

the earth was completely cold, and all further deposition of sulphur

appeared to have ceased.

“In the valley itself the springs are not always visible at the surface,

being so completely covered by the earth that it is only by piercing

through the crust of indurated sulphur earth, that their presence is

discovered. Sometimes the explorer is made unpleasantly aware of the

insecure nature of his footing by falling through, and thus opening up a

fresh thermal spring. The late Sir William Hooker, when visiting this

place, in endeavouring to escape a sudden gust of strongly odorous

vapour, jumped into a mass of semi-liquid hot earth and sulphur--and but

for his presence of mind, in throwing himself flat upon the ground,

would have sunk to a considerable depth; as it was, the difficulty of

extricating himself was very considerable.

“The surface of the ground is covered in many places with a crust of two

to three feet in depth of almost pure sulphur; and in the valley, where

the steam jets are protected from the extreme violence of the wind, the

sulphur is deposited tolerably evenly over the whole surface. If it were

not for the ever-varying direction of the wind, the sulphur would,

Captain Forbes is of opinion, be precipitated in regular banks, but it

hardly ever falls for twenty-four hours in one direction, the wind

capriciously distributing the shower in every direction.

“It has been suggested by those who wish to utilise the immense

sulphur-producing power of this wonderful locality, that chambers should

be erected (Sir George Mackenzie), or walls built up (Dr Perkins), by

which means the force of the wind being broken, the sulphur would be

quietly floated to the ground, instead of being carried up the sides of

the hills, and thus more widely distributed.

[Illustration: THE SULPHUR SPRING.]

“With little variation the general appearance of the ‘solfataras’ over

the space of twenty-five miles along the volcanic diagonal is much

alike: an elevation about two feet high and three feet in diameter,

which is composed of a dark-bluish-black viscid clay, forms a complete

circle round the mouth of a medium-sized spring. The water is sometimes

quiescent, and sunk about two feet within the aperture; at other times

it is ejected, with great hissing and roaring noise, to the height of

from five to eight feet. At all times clouds of steam, strongly

impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphurous acid gas, issue

from the orifice, both of which, during an eruption of the water, are

greatly augmented in quantity. From the dark coloured and elevated

margin of the fountain the yellow crust of crystallised sulphur extends

a great distance in every direction. Columns of steam ascend from

numberless points in the whole district, which are thus impregnated; and

thus it is that, apparently for ages past, sulphur has been gradually

heaped up in this locality till there are actually hills, which, as far

as they have yet been pierced, show sulphur earth to be their main

constituents. Hence they have acquired the name of the Sulphur

Mountains.

“The soil is of different colours, but most generally white. It is, in

the vicinity of the springs, a viscid earth, less plastic than clay, and

more readily broken.

“When excavations are made into this earth, it is found to be composed

of multitudinous layers, of different colours or shades of colour, each

layer being quite distinctly divisible from those above and below it,

though frequently no more than an inch or two in thickness.

“It is much to be regretted that the good example set by Olafsen and

Povelsen of investigating the nature of the earth’s crust round about

the solfataras, by piercing the soil, has not been more frequently

carried out. In the summer of last year one of the suggestions which I

made for the instruction of an expedition to this place, was that boring

implements should be taken out and extensively used; but accident

prevented the necessary appliances being forthcoming at the right time.

I believe, however, that one of the chief features in the expedition

which is to set out in March, will be the thorough examination, to as

great a depth as practicable, of the strata in various parts of the

Sulphur Valley.

“The spring chosen by Olafsen and Povelsen as the subject of their first

experiment, was one which had made its appearance since the preceding

winter, and which was just beginning to be surrounded by other mud

springs and jets of steam. The ground was still covered with lovely

verdure, and charming flowers were abundant, even at the very verge of

the caldron of hideous hue and odour. A short distance from this opening

they established their boring apparatus. The sequence of the layers was

as follows:

“1. Three feet of reddish-brown earth, of a fatty consistence--of the

ordinary temperature; at the bottom heat was perceptible to the touch.

“2. Two feet of a firmer kind of earth, nearly the same in colour as the

first layer, unctuous to the touch.

“3. One foot of a lighter kind of soil.

“4. Five feet of a very fine earth of different colours, the first two

feet being veined red and yellow, with streaks of blue, green, red, and

white intermingled. The lower portion of this earth was somewhat firmer

than that which covered it. The heat of this thick bed was so great that

the soil extracted by the auger could not be handled until it had been

for some time exposed to the air.

“5. One foot of a compact greyish-blue earth.

“6. In tapping this bed, which was four feet nine inches in thickness,

and consequently at a depth of about twelve feet, water was first met

with. It was found by comparison that the level of the water in the

boiling mud spring coincided at this time with that of the water thus

discovered. The heat was now very great, and a constant hissing and

bubbling could be heard as proceeding from the bottom of the hole which

had been made.

“7. Nine inches of greyish-blue earth.

“8. One foot six inches of a similar unctuous earth, containing many

small white stones. This was the hottest layer of any yet pierced; the

buzzing, humming noise was now much louder than before.

“9. Three feet of the same kind of clay, but much harder and more

compact; this layer was also full of small, round, white stones.

“10. Six inches of a violet tinged earth, very greasy to the touch. In

this bed the heat sensibly diminished.

“11. One foot six inches of red and blue clay intermingled. The heat

continued to diminish very fast.

“12. One foot of reddish-looking clay, the temperature remaining about

the same.

“13. Six inches of yellow and red clay.

“14. One foot of a greenish coloured earth, much less coherent than the

previous layers. Here the heat again began to increase.

“15. One foot six inches of blue clay, filled with small pieces of white

tufa. This bed was much hotter than either that above or that below it.

“16. One foot three inches of soft blue clay.

“17. Nine inches of an earth, easily pulverised when dry, which, whilst

moist, was of a violet colour; on exposure to the air, however, this

rapidly changed to a chocolate brown. The heat was again augmented as

the centre of the bed was approached.

“At thirty-two feet the full length of the boring implements was used

up; but from the set of the country in the vicinity, the experimenters

believed they were close upon basaltic rock, when the heat probably

ceased.

“In digging for the peculiar kind of brown coal which they call

‘surturbrand’ (a kind of fuel very much resembling Irish bog-oak, which

can be used for like purposes), the inhabitants frequently go as deep as

twenty-eight feet. They report that before reaching this depth they

frequently pass through three or four beds of blue, yellow, and brown

clay, and almost invariably find that the layers of blue clay are much

hotter than any of the other strata.

“A second trial of the soil was made in the neighbourhood of some recent

springs, farther to the east. The activity of the agencies at work here

appeared to be greater than in the former case, and to have been longer

in operation. The whole surface was thickly covered with sulphur, in a

finely-divided state; there was much gypsum, and a large efflorescence

of feathery alum. Thousands of very minute holes were discoverable on

close examination, through which continuous jets of steam, sulphuretted

hydrogen and sulphurous acid gases were emitted.

“An attempt was made to dig with spades; but the soil was found to be so

hot, whilst the footing was at the same time so insecure, that it could

not be persisted in. A spot some distance farther off was therefore

pitched upon, where the earth was firmer and colder. The borer pierced

through six feet of blue clay with great facility, the lowest portion

being extremely hot. After this depth the earth became rapidly softer,

at the depth of seven feet the same peculiar bubbling noise before

noticed was heard. Continuing to bore, the bottom of the hole appeared

to be in a state of ebullition, a boiling liquid being ejected in the

narrow space around the handle of the auger with extraordinary violence,

and no sooner was the tool withdrawn than a thick black fluid was

ejected from the orifice to the height of several feet. A short time

afterwards the jet ceased, the subterranean fire appeared to have

expended its fury, but it soon recommenced with redoubled activity to

dart forth fresh jets of steam and black, muddy water, continuing to

boil and dance with but slight intermission. It appeared, therefore,

evident that the result of this experiment was the premature formation

of a fresh hot spring, which would otherwise have been, perhaps, a

considerable time in forcing its way to the surface.

“It is somewhat to be regretted that no one amongst the numerous eminent

men, men accustomed to experimental investigations and acute observers,

who have since traversed this region, should have investigated the

question of the origin of these hot springs and sulphur deposits from

the point of view which was thus displayed by these careful and

painstaking philosophers.

“The phlogistic theory being generally accepted in their day, and the

chemistry of the earths and metals being in a very undeveloped state, we

cannot now accept to its full extent the explanation they put forth of

these phenomena; but the facts they disclose appear to me to be of the

highest value, and to afford a clue which, if carefully followed, may

lead to discoveries of much importance in the domain of volcanic energy.

“The conclusion they drew from their investigation is, that the hidden

fires of Iceland dwell in the crust of the earth, and not in its

interior; that the boiling springs and the mud caldrons certainly do not

derive their heat from the depths of our globe, but that the fire which

nourishes them is to be found frequently at only a few feet below the

surface, in fermenting matters, which are deposited in certain strata.

“By their theory the gases from the more central parts of the earth

penetrate these beds by subterranean channels, and so set up the

chemical action, producing fermentation and heat, these channels also

forming the means of intercommunication between the separate sites of

activity, and equalising and transferring pressure.

“To return to their facts. They further observed that the heat is

invariably found to be greatest in the blue and bluish-grey earth; that

these earths almost always contain sulphuric acid; that they contain

also sulphur, iron, alum, and gypsum; and lastly, that finely-divided

particles of brass-coloured pyrites are visible throughout the whole of

the beds when heat exists.

“Sulphuric acid is found in the hot beds above and below that which is

the hottest, but this latter manifests no acidity that is sensible to

the taste.

“Sulphuretted hydrogen is continually evolved from the clays containing

the brass-coloured pyrites. Silver coins dropped into a hole made in

these strata become rapidly reddened, and brass becomes quite black if

held over it for a short time.

“Lastly, not only does the heat increase and diminish in various

successive layers of the earth, in the neighbourhood of the active

springs, but the locality of the heat, as might be expected from their

previous observations, travels very considerably in different years.

“The solfatara of Krisuvik, with the mountains about it, is shown in the

accompanying sketch by M. Eugène Roberts. It appears from afar to occupy

the place of an ancient crater, but, as we have already seen, it is not

near the crater, about the centre of the drawing, but at a considerable

distance from the old volcanic centre, that the thermal springs and

sulphurous exhalations have their present origin.

“Wherever they may have been previously, the springs are now situated

between two mountains, the one Badstofer, on the right, originally

composed of lava, the other, Vesturhals, on the left, of basaltic

formation. Both, by the action of the thermal springs, are undergoing a

process of disintegration and reconstruction.

“The kind of hills which form the solfataras, properly so called,

increase in extent day by day; by the addition to the disintegrated rock

of sulphur and of sulphurous and sulphuric acids.

“The yellow sulphur earth contains about four per cent. of free

sulphuric acids; sometimes a little free hydrochloric acid, and a

variety of sulphates, as might be supposed. Treated with distilled

water, the filtered solution reddens litmus strongly; on addition of

acetate of lead a flocculent precipitate is produced, which, when heated

with carbon, disengages sulphurous acid.

[Illustration: SOLFATARA OF KRISUVIK. From a Sketch by M. Eugène

Roberts.]

“The sulphur is found in many different conditions, but for the most

part in the same finely-divided, whitish-yellow form in which it is

precipitated from sulphuretted hydrogen solutions. Where it assumes

other states, crystallised in tears on the surface of the rocks, or

coagulated in veins, it is on account of its having undergone subsequent

heating. Of its primary origin by the decomposition of sulphuretted

hydrogen, there is in my opinion no doubt.

“Professor Bunsen visited Krisuvik in 1845; his opinion is that

sulphurous acid is evolved from the earth’s interior, which, oxidised

either at the surface by the atmosphere, or at subterranean depths by

atmospheric oxygen dissolved in cold water, is converted into sulphuric

acid. The sulphuric acid thus generated is diffused among the

constituents of the decomposed beds. This process represents the first

stage of the fumerole action, which is manifested in the namar or

solfatara of Krisuvik.

“Sulphur is now generally regarded as emanating from the stage of

intermittent lethargy of a volcano, and the sulphides of iron, copper,

arsenic, zinc, selenium, etc., fall in the same category as sulphur;

they are secondary, not primary, formations. In the stage further off we

have the host of sulphates produced by the oxidation of the sulphur into

sulphuric acid, and its subsequent reaction on the metals and earths

with which it becomes associated.

“The description of the Sicilian sulphur beds coincides so very exactly

with that of the Icelandic mines, that one might pass very well for the

other. D’Aubigny pictures nearly the whole of the central portion of

Sicily as being occupied by a vast bed of blue clay or marl, in which

are numerous and thick beds of gypsum and sulphur, and a combination of

this mineral with iron and copper. The natural process by which they

have been formed must, I think, be the same in each case. At Krisuvik

copper has been found only in small quantities, but that is probably

because it has not been sought for below the surface. Carbonate of

copper, associated with sulphate of lime, is of frequent occurrence; and

native copper has to a limited extent been discovered.

“A district in America, very similar in most of its characteristics, has

recently been explored. The great hot-spring region of the sources of

the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, in the United States, has, on

account of the wonderful natural phenomena there manifested, been set

apart by the United States Congress as a great national park for all

time.

“The whole of this district is covered with rocks of volcanic origin of

comparatively modern date. At present there are no signs of direct

volcanic action going on, but the secondary kind of action, resulting

probably as at Krisuvik, from the disintegration and decomposition of

beds of volcanic origin, is in full progress. Boiling springs,

mud-caldrons, and geysers are found in all parts of the region, and the

description given by Mr V. Hayden, of the Yellowstone Lake and its

vicinity, in every respect coincides with those of the geysers,

mud-caldrons, and hot-springs of Iceland.

“In all cases there was found to be free access of water; free sulphur

was widely dispersed, and the steam-jets were invariably accompanied by

large quantities of sulphuretted hydrogen. The subterranean action in

this country does not appear to have continued long enough to produce

beds of sulphur and sulphur-earths, but has, nevertheless, been of

sufficiently long standing to build up geyser tubes of so great a length

that the internal pressure has formed other vents, rather than lift the

immense column of water above it.

“The water of the springs contains sulphuretted hydrogen, lime, soda,

alumina, and a slight amount of magnesia; some of these are only

occasionally at the boiling point, and these, when the temperature is

reduced below 150° Fahr., deposit great quantities of the sesquioxide of

iron, which lines the insides of the funnels, and covers the surface of

the ground wherever the water flows. If the reaction consists in the

decomposition of iron pyrites, and the sulphur is carried sufficiently

far off to prevent its re-combination with the iron to form iron

sulphate, the formation of the iron sesquioxide is fully accounted for.

“As a rule, the groups of hot springs are, as in Iceland, in the lower

valleys, and either along the margins of streams, or nearly on a level

with them. The grand area where they occur is within the drainage of the

Yellowstone, where a space of forty miles in length, with an average

width of fifteen miles, is either at the present time, or has been in

the past, occupied by hot springs.

“That the quantity of sulphuric acid here produced is very large, is

proved by the immense quantity of alum which is found, for the streams,

the mud, the earth are thoroughly impregnated with it. The funnel-shaped

craters from which the boiling mud is ejected, are so similar to those

of the Krisuvik that the figure on page 140 will answer for both places.

The circular rim varies from a few inches to several feet in diameter.

Sometimes these are clustered close together, yet each one being

separate and distinct from the others.

“The foregoing are the most prominent facts connected with the

development of sulphur from the earth in the elementary state. The full

explanation of all the phenomena accompanying it appears to me to be the

key by which the great secret of volcanic energy may he ultimately

unlocked. At present it appears to be doubtful whether the sulphur

results from the decomposition of metallic sulphides, by heat and water

combined, or by sulphuric acid formed by the oxidation of sulphurous

acid. In the one case, the whole action is so far within our reach, that

it should not be an insurmountable difficulty to establish the point as

to whether the whole action does not depend on the percolation of water

into beds of pyrites surrounded by other beds which are non-conductors

of heat.

“The other view, viz., that the sulphur proceeds as sulphurous acid from

a lower depth, is on account of the more complicated action required,

far from being as satisfactory to my mind as the more simple supposition

above.

“Until boring experiments have been made, conducted with great care, and

to considerable depths, no positive conclusion can be arrived at. It is

also an element in the question of much importance, to discover whether

the beds penetrated by the water are already heated, whether the water

is heated before it reaches the sulphur-bearing strata (the clays

containing pyrites), or whether both are not alike cold till they have

been for some time in contact.

“Less than a quarter of a mile from the hot springs is a lake,

Geslravatn, formed by the filling up of an extinct crater. This the

inhabitants describe as being fathomless (Mr Seymour, last year, found

no bottom at five and twenty fathoms). The depth is, at any rate, very

considerable. Although so close to a spot where the ground is, even at

the surface, scorching to the feet, the water in this lake is ice-cold.

Sir George Mackenzie also remarked a somewhat similar fact. On the side

of the Sulphur Mountain, amidst the seething, steaming hills of almost

burning earth, a spring of clear cold water was met with. To my mind

these facts are most in accordance with the view that the action is

local and self-dependent.

“The Krisuvik sulphur mines have been worked at various times, but want

of proper roads, and ignorance of the proper method of extracting and

refining the sulphur, have prevented their proper development. The

Sicilian mines can be worked at a considerable profit, where, more than

390 feet below the surface, beds are met with containing only 15 per

cent. of sulphur. At Krisuvik, absolutely on the surface, clays are met

with which contain from 15 to 90 per cent. of sulphur. Under proper and

careful supervision, their future should be prosperous.

“Two German gentlemen, under the auspices of the Danish Government,

worked these mines in the early part of the last century, and so much

was exported to Copenhagen during the time the excavations were carried

on, that a sufficiently large stock was laid up to serve the consumption

of Denmark and Norway from 1729 to 1753.

“Horrebow describes the sulphur mines as being actively worked from 1722

to 1728, to the great advantage of the inhabitants, who reaped much

profit from its extraction.

“By his account of their mode of prosecuting this enterprise, the

sulphur does not appear to have been refined in the island, but exported

in its crude state. The less active mines were chosen for cutting into.

He says: There is always a layer of barren earth upon the sulphur, which

is of several colours, white, yellow, green, red, and blue. When this is

removed, the sulphur earth is discovered, and may be taken up with

shovels. By digging three feet down, the sulphur is found in proper

order. They seldom dig deeper, because the place is generally too hot,

and requires too much labour, also because sulphur may be had at an

easier rate, and in greater plenty, in the proper places. Fourscore

horses may be loaded in an hour’s time, each horse carrying 250 lbs.

weight. The best veins of sulphur are known by a kind of bank or rising

in the ground, which is cracked in the middle. From hence a thick vapour

issues, and a greater heat is felt than in any other part. These are the

places they choose for digging, and after removing a layer or two of

earth, they come to the sulphur, which they find best just under the

rising of the ground, when it (the sulphur) looks just like sugar candy.

The farther from the middle of the bank, the more it crumbles, at last

appearing as mere dust. But the middle of the bank is an entire hard

lump, and is with difficulty broken through. The brimstone, when first

taken out, is so hot that it can hardly be handled, but grows cooler by

degrees.

“In two or three years these veins are again filled with sulphur. The

death of the person at Copenhagen who had the sole and exclusive

privilege of exporting sulphur from Iceland put an end to what had

promised to be a very thriving industry. The inhabitants continued to

collect the sulphur earth for some time after its exportation had

ceased; and many of them lost considerably by it, large quantities

having been gathered which they were never able to dispose of.

“According to Dr Perkins, the sulphur mines were again worked by the

Danish Government for fifteen years, but the method of purifying adopted

was very imperfect. The sulphur earth was heated in iron boilers, and

when the sulphur was melted, fish oil was added, and the whole mass

stirred up. On allowing the mixture to stand for a time, the earthy

matter formed a soap on the top of the molten mass; this being removed,

tolerably pure sulphur remained behind.

“In 1832, these mines were visited by K. von Nidda, the celebrated

geologist, by whose advice a Danish merchant, named Kenidzon, purchased

them. He only worked them for a short period. The sulphur earth was

collected without much regard being paid to the relative richness of the

beds. It was taken on the backs of horses to Havnafiord, and thence

shipped to Copenhagen. The cost of transport brought the sulphur to too

high a price to render the undertaking successful.

“In 1857, political matters caused the attention of Her Majesty’s

Government to be directed to finding a new source of sulphur supply.

Commander J. E. Commerell, of her Majesty’s ship ‘Snake,’ was sent to

Iceland by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to visit and report

upon the capabilities of the mines of Krisuvik and Husavik. He found

that the nearest safe port to the Krisuvik beds was Havnafiord; this

port is fourteen miles from the sulphur beds by the present roads, and

nine miles from Reikjavik. The harbour is well sheltered, with good

anchorage of seven or eight fathoms three cables’ length from the beach;

it at present enjoys as much traffic as Reikjavik. The road from

Krisuvik might be much shortened, and a tramway might also he laid down.

During the past year a survey has been made, and plans drawn for a

railway or tramway to Havnafiord.

“The actual extent of the sulphur beds it is quite impossible to

calculate; forty-seven have been already discovered. The deposit of

sulphur Commander Commerell personally saw he describes as amounting to

many thousands of tons, and, all the mines being in what is called a

‘living’ state, the sulphur taken away is reproduced in two or three

years. He considers that sulphur in a pure state could be shipped at

Havnafiord for £1 per ton.

“The sulphur at Myvatn, though great in quantity, is, he considers, at

too great a distance from a port of embarkation to permit its extraction

being carried on with any chance of competing with that from the

Krisuvik mines.

“No further steps were taken in the matter by the British Government,

the political complications which led to the expedition having been

removed; but the attention of English merchants having been drawn to

these rich deposits by the highly favourable character of Commander

Cornmerell’s remarks, renewed attempts are being made to render

commercially available the immense sulphur-producing power which the

Krisuvik solfataras undoubtedly possess. To some of these gentlemen I am

greatly indebted for much valuable information, put at my disposal for

the purposes of this paper, and amongst them I have specially to tender

my thanks to Mr Ramsdale and Messrs Thorne, of Gracechurch Street, and

particularly for the use of numerous and carefully-selected samples of

the sulphur earths which were freely placed at my disposal. These

samples I hope to make the subject of a future paper.

“Since writing the foregoing paper, I mentioned, in the course of

conversation with Sir Henry Holland, the conclusions which are derived

from the examination of all the trustworthy facts relating to the

sulphur deposits. This led him to examine entries in his unpublished

diary, made at Krisuvik in 1810. The theory which he then conceived so

thoroughly agrees with all that has been learnt respecting the phenomena

in question, that I, with his kind permission, print an extract from his

note-book:

“‘The theory of these sulphureous springs (if springs they may be

termed) at Krisuvik is an interesting object of inquiry. They are

situated in a country decidedly of volcanic origin. The high ground on

which they appear is composed principally of the conglomerate or

volcanic tufa, which has before been noticed. The source of the heat

which can generate permanently so enormous a quantity of steam must,

doubtless, reside below this rock; whether it be the same which produces

the volcanic phenomena may be doubted, at least if the Wernerian theory

of volcanoes be admitted. It certainly seems most probable that the

appearances depend upon the action of water on vast beds of pyrites. The

heat produced by this action is sufficient to raise an additional

quantity of water in the form of steam, which makes its way to the

surface, and is there emitted through the different clefts in the rocks.

The sulphates of lime and alumina, appearing upon the surface, are

doubtless produced, in process of time, by these operations. In

corroboration of this view, it may be observed that the quantity of

steam issuing from the springs at Krisuvik is always greater after a

long continuance of wet weather, and that whenever earthquakes occur on

this spot, it is during the prevalence of weather of this kind.’

“The learned and now aged author expressed the highest gratification

that the views which he formed at twenty-two years of age should possess

so much value so many years after.”

* * * * *

The visit of the two engineers, Messrs Shields & Gale, has also been

elsewhere alluded to. Finally, Mr R. M. Smith informs me that the

prospects of the Krísuvík diggings now look brighter. The project of

tramways, or locomotives, seems to have been abandoned in favour of

carts and ponies plying on a good road, about sixteen miles long,

between the Sulphur Mountain and Hafnafjörð.

SECTION II.--TO HEKLA, AND UP IT.

The next morning’s work began with a path which introduced us to the

mud-bog, as opposed to the turf-bog. This pleasant feature led to lava,

whose three main torrents and many secondary streamlets could be seen

spilling over the trap wall of Lángahlíð. There were the two normal

kinds, the soft and cindery, caverned and friable, which makes good

paths: it degrades to the dark red and yellow-red humus which is here,

as in the Haurán, the general colour of the ground. This variety is clad

with two lichens; the grey with black scutella (_L. calcareus?_), and

the pure white (_L. Tartareus?_) which makes the ejections of the Safá

near Damascus simulate limestone. The other is intensely hard, ruddy

black or brown-grey, and in places solid as if poured out yesterday; the

reason generally given is the presence of olivine in this trachytic or

silicious form. M. Durocher’s theory is, that being lighter than the

doleritic and augitic (basic), it therefore floats separately, and thus

he would explain how lava floods of different composition may proceed

from the same locality.[93] The plications of this hard lava, looking as

if hogs-heads of honey had been poured upon stone, the domes and the

drops, not to speak of the sharp-toothed mouths and crevasses, make the

traveller suffer for the sufferings of his nag.

At the end of the first great lava-stream was the farm of Herdísarvík;

now not a “vik” but a “vatn”--we looked around for sulphur, but in vain.

Hard by our right the fierce seas burst and roared upon a coast cruel

and harbourless as that of Kafir-land; whilst in the smooth distance a

few catspaws suggested shoaly islets. The Hlíðarvatn (lithe or slope

water) is not like its neighbour a misnomer, but the supply is brackish,

ebbing and flowing with the tide, like wells in the valley of the

Thames. The only birds seen were wild geese, crees, gulls, curlews,

young snipes, and ravens which especially affect this warm part of the

island. During the halt we especially noticed a number of web-less

hunting spiders, whose little nests were full of young--the peasants

still preserve the old Köngur-váfa (web-weaver) which the citizens hold

obsolete, preferring Könguló or Konguló. There are spider-stories, too,

like the Gold Coast “Anansesem;” a small red species, for instance,

kills when it bites.

From Litlaland, which we reached whilst the sun was still high, we

enjoyed a pleasant view. Beyond the rise of Thorlakshöfn lie the “Irish

Islands,” tall and picturesque, fronted by the great alluvial plain of

south-western Iceland. It has been called Tempe, Arcadia, and Vale of

Enna, though utterly unlike the grim defile of Peneus, the stern

limestone mounts of the Peloponnesus, and the waterless slopes of

Sicily. The “Pastorale in A flat,” as Thomas Hood, sen., would have

called it, a raw northern facsimile of the Lagos Lagoon, as it appeared

to me, gains dignity by the eastern background of eternal snows, the

flat top of Eyjafjall, the long ridge of Tindafjall, and the sharp point

of Torfajökull. And it is “classic ground.” From a commanding site we

can prospect Ingolfsfjall, where Iceland’s first settler is supposed to

be buried, and the Bergthórshvoll farm in the delta of the Markarfljót;

behind it lies Hlíðarendi, where the “peerless Gunnar” sleeps in the

Tverá Holm.[94]

There is--for Iceland--rare pathos in this description of the hero’s

tomb.

“They cast a cairn over Gunnar, and made him sit upright in the

cairn.”

“He sang in the cairn which opened, and he turned himself and

looked at the moon, which was shining clear and bright. And men

thought they saw four lights burning in the cairn, and none of them

cast a shadow. He sang a song, after which the cairn was shut up

again.”

The next morning led us to Reykir. As we rode up the valley of the

Ölfusá we could mark the features of the scene. In front the river was a

lake, and the green expanse of the water-veined delta was scattered over

with south-facing farms, not acknowledged by Gunnlaugsson and Olsen.

Eyrarbakki, so called from the host of islets which line the shore, is

the only port till Berufjörð on the eastern coast, and it was wholly

occupied by two ships. Mr William Hogarth of Aberdeen, who owned the

establishment, has not been here, we were told, for years; lately,

however, some English visitors had excellent fishing in the river, and

were hospitably entertained by Hr Thorgrimsson, agent to M. Lefolii, a

Danish merchant. All this greenery was set off by the barrenness of the

buttressed Lángahlíð hard on our left. The regular horizon of trap-wall

had been succeeded by a sharp slope of Palagonite conglomerate, which

evidently underlies the whole block. On the summit is a desert where no

man dwells, broken by pyramids which are evidently lava-cones, Skálafell

(scald or bald hill?) being the chief feature; upon the lips of the

plateau are gushes of modern lava, and on the low levels appears an

ancient sea-beach, scattered with rounded blocks like giant rocs’ eggs.

[Illustration: THE RURAL SCENE.]

“Hjalli,” which we reached about noon, was somewhat peculiar--instead

of being a single farm, four establishments clustered round the black

chapel. It had its rivulet where the girls comb their yellow hair o’

mornings; the Lavapés (wash-feet) of the Brazilian country town; it had

also its Paradís, a poetical name for the grassy combe, where men bask

i’ the sun. The males were clad in pastoral attire, the old native dress

deemed somewhat too _marqué_ for town and comptoir. The chief items are

a shirt, a waistcoat, and a tight, very tight, flannel culotte, braccæ

gartered below the knee and ending in stockings and Iceland shoes. The

stranger’s first impression is that harlequin, without his spangles, has

forgotten his overalls. This primitive toilette of the non-Roman

races,[95] which gave birth to our civilised attire, still lingers in

parts of Europe, notably in the Cicería of Istria, where the

charcoal-burners (Cici) will adopt no other costume. And what can be

more ridiculous than the Hungarian footsoldier wearing his drawers, when

we know the wide Turkish Shalwar to be his national terminations?

“Reykir!”[96] ejaculated Páll, pointing triumphantly to a little yellow

splotch on the far side of the broad valley. As we progressed towards

the Reeks, we found the forage improving, and the soil becoming damper;

this is commonly the case, because the western frontage enjoys the most

sun. Of five springs clustered upon either bank of the little Varmá, the

largest lies on the left, where Palagonite breccia forms the base of a

ruddy spine, projected by the northern outliers of the Ingolfsfjall

_massif_. The usual motley colours of a solfatara are set off by a more

brilliant green than usual, and by a silver-tinted moss (_Trichostomum

canescens_), which makes the turf-carpet feel soft as velvet.

Reykir is known as the Litlé Geysir, or “the Geysir in Ölfus.” In 1770

Uno Von Troil declared that it used to rise sixty to seventy

perpendicular feet, in fact, as high as the Great Geysir of 1872, but

that an earthquake, after cutting off a few feet (fifty-four to sixty),

made it spout sideways. Nothing can be meaner than the modern display,

and my companion compared it disadvantageously with that “furious

fountain” of the guidebooks, the Sprudel of Carlsbad. The chief well to

the north has built for itself a party-coloured mound like a nest of

African termites, and puffs only vapour with the sumph of a

donkey-engine. A hundred yards or so to the south is a younger spring

with double boilers, in which the water may rise at times a foot and a

half high: the “hell broth” slithers through a soft and soppy circle,

down a foul channel of burnt pyrites and silica-clothed trap to the

bubbling Varmá. This stream shows from a height, three branches draining

from the north-west, where are other sulphur springs.

A whole generation of travellers has complained of the farmer of Beykir,

who is said to have charged one man $52 per diem. We can only speak of

him as we found him; his demand for forage was extremely moderate, and

we attributed the fact to having an honest and thrifty guide.

A swampy ride in the afternoon led to the ferry of the Ölfusá or lower

Hvitá. The ground was spangled with Fífa or cotton grass (_Eriophorum_),

a weed with a bad name. It is more common here than in the southern

islands, Scotland, and Germany, and it is supposed to haunt the worst

and most dangerous bogs, where water sinks instead of flowing. “Avoid

cotton grass ground” is the advice of every traveller: unfortunately you

cannot, and you must make the best of it. But why call it the

“treacherous cotton grass,” when it at once tells you the worst? On the

other hand, buck-bean (Hor-blaka, or _Menyanthes trifoliata_) is praised

because it shows the surface to be safe.

After three hours we reached the ferry, a busy scene for Iceland.

Caravans charged with imported boards and fish to be exported, lay

unloaded on either bank. Amongst the travellers was the Bishop of

Iceland with a party of six; he had ridden from Reykjavik to Reykir in

nine hours, and as he sat waterproof’d in the sun, he complained sadly

of fatigue. A couple of two-oared boats, big and small, with a third

high and dry, did not tend to expedite transit--nothing would be easier

than to establish a wire rope and a ferry with lee-boards, thus making

the current do all the work.

Rain threatened, and we lodged, as Abyssinians might lodge, in the

church of Laugadælir, after duly admiring the farmer’s _chef d’œuvre_, a

brass chandelier. All was very grotesque; the Psalms were chalked up on

the wall, a Mambrino’s helmet acted font, and the altar-piece showed

bow-legged Mattheus, with Marcus, Lucus, and Johannes to match. Around

the fane lay the churchyard, where the peasant

“lies at peace with all his humble race,

And has no stone to mark his burial-place.”

It was the usual reverse of gardenesque or picturesque. Sheep grazed

upon the weeds that “had no business there,” and the railings were

utilised for drying socks and small-clothes.

The fourth march proved peculiarly unpleasant. When the weather is bad

at Reykjavik, here it is detestable. The display of water-works seemed

the effort of the old Polynesian giants, who submerged the greater part

of earth--Terrible-rain, Long-continued-rain, Fierce-hailstorm, and

their progeny, Mist, Heavy-dew, and Light-dew. In plain English it was a

“jolly wet day.” The horses very sensibly bolted up stream, and refused

to be caught till noon, when the men returned dripping as loons or

roaches. The delta of the two great streams is said to be, in fine

weather, one of the fairest pastoral scenes the island can show; but we

saw it at its worst, sadly deformed, and we gathered practical

experience of what a few hours of downfall can do in this semi-saturated

region. The paths were “dead,” or rather, they were shown only by lines

of puddle; the sloughs and quagmires admitted our ponies to the hocks;

the drains overflowed like little hill-races, and the labour of rounding

the deeper fens was immense. A few peaks which lay but a little distance

to the north seemed immeasurably removed, like

“Far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.”

About mid-afternoon we came upon the Thjórsá, “fluviorum rex Eridanus”

of Iceland: even at this upper part it looked like an estuary, split by

sandbars, piles of basalt, sandbars and basalt again. We pushed hard

over the few good places; and moist, mouldy, and malcontent, we were

right glad to find ourselves in the strangers’ room of the ferryman’s

house: 20 feet long by 14 broad and 7 high: dated 1848, it was an

_omnium gatherum_ of the family goods, and it boasted of one four-paned

window, which has never opened, and which never will. The features

denoting wealth were huge wooden lockers, like seamen’s chests, of

bright colours, painted with flowers and arabesques of still brighter

tints: I could not but remember the pea-green and gamboge box which

carried to Meccah the drugs of a certain “Haji Abdullah.” The soiree

ended with a distressing banality. Fair visions of girls who kiss the

stranger on the mouth, who relieve him of his terminal garments, and who

place a brandy bottle under his pillow, and a bowl of milk or cream by

his side, where are ye? Icelanders have allowed their pleasant primitive

fashions to be laughed away by the jeering stranger, who little thought

how much the custom told in favour of the hosts. The _naïve_ modesty of

antiquity, when Nestor’s youngest daughter laved, anointed, and dressed

Telemachus, and when the maids of Penelope had a less pleasant task with

the elderly Ulysses, has departed with the public bathings, in angelic

attire, of Iceland, of Sind, and of Japan, and the kiss given to the

guest by the young wife or the eldest daughter of the Morlacchi house.

This _sublime impudeur_ was possible only amongst a pure race: the

sneers of a single civilised savage suffice to demolish this “_heureuse

absence du ‘schoking.’_”

Next morning, while the horses were grazing, we ascertained that the

farm had its therma: a jet of steam issuing from the ground near the

river had been turfed over, with room to stand; and thus a Turkish, or

rather a Russian, bath was possible on bath-day. We then walked down to

the Thjórsá, an especially grisly spectacle. Its breadth, 250 yards, was

occupied by white glacier water, with a sulphury tinge, rendered more

ghastly by the black sand, rocks, and islets studding the bed above and

below the ferry. The right bank showed a wall of conglomerate, and on

both sides “cachociras” dashing over the stones gave pleasant

reminiscences of San Francisco. The left bank is of Hekla lava, either

compact or very porous containing crystals of lime. We found a natural

hatchet and quantities of pumice, many-coloured, but mostly yellow: it

floats in water, and it is useful for holystoning the skin. The velocity

was three knots, and the temperature 52° (F). The ferry creeps up from

the stone-head acting pier on the right bank, swings across below the

break, and lands you in water on the far side.

The conduct of ponies at the ferry is always amusing. They are driven in

by the shouts of lads and lasses, by tossings and wavings of the arms,

by sticks and stones, and by the barking and biting of curs. They sidle,

jostle, step in daintily, smell the water, and, after trembling on the

brink for a time, some plucky little nag takes the lead. He is followed

by the ruck, but there are often cowards ready to hark back: these must

be forced on with renewal of stick and stone, and by driving those that

have crossed up and down the bank. In dangerous narrow beds, it is often

necessary to tow over shirkers one by one with a rope. The swimmers

gallantly breast the flood, which breaks upon their crests; and they

paddle with heads always up stream, dilated eyes and nostrils snorting

like young hippopotami; the best always carry the back high. As they

reach the far end, they wade slowly to shore, and fall at once to

grazing. They took four minutes thirty seconds to cross the Thjórsá, and

as usual they were drifted far down.

We then pricked fast over the little pampa which lies between the

Thjórsá and the Hekla-foot, making, I know not why, for Stóruvellir.

Here we were received by Síra Guðmundr Jónsson, a gentlemanly man, who

has accompanied several travellers, notably the “Oxonian,” up the

volcano; he showed the Iceland peculiarity of “walking the

quarter-deck;” and his handsome blue-eyed daughter wore the sternest of

looks, apparently engendered by semi-solitude. He indulged in wild

archery about the dangers of the climb, which, over biscuits and coffee,

sounded truly awful. After leaving the parsonage, we enjoyed our first

fair view of Hekla: during the earlier ride it had been buried in

clouds, and hidden by the chapel block, Skarðfjall.

The Hekla of our ingenuous childhood, when we believed in the “Seven

Wonders of the World,” was a mighty cone, a “pillar of heaven,” upon

whose dreadful summit white, black, and sanguine red lay in streaks and

patches, with volumes of sooty smoke and lurid flames, and a pitchy sky.

The whole was somewhat like the impossible illustrations of Vesuvian

eruptions, in body-colours, plus the ice proper to Iceland. The Hekla

of reality, No. 5 in the island scale,[97] is a commonplace heap, half

the height of Hermon, and a mere pigmy compared with the Andine peaks,

rising detached from the plains; about three and a half miles in

circumference, backed by the snows of Tindafjall and Torfajökull, and

supporting a sky-line that varies greatly with the angle under which it

is seen. Travellers usually make it a three-horned Parnassus, with the

central knob highest--which is not really the case. From the south-west,

it shows now four, then five, distinct points; the north-western lip of

the northern crater, which hides the true apex; the south-western lip of

the same; the north-eastern lip of the southern crater, which appears

the culminating point, and the two eastern edges of the southern bowls.

A pair of white patches represents the “eternal snows.” On the right of

the picture is the steep, but utterly unimportant, Thríhyrningr, crowned

with its bench-mark; to the left, the Skarðsfjall, variegated green and

black; and in the centre, the Bjólfell, a western buttress of the main

building, which becomes alternately a saddleback, a dorsum, and an

elephant’s head, trunk, and shoulders.

We came upon the valley of the Western Rángá[98] at a rough point, a

gash in the hard yellow turf-clad clay, dotted with rough lava blocks,

and with masses of conglomerate, hollowed, turned, and polished by

water: the shape was a succession of S, and the left side was the more

tormented. Above the ford a dwarf cascade had been formed by the lava of

’45, which caused the waters to boil, and below the ford jumped a

second, where the stream forks. We then entered an Iceland “forest,” at

least four feet high; the “chapparal” was composed of red willow (_Salix

purpurea_), of Grá-viðir, woolly-leaved willow (_Salix lapponum_),[99]

the “tree under which the Devil flayed the goats”--a diabolical

difficulty, when the bush is a foot high--and the awful and venerable

birch,[100] “la demoiselle des fôrets,” which has so often “blushed with

patrician blood.” About mid-afternoon we reached Næfrholt (birch-bark

hill),[101] the “fashionable” place for the ascent, and we at once

inquired for the guide. Upon the _carpe diem_ principle, he had gone to

Reykjavik with the view of drinking his late gains; but we had time to

organise another, and even alpenstocks with rings and spikes are to be

found at the farm-house. Everything was painfully tourist.

In the evening we scaled the stiff slope of earth and Palagonite which

lies behind, or east of, Næfrholt: this crupper of Bjólfell, the

Elephant Mountain, gives perhaps harder work than any part of Hekla on

the normal line of ascent. From the summit we looked down upon a dwarf

basin, with a lakelet of fresh water, which had a slightly (carbonic)

acid taste, and which must have contained lime, as we found two kinds of

shells, both uncommonly thin and fragile. Three species of weeds floated

off the clean sandstrips. Walking northwards to a deserted byre, we

found the drain gushing under ground from sand and rock, forming a

distinct river-valley, and eventually feeding the Western Rángá. This

“Vatn” is not in the map; though far from certain that it is not

mentioned by Mackenzie, we named it the “Unknown Lake.” Before night

fell we received a message that three English girls and their party

proposed to join us. This was a “scare,” but happily the Miss Hopes

proved plucky as they were young and pretty, and we rejoiced in offering

this pleasant affront of the feminine foot to that grim old _solitaire_,

Father Hekla.

Before the sleep necessary to prepare for the next day’s work, I will

offer a few words concerning the “Etna of the North,” sparing the

reader, however, the mortification of a regular history. It was

apparently harmless, possibly dormant, till A.D. 1104, when Sæmund, the

“Paris clerk,” then forty-eight years old, threw in a casket, and awoke

the sleeping lion. Since that time fourteen regular eruptions, without

including partial outbreaks, are recorded, giving an average of about

two per century. The last was in 1845. The air at Reykjavik was

flavoured, it is said, like a gun that wants washing; and the sounds of

a distant battle were conducted by the lava and basaltic ground. The

ashes extended to Scotland. When some writers tell us that on this

occasion Hekla lost 500 feet in height, “so much of the summit having

been blown away by the explosions,” they forget or ignore the fact that

the new crater opened laterally, and low down.

Like Etna, Vesuvius, and especially Stromboli, Hekla became mythical in

Middle-Age Europe, and gained wide repute as one of the gates of

“Hel-viti.” Witches’ Sabbaths were held there. The spirits of the

wicked, driven by those grotesque demons of Father Pinamonti which would

make the fortune of a Zoological Society, were seen trooping into the

infernal crater; and such facts as these do not readily slip off the

mind of man. The Danes still say, “Begone to Heckenfjæld!” the North

Germans, “Go to Hackelberg!” and the Scotch consign you to “John

Hacklebirnie’s house.” Even Goldsmith (Animated Nature, i. 48) had heard

of the local creed, “The inhabitants of Iceland believe the bellowings

of Hecla are nothing else but the cries of the damned, and that its

eruptions are contrived to increase their tortures.” Uno Von Troil

(Letter I.), who in 1770, together with those “inclyti Brittanici,”

_Baron_ Bank and Dr Solander, “gained the pleasure of being the first

who ever reached the summit of this celebrated volcano,” attributes the

mountain’s virginity to the superstitions of the people. He writes

soberly about its marvels; and he explains its high fame by its

position, skirting the watery way to and from Greenland and North

America. His companions show less modesty of imagination. We may concede

that an unknown ascent “required great circumspection;” and that in a

high wind ascensionists were obliged to lie down. But how explain the

“dread of being blown into the most dreadful precipices,” when the

latter do not exist? Moreover, we learn that to “accomplish this

undertaking” they had to travel from 300 to 360 miles over uninterrupted

bursts of lava, which is more than the maximum length of the island,

from north-east to south-west. As will be seen, modern travellers have

followed suit passing well.

The next morning (July 13) broke fair and calm, reminding me

“Del bel paese la dove il sì suona.”

The Miss Hopes were punctual to a minute--an excellent thing in

travelling womanhood. We rode up half-way somewhat surprised to find so

few parasitic craters; the only signs of independent eruption on the

western flank were the Rauðhólar (red hills), as the people call their

lava hornitos and spiracles, which are little bigger than the

bottle-house cones of Leith.

At an impassable divide we left our poor nags to pass the dreary time,

without water or forage, and we followed the improvised guide, who

caused not a little amusement. His general port was that of a bear that

has lost its ragged staff--I took away his alpenstock for one of the

girls--and he was plantigrade rather than cremnobatic: he had stripped

to his underalls, which were very short, whilst his stockings were very

long, and the heraldic gloves converted his hands to paws. The two

little snow fonds (“steep glassy slopes of hard snow”) were the easiest

of walking. We had nerved ourselves to

“Break neck or limbs, be maimed or boiled alive,”

but we looked in vain for the “concealed abysses,” for the “crevasses to

be crossed,” and for places where “a slip would be to roll to

destruction.” We did not sight the “lava wall, a capital protection

against giddiness.” The snow was anything but slippery; the surface was

scattered with dust, and it bristled with a forest of dwarf

earth-pillars, where blown volcanic sand preserved the ice. After a slow

hour and a half we reached the crater of ’45, which opened at nine A.M.

on September 2, and discharged lava till the end of November. It might

be passed unobserved by an unexperienced man. The only remnant is the

upper lip prolonged to the right; the dimensions may have been 120 by

150 yards, and the cleft shows a projecting ice-ledge ready to fall. The

feature is well marked by the new lava-field of which it is the source:

the bristly “stone-river” is already degrading to superficial dust. A

little beyond this bowl the ground smokes, discharging snow-steam made

visible by the cold air. Hence doubtless those sententious old

travellers “experienced, at one and the same time, a high degree of heat

and cold.”

Fifteen minutes more led us to the First or Southern Crater, whose

Ol-bogi (elbow or rim) is one of the horns conspicuous from below. It is

a regular formation about 100 yards at the bottom each way, with the

right (east) side red and cindery, and the left yellow and sulphury;

mosses and a few flowerets grow on the lips; in the sole rise jets of

steam, and a rock-rib bisects it diagonally from north-east to

south-west. We thought the former the highest point of the volcano, but

the aneroid corrected our mistake.

From First Crater we walked over the left or western dorsum, over which

one could drive a coach, and we congratulated one another upon the

exploit. Former travellers, “balancing themselves like rope dancers,

succeeded in passing along the ridge of slags which was so narrow that

there was scarcely room for their feet,” the breadth being “not more

than two feet, having a precipice on each side several hundred feet of

depth.” Charity suggests that the feature has altered, but there was no

eruption between 1766 and 1845; moreover, the lip would have diminished,

not increased. And one of the most modern visitors repeats the “very

narrow ridge,” with the classical but incorrect adjuncts of “Scylla

here, Charybdis there.” Scylla (say the crater slope) is disposed at an

angle of 30°, and Mr Chapman coolly walked down this “vast” little

hollow. I descended Charybdis (the outer counterscarp) far enough to

make sure that it is equally easy.

Passing the “carriage road” (our own name), we crossed a _névé_ without

any necessity for digging foot-holes. It lies where sulphur is notably

absent. The hot patches which account for the freedom from snow, even so

high above the congelation-line, are scattered about the summit: in

other parts the thermometer, placed in an 18-inch hole, made earth

colder than air. After a short climb we reached the apex; the

ruddy-walled north-eastern lip of the Red Crater (No. 2): its lower or

western rim forms two of the five summits seen from the prairie, and

hides the highest point. We thus ascertained that Hekla is a linear

volcano of two mouths, or three including that of ’45, and that it wants

a true apical crater. But how reconcile the accounts of travellers?

Pliny Miles found one cone and three craters; Madame Ida Pfeiffer, like

Metcalfe, three cones and no crater.

On the summit the guides sang a song of triumph, whilst we drank to the

health of our charming companions and, despite the cold wind which

eventually drove us down, carefully studied the extensive view. The

glorious day was out of character with a scene _niente che montagne_, as

the unhappy Venetian described the Morea; rain and sleet and blinding

snow would better have suited the picture, but happily they were

conspicuous by their absence. Inland, beyond a steep snow-bed

unpleasantly crevassed, lay a grim photograph all black and white;

Lángjökull looking down upon us with a grand and freezing stare; the

Hrafntinnu Valley marked by a dwarf cone, and beyond where streams head,

the gloomy regions stretching to the Sprengisandur, dreary wastes of

utter sterility, howling deserts of dark ashes, wholly lacking water and

vegetable life, and wanting the gleam and the glow which light up the

Arabian wild. Skaptár and Öræfa were hidden from sight. Seawards,

ranging from west to south, the view, by contrast, was a picture of

amenity and civilisation. Beyond castellated Hljóðfell and conical

Skjaldbreið appeared the familiar forms of Esja, and the long lava

projection of the Gold Breast country, melting into the western main.

Nearer stretched the fair lowlands, once a broad deep bay, now traversed

by the network of Ölfusá, Thjórsá, and the Markarfljót; while the

sixfold bunch of the Westman Islands, mere stone lumps upon a blue

ground, seemingly floating far below the raised horizon, lay crowned by

summer sea. Eastward we distinctly traced the Fiskivötn.[102] Run the

eye along the southern shore, and again the scene shifts. Below the red

hornitos of the slope rises the classical Three-horned, not lofty, but

remarkable for its trident top; Tindfjall (tooth-fell) with its two

horns, or pyramids of ice, casting blue shadows upon the untrodden snow;

and the whole mighty mass known as the Eastern Jökull, Eyjafjall

(island-fell), so called from the black button of rock which crowns the

long white dorsum; Kátlá (Kötlu-gjá), Merkrjökull, and Goðalands,

all connected by ridges, and apparently neither lofty nor

impracticable.[103] I venture to predict that they will succumb to the

first well organised attack.

The descent, in three hours, was as fast as the ascent had been slow. We

soon saw the last of our fair companions who, mounted and attended by

their train, rode gallantly back to Stóruvellir. Amongst the party was

Síra Guðmundr’s son, a sharp youth of eighteen, and if there was not

something under his waistcoat buttons which was beating at an

accelerated pace, I am much mistaken. We felt demoralised by this

unusual dissipation; we cooled our blood with Skyr; we bathed in the

Lavapés, and we tried throwing a line, but came back with a hook behind,

as the people say.

The reader will probably determine that this account of Hekla is a

trifle hypercritical. But after a single day spent upon the volcano,

which has so often been ascended, what can man find to explore except

the labours of his predecessors? Nor would it be fair to leave unnoticed

this excellent specimen of exaggerated writing upon the subject of

Thule, which perhaps culminates on Hekla.

SECTION III.--TO GEYSIR, AND AT IT.

I would willingly have spent another day on Hekla, but the seething hot

morning (82° F., at nine A.M.) had animated the flies with a more than

normal “cussedness.” The scene was unusually “Arcadian.” Betimes the

dogs folded the ewes with loud barkings, re-echoed by the backing ridge;

and mother and daughters went to milk them, the “help” carrying a pair

of pails fended by a square hoop. Meanwhile the lads drove the cows

towards the womankind, and accompanied the horses to pasture. Even the

hyæna-striped cats, bastard tortoise-shells, crept towards the fields,

as if intent on grasshopper-hunting. About the house hung only the

mankind, too dignified for labour; and the grandmother here is, like the

grandfather, an institution; the bearded, mustachioed “old soldier,”

with huge fez and hair cut boy-fashion, wanted to “swop” with us for

spirits: all the males, middle-aged or old--the latter _plutôt vieillis

que vieux_--appeared cut in the same pattern. Their necks were swathed

as if lately recovering from diphtheria; their coarse heavy limbs were

displayed by the flannel “tights;” their unshaven faces with loose lips,

open mouths, and noses embrowned by preeing the sneeshing-mull, looked

stolid enough when blear-eyed; when not so the hard optics had a cunning

rat-like expression, showing that abundant _selbstgefühl_ and a strong

brain lie behind that unpromising mask. Such in some points was, in days

we have read of, the rude Carinthian boor, now most polished of

peasants.

This day’s march, between Hekla and the Geysir, is one of the most

unpleasant in civilised Iceland. Travellers going eastward complain of

it, and we found it worse for horse and rider, as the progress was from

good to bad. A clerical friend subsequently divided the _iter_ into

three: between Næfrholt and the Thjórsá it was “bonum,” “mediocre” from

the river to Hruni, and thence to the end “malum”--“pessimum.” As it is

Sunday, the ferry lacks ferryman, and delays us for some time. The

peasants are all _endimanchés_, and they stare at the stranger,

expecting him to bow first. The Brazilian Caipira bends to the best

mule, the Styrian to the black coat, but these men have no standard, and

a rough nod is the extent of their recognition. They remind me much of

what was said about the Siebenburgers of Transylvania: “The people are

shrewd and intelligent, and, thanks to the national custom, they possess

a fair amount of knowledge. But the peasant’s demeanour imposes at

first, and all would be _adelig_. After this it rather tells against him

than otherwise, for when you come to measure him, you involuntarily do

so by a higher scale than you would apply to another in his position of

life. Then, if you find discrepancies, you are apt to judge him over

severely, but this is partly his own fault, for it was solely his air

and manner which caused you to apply the standard you have chosen.” On

the other hand, the unpromising figure that rides by with a glare in

Iceland may be a man of substance, possibly even a vestryman.

We saw Hekla more than once on both sides of the Thjórsá, and now, aided

by experience, we could explain the varying of the apices. About

mid-afternoon we came upon the Laxá, for which Páll condescended to make

certain preparations. An old man mumbled some directions about the ford,

but they were utterly unintelligible. A mark persuaded a barefooted

woman to leave the house: after spitting, as did the gentlemen of Beaux

before they drank, she led the way, knitting and talking at least a

quarter of an hour, to impress upon us the necessity of making for

_that_ rock. Crossing the broad bed was quite easy, and the view was

unusually picturesque. The goodly stream was girt on both sides by spoil

banks of red and white earth, suggesting hot springs; there were green

side-gorges ready for homesteads, and the upper part was a rugged brown

ravine, somewhat like what may be seen on the higher Arno.

After fording we rode up to the Sólheimar farm, a large and comfortable

establishment; its approach was the usual avenue which wants ditches and

drains instead of turf walls. The churlish owner detained us till the

horses were strung together and sent, under the charge of his son,

outside the “tún.” He gave us some skimmed milk, and we paid him

half-a-mark. The idea of a gentleman farmer, or even humble Giles,

taking twopence for a glass of small beer!

We sat, after reaching Hruni, amongst the graves, which had just been

utilised by mowing. Seeing our forlorn plight, the Prófastr, Síra Johann

Brím or Briem, came out of his house, kindly greeted us in Latin, and

did the honours of his little church. On the right of the entrance was

the small library, containing the oldest Icelandic translation of the

New Testament[104]--not bad _pro pauperie nostrâ_. Better still, he led

us to his home and, enlarging upon the _mal paso_ before us, he

adhibited a most copious feed of Hvítá salmon, smoked beef, cheese,

biscuits, and white bread, with golden sherry and sundry cups of _café

au lait_. And as we mounted with many _vales_ and _gratias agimus_, he

insisted upon a final Hesta-skál (stirrup-cup) of distilled waters. I

afterwards learned that we were not the only travellers whom the good

Prófastr has sent on their way rejoicing: he extends a similar

hospitality to all strangers.

Mightily refreshed, we looked forward with pleasure to the novelty of a

really vile Iceland path, and to fording a river with a notably bad

name. The line was certainly foul, a succession of ugly swamps: in this

part of the island the meridional routes are good, not so those running

east to west, and striking the streams at right angles. The Hvítá proved

itself a barking dog; the muddy white water, like the discharge of a

gutter, was split into six veins, and swashed round the sand-holms,

bright with the island-rose. The worst were Nos. 1, 4, and 6, the latter

nearest the right bank. Páll’s nag came to grief over a round stone, but

he cleverly dismounted; and our stout little animals, now waxing sadly

tired, mustered courage to spring goat-like up the steep side. In the

Morea this Hvítá would be called Gaidaropnictis, or the donkey-drowner.

We travelled along the right-hand valley of the White Water, which here

assumes a menacing, sinister aspect, and the frequent ferries, above and

below the ford, prove that it can be really dangerous: when the

spring-snows melt, the scene must be imposing. The current, like that of

the Congo, boils and swirls through a deep gorge, a trough of

perpendicular rocks which wholly ignore landing-places. A number of “old

men” showed the desolation of the land, all gorges and dykes, and the

sheep followed us, as young bisons do, for company’s sake. We remarked,

for the first time, that the sun really set, and that in Iceland there

is such a thing as a moon: this simulation of night without a dawn

before one A.M. was comforting. Still in the brassy northern sky rose

the weird forms of the Jarlhettur, the earl’s hats--and we wearily

wondered who the hatter might have been. A tower and a rampart, jagged

into a saw, form a castellated wall defending the south-eastern glacis

of Lángjökull. About ten P.M. we fell into a long descent, clothed with

birch forest, and we idly discussed how long it would take a rhinoceros

to graze it down. Mr Bryson could not trace any birch or bush nearer

than thirty miles from the Geysir: he might have found them within five

miles to the west and seven to the east. A big column of white vapour on

our right, and others scattered over the distance, again and again

deluded us, and we neglected the real thing, two humble puffs, to the

left or west.

A short colloquy at a farm-house made Páll sure of his direction, and he

hurried us on to the goal through villainous bog and splashing streams.

Disappointment at once awaited us. A large party of travellers had, we

heard, pitched tents at the water-works, stubbornly resolved to wait an

explosion. The hay, the firewood, the broken bottles, the scraps of

newspaper, and the names fresh-graved upon the sintery saucer told their

own tale: the Gusher had gushed, we afterwards learned, on the 13th, and

might not gush again for a fortnight. In melancholy mood we pitched the

“pal,” open towards the basin, and under the shadow as it were of the

steam, which we could hear, see, feel, touch, and smell. The guide went

off to sleep at Haukadalr (hawk dale), a farm dimly looming to the

north; but the traveller is, to speak figuratively, tied by the leg,

chained to the Geysir. Unless Fate favour him with a display, he can

neither visit the home of Ari Fróði nor St Martin’s baths, whose

miraculous cures of the lame and the leper have ceased with the

child-like, trusting faith that caused them.

Once or twice during the remnant of the night we heard a growl, when

“Fell Geyser roared and struggling shook the ground.”

Each time the rumble and the crepitus caused a rush from the tent, but

beyond the pleasing mobility of the vapour-clouds there was nothing to

see. The cold morning air showed the puffs and sheets of steam rising

from the Geysir-ground to great advantage.

St Swithin’s Day “in the morrnin’,” began with a visit from Páll, who

brought an old woman to make coffee at the boiling spring, and Haukadalr

cream which savoured strongly of civilising influences--Hr Sigurðr

Pállsson’s family has evidently learnt “a thing or two.” Came also the

spade _de rigeur_, which a generation has used for worrying the Strokkr;

it lets for $1 per diem, and by this time it must have proved itself a

small silver mine.

The day broke cold and cloudy, with a wind from north and north-west,

and the air was not swept clean till the afternoon, when a strong

north-wester set in. We found to the west of the Geysir a bath, lately

made with turf and stone; its unconscionable heat drove us farther

south. An excellent therma might easily be cut in the silex; and as for

warm and cold water, they can be turned on _ad libitum_. The element has

a slimy feel, the effect of silica (?), which reminded me of Central

African frog-pools; it has no appreciable taste nor sediment, yet

clothes washed in it are tainted with sulphur; and we can swear that it

tinges “Schnapps” with a rich horsepond hue.

After the holystoning required for comfort, we proceeded to the serious

study of the emplacement. It has been perfunctorily described by all

travellers, even by Baring-Gould, and worse by the venerable Lyell. The

latter makes “the Geysers” rise through lava which may have been erupted

by Hekla, distant only thirty miles, which is impossible.

The site has been compared with the Vale of Siddim (the gushers?), where

a certain “sad catastrophe” took place, and where general volcanic

action exists only in the brain of M. de Saulcy. Nothing can be more

unlike. These pocket “Campi Phlegræi” cover a few square yards, a patch

probably overlying pyrites, upon the left or western plain, which gently

slopes towards the Túngufljót. The “Tongue”[105] or Mesopotamian “flood”

winds snake-like through the moorland of dull-yellow clay,

rhubarb-coloured humus, and bog, alternating with green vegetation: here

it is hid by high banks; there it shows its vertebræ in streaks and dots

of silvery stream, flashing in the sun. Houses and farms unknown to the

map vary the surface. The readily-flooded river-valley, of old a

sea-arm, trends with almost imperceptible fall from north-north-east to

south-south-west; and at this point it may be nine miles wide: in the

former direction it drains the Haukadalsheiði, and ultimately the

Lángjökull. Up stream the eye ranges from the azure saddleback of

Bláfell, an extinct volcano, they say, to the lumpy cones and

denticulated crests, rocky and snowy, known as the Hrútafell, the

Hrefnubúðir, the Brekkja, and the Hreppfjall. Down stream the glance

rests upon a number of little mounds dotting the various alluvial Doabs

of the ancient Fjörð, especially the Hestfjall, backed by the taller

Örðufell, lying south-east of Skálholt. The eastern bank is a regular

line of rolling hill, separating the main artery from the Hvítá, the

snow-streaked peaks of Gelldingafell: the Berghyllsfjall, and the

coffin-shaped Miðfell are the principal eminences. The western flank is

formed by the major range of the Laugarfjall, which is not named in the

map; this line is backed by the Bjarnarfell, the Sandfell, and the

lava-stream known as Uthliðshraun.

But the intricacy of the site, a valley within a valley, is not yet

ended. On the west of the Túngufljót there are still two influents,

badly shown in the map, which form a watershed of their own, flowing

down troughs which often obscure them from sight, parallel with and

eventually feeding their main stream. This secondary feature is bounded

eastward by a dwarf divide, a shallow arch of ground, and westward by

the Laugarfjall, an insulated node of degraded phonolite and

heat-altered trachyte, which has been driven through the

Palagonite.[106] This rock islet, a few hundred feet high, with its two

green knobs, is divided by a stony precipice, and by a low, marshy,

stream-cut valley from the western range (Laugarfjall), of which it is

an outlier; and it curves with its concavity open to the rising sun.

On the eastern slope of the trachytic pile and extending round the north

of the rock-wall are the Hvers and Geysirs. Nothing can be meaner than

their appearance, especially to the tourist who travels as usual from

Reykjavik; nothing more ridiculous than the contrast of this pin’s

point, this atom of pyritic formation, with the gigantic theory which

it was held to prove, earth’s central fire, the now obsolete dream of

classical philosophers and “celebrated academicians;”[107] nothing more

curious than the contrast between Nature and Art, between what we see in

life and what we find in travellers’ illustrations. Sir John Stanley,

perpetuated by Henderson, first gave consistence to popular idea of

“that most wonderful fountain the Great Geysir:” such is the character

given to it by the late Sir Henry Holland, a traveller who belonged to

the “wunderbar” epoch of English travel, still prevalent in Germany.

From them we derive the vast background of black mountain, the single

white shaft of fifty feet high, domed like the popular pine-tree of

Vesuvian smoke, the bouquet of water, the Prince of Wales feathers,

double-plumed and triple-plumed, charged with stones; and the minor jets

and side squirts of the foregrounds, where pigmies stand and extend the

arm of illustration, and the hand of marvel.

In this little patch, however, we may still study the seven forms of

Geysir life. First, is the baby still sleeping in the bosom of Mother

Earth, the airy wreath escaping from the hot clay ground; then comes the

infant breathing strongly, and at times puking in the nurse’s lap;

third, is the child simmering with impatience; and fourth, is the youth

whose occupation is to boil over. The full-grown man is represented by

the “Great Gusher” in the plenitude of its lusty power; old age, by the

tranquil, sleepy “laug;” and second childhood and death, mostly from

diphtheria or quincy, in the empty red pits strewed about the dwarf

plain. “Patheticum est!” as the old scholiast exclaimed.

It is hardly fair to enter deeply in the history of the Great Geysir,

but a few words may be found useful. The silence of Ari Fróði (A.D.

1075), and of the Landnámabók, so copious in its details, suggests that

it did not exist in the eleventh century; and the notice of Saxo

Grammaticus in the preface to his History of Denmark proves that it had

become known before the end of the thirteenth. Hence it is generally

assumed that the volcanic movements of A.D. 1294, which caused the

disappearance of many hot springs, produced those now existing.[108]

Forbes cleverly proved the growth of the tube by deposition of silex on

the lips,[109] a process which will end by sealing the spring: he placed

its birth about 1060 years ago, which seems to be thoroughly reasonable;

and thus for its manhood we have a period of about six centuries.

In 1770 the Geysir spouted eleven times a day; in 1814 it erupted every

six hours; and in 1872 once between two and a week. Shepherd vainly

waited six days; a French party seven; and there are legends of a wasted

fortnight. The heights are thus given by travellers:

Ólafsson and Pállsson (1770-72), 360 feet.

Von Troil (1772), 92 ”

Stanley (1789), measured with a quadrant, 96 ”

Lieutenant Ohlsen (1804), mentioned by

Henderson, also with a quadrant, 212 ”

Hooker (1809), upwards of a 100 ”

Mackenzie (1810), 90 ”

Henderson (1815), 60-80 “ {Second visit,

{above 200 ft.

Barrow (1834), 80 ”

Pliny Miles (1854), 70-72 ”

Forbes (1860), 60-100 ”

Symington (1862), 200 ”

Baring-Gould (1863), 90-100 ”

Bryson (1864), “as high as the Scott Monument.”

Robert Mackay Smith (1864), 100 measured feet.

Thus the mean of the best authorities would be 80 feet, exactly equal to

the _Grandes Eaux_ of Versailles. The artificial maximum is popularly

laid down at 90 feet. But torpedo experiments with 100 lbs. of picric

powder have lifted a 2000-ton column 53 yards high; and we hear of

pillars 50 feet thick reaching 123 yards. The Giant Geysir, a silicious

spring near the head of the Firehole River, according to Dr F. V.

Hayden, propels an 8-feet shaft by steady impulses from 150 to 200 feet

from the orifice.

The shooting action of the Geysir, an affair of 700 horse-power, has

been explained in four distinct and several ways: by a reservoir, by a

straight tube, by a bent tube, and by no tube at all. Furthermore, one

experimenter applies fire to the centre of the tube, another cold,

whilst a third heats the angle. Mackenzie suggested the “hypothetical

subterranean cave” which was adopted by all the writers of his day; by

Scrope, Dufferin, the Napoleon Book, and many others. They all forget

that the reservoir and the syphon would produce regular and not

intermittent action.

The epoch-marking visit of Professor Bunsen proved, by soundings, the

Geysir to be a regular tube, 60 to 74 feet deep, with a diameter of 10

feet 4 inches: he found the temperatures by _termometres à deversement_

varying to a maximum of 270° (F.), or 58° above boiling point; and Mr

Bryson (1864) verified these observations, making the bottom of the pipe

240°, and the centre 270°. Superheated water loses the cohesion of its

particles with the expulsion of air, and, if pressure be removed,

“flashes into steam;” this well-known fact at once suggested the

chemist’s explanation. Thus M. Müller was able to make an artificial

Geysir; M. Douay of Ghent corked a straight brass tube, and caused

explosion by heating it at the bottom and at half length; and Professor

Tyndall followed with his pipe of galvanised iron, 6 feet long,

surmounted by a basin, and girt about the centre with burning gas. Even

the detonations were imitated; those of the model were explained by

steam being condensed in the saucer, whose diameter is 52 to 60 feet,

and whose contents are cooled by abundant evaporation--the same

phenomenon on a small scale will be observed if water be heated in a

bottle. Whilst the far-famed Werner held that volcanoes were caused by

the burning of coal-beds, George Stephenson, a great and original

mechanical genius, more Wernerian in this point than the master himself,

was so impressed by the rhythm and regularity of movements as he first

sighted a volcano that he at once referred them to steam and superheated

water.

But presently observers raised the valid objection that if air were

liberated in large quantities, the Geysir surface would be ever boiling

like that of the “Strokkr.” Hence Baring-Gould suggested that an angle

in the pipe is sufficient to produce all the phenomena, and he calls the

following experiment “merely an adaptation of Sir George Mackenzie’s

theory.” Bend an iron tube to 110°, making one arm half the length of

the other; fill with water, and place in the fire. For a minute the

liquid will remain quiet; presently it begins to quiver; steam generated

in the shorter section causes a slight overflow, without signs of

ebullition, till the bubble turns the angle: the column of the longer

arm is then suddenly forced high in the air, and a jet of eighteen feet

can be produced with a tube, whose long arm measures two feet, and whose

bore is three-eighths of an inch. The bending pipe is given by Forbes

(p. 252), but he has drawn no conclusions from it.

Finally, Dr Hochstetter (Revue Hebdomadaire de Chimie), whose highly

interesting experiments throw much light upon volcanic action, can

almost dispense with a pipe. When sulphur is melted under water, with a

pressure of forty-five pounds to the square inch, the mineral absorbs

part of the fluid, and as the former cools, the latter is driven out as

steam accompanied by explosions. When the quantity of sulphur is

excessive, upheavals take place, craters are formed, and melted

brimstone is ejected.

Evidently the several theories require reconciling. A friend wrote to

me: “Your suggestion of emptying the Geysir can be done only by a force

pump. The long arm of a syphon would require to measure upwards of a

hundred yards to find a lower level than the bottom of the tube, which

lies eighty-six feet below the upper basin-rim. And even if you succeed,

we shall learn very little more than what we already know, or we have

reason to assume.” I rejoin that the position of the spring which fills

the Geysir after each explosion, and which keeps up the constant flow

over its saucer, is a matter of the greatest importance.

Ólafsson produced a new “Gusher,” by simply piercing through eighteen

feet of sulphur ground at Krísuvík; and in Tuscany there are artificial

_soffioni_, one of which has been driven 168 metres into strata showing

145° (Centig.). In the present state of science we evidently need not

despair of being able to create a Great Geysir upon the grandest scale:

these eruptions come from earth’s skin not from her intestines; and the

subterranean laboratories of metallic bases are readily opened to

oxidation.

Remains now only to walk over the ground, which divides itself into four

separate patches: the extinct, to the north-west, below and extending

round the north of the Laugarfjall buttress; the Great Geysir; the

Strokkr and the Thikku-hverar to the south.

In the first tract earth is uniformly red, oxidised by air, not as in

poetical Syria by the blood of Adonis. The hot, coarse bolus, or

trachytic clay, soft and unctuous, astringent, and adhering to the

tongue, is deposited in horizontal layers: snowy-white, yellow-white,

ruddy, light-blue, blue-grey, mauve, purple, violet, and pale-green, are

the Protean tints; often mixed and mottled, the effect of alum,

sulphuric acid, and the decomposition of bisulphide of iron. The saucer

of the Great Geysir is lined with Geysirite (_silica hydraté_), beads or

tubercles of grey-white silica; all the others want these fungi or

coral-like ornaments. The dead and dying springs show only age-rusty

moulds and broken-down piles, once chimneys and ovens, resembling those

of Reykir, now degraded and deformed to couthless heaps of light and

dark grey. Like most of the modern features, they drained to the cold

rivulet on the east, and eventually to the south. The most interesting

feature is the Blesi (pronounced _Blese_), which lies 160 feet north of

the Great Geysir. This hot-water pond, a Grotta Azurra, where cooking is

mostly done, lies on a mound, and runs in various directions. To the

north it forms a dwarf river-valley flowing west of the Great Geysir;

eastward it feeds a hole of bubbling water which trickles in a streak of

white sinter to the eastern rivulet and a drip-hole, apparently

communicating underground with an ugly little boiler of grey-brown,

scum-streaked, bubbling mud, foul-looking as a drain. The “beautiful

quiescent spring” measures forty feet by fifteen,[110] and is of

reniform or insect shape, the waist being represented by a natural arch

of stone spanning the hot blue depths below the stony ledges which edge

them with scallops and corrugations. Hence the name; this bridge is the

“blaze” streaking a pony’s face. Blesi was not sealed by deposition of

silex; it suddenly ceased to erupt in A.D. 1784, the year after the

Skaptár convulsion, a fact which suggests the origin of the Geysirs. It

is Mackenzie’s “cave of blue water;” and travellers who have not enjoyed

the _lapis lazuli_ of the Capri grotto, indulge in raptures about its

colouration. North-west of the Blesi, and distant 300 feet, is another

ruin, situated on a much higher plane and showing the remains of a large

silicious mound: it steams, but the breath of life comes feebly and

irregularly. This is probably the “Roaring Geyser” or the “Old Geyser,”

which maps and plans place eighty yards from the Great Geysir.

The Great Geysir was unpropitious to us, yet we worked hard to see one

of its expiring efforts. An Englishman had set up a pyramid at the edge

of the saucer, and we threw in several hundredweights, hoping that the

silex, acted upon by the excessive heat, might take the effect of turf;

the only effects were a borborygmus which sounded somewhat like

B’rr’rr’t, and a shiver as if the Foul Fiend had stirred the depths. The

last eruption was described to us as only a large segment of the tube,

not exceeding six feet in diameter. About midnight the veteran suffered

slightly from singultus. On Monday the experts mispredicted that he

would exhibit between eight and nine A.M., and at one A.M. on Tuesday

there was a trace of second-childhood life. After the usual eructation,

a general bubble, half veiled in white vapour, rose like a gigantic

glass-shade from the still surface, and the troubled water trickled down

the basin sides in miniature boiling cascades. Thence it flowed

eastwards by a single waste-channel which presently forms a delta of two

arms, the base being the cold, rapid, and brawling rivulet: the

northern fork has a dwarf “force,” used as a _douche_, and the southern

exceeds it in length, measuring some 350 paces.

We were more fortunate with the irascible Strokkr, whose name has been

generally misinterpreted. Dillon calls it the piston, or churning-staff;

and Barrow the “shaker:” it is simply the “hand-churn” whose upright

shaft is worked up and down--the churn-like column of water suggested

the resemblance. This feature, perhaps the “New Geyser” of Sir John

Stanley and Henderson, formerly erupted naturally, and had all the

amiable eccentricity of youth: now it must be teased or coaxed. Stanley

gave it 130 feet of jet, or 36 higher than the Great Geysir; Henderson,

50 to 80; Symington, 100 to 150 feet; Bryson, “upwards of a hundred;”

and Baring-Gould, “rather higher than the Geysir.” We found it lying 275

feet (Mackenzie, 131 yards) south of the big brother, of which it is a

mean replica. The outer diameter of the saucer is only 7 feet, the inner

about 18; and it is too well drained by its silex-floored channel ever

to remain full. A funnel or inverted cone, whereas the Great Geysir is a

mound and a cylinder, it gives the popular idea of a crater: the upper

bore is 8 feet 4 inches to 9 feet, the depth 44 to 49, and about

half-way down it narrows to 11 inches. The surface is an ugly area of

spluttering and even boiling water. A “fulminating dose” of twenty-four

turfs and stones, with three by way of “bakhshísh,” brought on the usual

tame display of “bouquets d’eau in sheaves, gerbes, lanceolations, and

volutes,” the highest rising at most 40 feet: travellers give twelve

minutes for the operation, others see it “almost instantaneously;” we

had to wait more than an hour. Bryson explains (pp. 44, 45) the action

of turf by its organic matter causing violent ebullition, like the mucus

or albumen of eggs, which make the pot boil over, or like the vesicles

in foam or custard-confining atmospheric oxygen. But a second experiment

with stones only, and the want of suddenness in the outburst, made us

fall back upon the homely old theory, namely, that stopping the narrow

tube enables the water to overcome the pressure of the upper column. The

French expedition, after duly “activising it,” fired a shotted gun at

the surface of the Strokkr, which is said at once to have ceased

boiling.

The most interesting part to us was the fourth or southern tract. It is

known as Thikku-hverar, thick caldrons (hot springs), perhaps in the

sense opposed to thin or clear water. Amongst its “eruptiones flatuum,”

the traveller feels that he is walking

“Per ignes,

Suppositos cineri doloso.”

There are at least fifty items in operation over this big lime-kiln;

some without drains, others shedding either by sinter-crusted channels

eastward or westward through turf and humus to the swampy stream. It

shows an immense variety, from the infantine puff to the cold

turf-puddle; from Jack-in-the-box to the cave of blue-green water,

surrounded by ledges of silex and opalline sinter (hydrate of silica),

more or less broad: the infernal concert of flip-flopping, spluttering,

welling, fizzing, grunting, rumbling, and growling never ceases. The

prevalent tints are green and white, but livelier hues are not wanting.

One “gusherling” discharges red water; and there is a spring which

spouts, like an escape pipe, brown, high and strong. The “Little

Geysir,” which Mackenzie places 106 yards south of the Strokkr, and

which has been very churlish of late years, was once seen to throw up 10

to 12 feet of clean water, like the jet of a fire-plug. The “Little

Strokkr” of older travellers,[111] a “wonderfully amusing formation,

which darts its waters in numerous diagonal columns every quarter of an

hour,” is a stufa or steam-jet in the centre of the group, but it has

long ceased its “funning.”

Here we tried our final experiment. The small spring farthest to the

south-west, and about 310 feet from the Strokkr; raised upon a little

platform of silicious laminæ, and draining southwards, has two distinct

issues, one nearly circular (1 foot by 10 inches), and the other

long-oval (1 foot by 6 inches), distant 2 feet 2 inches, but apparently

communicating; the depth is 11 feet, after which soundings are prevented

by irregularities. We blocked up both apertures with well-tamped turf.

The northern remained closed. After forty minutes, the southern began

to play; it threw up gerbes some 30 feet, which showed fragments of

“Geysir rainbow,” and this lasted at least an hour and a half, after

which it was completely exhausted; its earths were stopped next morning,

but during six hours there were no results. Simultaneously with this

eruption, and reminding us of Horrebow’s sympathetic water, the Red

Mouth, a dwarf basin some 440 feet to the south-east, into which we had

also thrown stones, began to play. This experiment suggested

considerable doubts as to the general applicability of all existing

theories. Another point which still remains for inquiry is that of the

Salses or cones emitting slime and hydrogen. In the United States it is

supposed that these “mud-puffs” begin as clear Geysirs, or as boiling

springs, and that they become thicker and thicker till the heat dies

out, when the fetid matter no longer appears. As far as I know, the

theory has never been applied to Iceland.

I cannot but hold the Geysirs, in their present condition, to be like

Hekla, gross humbugs; and if their decline continues so rapidly, in a

few years there will be nothing save a vulgar solfatara, 440 by 150

yards in extent. But, luckily for the sight-seer, facilities of travel

increase in still greater proportion. A few will visit the jetting

boiling water near the beautiful Lake Roto-ma in New Zealand, made known

to us by the Curse of Manaia. Many will picnic to the “Grand National

Park” of the Yellowstone, where, as in the new hemisphere generally,

every feature, lakes and cataracts, forest and cañon, is on a scale

unknown to the old.[112] Here the Mud Geysir (Firehole Basin) is a

greater Strokkr; the Mud Puffs are the Thikku-hverar _en grand_; and the

silicious mound of the “Giant Geysir” is so broken that its sinuous

orifices expose the boiling water forty feet below, and its paroxysms

have lasted three hours.

After this depreciatory notice of another “Wonder of the World,” it is

only fair to the reader that he should be supplied with a description of

it by a more enthusiastic pen.

“I was particularly fortunate,” writes a friend from Edinburgh, “in

witnessing two grand eruptions of this magnificent fountain: the first

from its commencement till its close.

“By the favour of the Danish Government, the 18-gun ship ‘Thor’ received

six travellers on board in Leith Roads on the 18th of June 1855. My

friend the late Dr Robert Chambers, in his ‘Tracings of Iceland and the

Faroe Islands,’ gives an interesting account of our voyage, of a boat

trip with him and a friend through the Faroe group, and of our ride to

the Geysers.

“We arrived at Reykjavik on the 27th, having difficulty in getting a

pilot to come on board the monster that could sail against wind and

tide, the ‘Thor’ being the first steamer that had appeared in Iceland

waters.