tents. Their mother immediately summoned them to give me a kiss, in token of their thankfulness for the boon. I now requested them to read a little, when the youngest girl, who might be about fourteen years of age, performed her task with much propriety, though somewhat intimidated by the presence of strangers. She then handed the Testament to her sister, who was upwards of eighteen, and read with so sonorous a voice, that two hundred people might have heard her with ease. It was pleasing to observe, from her manner, and the emphasis she laid on the proper words, that she not only understood, but seemed to feel the importance of what she read. It was part of the evangelic history of the sufferings of the Redeemer. After making a remark or two on the importance of the Holy Scriptures, and the necessity of perusing them with diligence, we proceeded on our journey, followed by the blessings of a grateful family. We pursued our course nearly in an easterly direction, across a desert of deep sand, which proved very fatiguing to our horses, till we arrived at the banks of the Hvitâ, or White River, which we found flowing in a serpentine course, now spreading its waters over an extensive sandy bed, and now confined to a narrower channel between walls of columnar rock. We rode along the western bank, till we came to the vicinity of the Blue Mountain (Blâfell,) when we struck off to the left, and encamped about seven in the evening, at a short distance from the base of the mountain. Our station consisted of a sandy hill, partially overgrown with moss, coarse grass, and a few dwarfy willows, close to a rivulet which falls into the Hvitâ, a little farther down. Directly behind us rose the huge extinct volcano of Bláfell, the summit of which was enveloped in mist, and its sides, which were entirely destitute of vegetation, presented, in many places, deep ravines filled with snow. At a considerable distance On my return this way the following year, I was still more gratified to find, that this girl had made an astonishing use of the New Testament during the winter; for there was not a passage to which I made the most indirect al. lusion, which she did not quote with the same facility and accuracy as if she had read it from the book, towards the west; we could descry the fantastic summits of a long range of volcanic hills: while, in an easterly direction, the eye was carried over an extensive plain, bounded in the distance by the chain of mountains to the north of Hekla, which, at that time, was free from smoke and flames, and only distinguishable by the mantle of snow, from which she derives her name. Our situation appeared gloomy in the extreme; but, after kindling a fire, and partaking of some refreshment, we retired to rest, and soon buried in sleep all the unpleasant reflections occasioned by the prospect of the desert. Next morning, being the Lord's Day, we assembled in Captain Von Scheel's tent, when one of the servants read the third and fourth chapters of the Gospel by John, in Icelandic; after which we were under the necessity of prosecuting our journey, the horses having eaten all the grass in the vicinity during the night, and we had a ride of more than thirty miles to the next station. During the first three hours, we had rather a tedious ride up the steep ascent covered with broken lava, which extends along the west side of the mountain, till we gained its summit, called Bláfells-háls, where there is a passage between that mountain and the immense chain of ice-mountains in the interior. From this elevation we had a most commanding prospect of the whole level tract of country, which, beginning at Haukadal, and stretching past Skalholt, opens into the extensive plains between mount Hekla and the sea. Several miles behind Thingvalla, lay the large volcanic mountains called Skialdbreid and Tindafall; and between us and this latter mountain, a regular chain of high conical mountains commenced, which stretched to a considerable distance along the base of the neighbouring Yökul. The blackness of their appearance formed a perfect contrast to the whiteness of the perennial snows behind them. What particularly struck us, was the majesty of the vast ice mountain, which extends from a little to the east of Tindafiall, in a westerly and northerly direction, to the distance of not less than an hundred miles across the interior of the island. Though forming but one connected mass of ice and snow, it is divided into four parts in the geographical descriptions. The south-east division, which lay next us, is known by the name of Bláfells-Yökul: a little farther north it assumes the name of Eiriks-Yökul; and the most northerly is called Bald-Yökul. The fourth division is that of Geitlands-Yökul, which terminates the mountain to the west, and stretches along the north-east parts of the Syssel of Borgarfiord. At the spot on which we now stood, it was in our power to receive strong mental impressions either of heat or cold, according to the direction in which we turned. When we looked to the west and north, we had nothing before us but regions of ever-during ice; whereas, on turning to the south, we were reminded by the clouds of smoke ascending from the Geysers, of the maga zines of fire that lay concealed in that neighbourhood. Descending by the west end of Blâfell, which here consists of immense irregular masses of dark brown tuffa, we came again, in the course of a short time, to the Hvitâ, near its egress from a large lake, to which it gives the name of Hvitârvatn. The whole of the western margin of this lake is lined with magnificent glaciers, which, before meeting the water, assume a hue of the most beautiful green. It abounds with excellent fish, and used to be much frequented in former times by the peasants in the south. At the fording-place, the river may be about an hundred yards across; and we found it in some places so deep, that our horses were on the point of swimming. It is certainly the most formidable river in this quarter of Iceland; and is often unfordable for weeks together, when travellers, coming from the desert, are not unfrequently reduced to great straits, by the consumption of the food they had provided for their journey. On leaving the Hvitâ, we encountered a long tract of volcanic sand, with here and there insulated stones, of an immense size, which must have been erupted from the Kerlingar-fialla volcanoes, situated at the distance of fifteen or twenty miles in an easterly direction. Most of these volcanic mountains form beautiful pyramids; and some of them are of a great height, and partially covered with snow. The G cone, in the remote distance, is most perfectly formed, and is quite red in appearance, arising from the scoriæ deposited on its sides. None of these volcanoes have ever been explored; nor have I so much as met with their names in any description of the island that I have seen. From the peasant at Holum, who has proceeded several times to the vicinity in search of moss, I learned that a very extensive tract of lava stretches between them and the ancient road, called Spreingi-sand; and at one place he observed much smoke, which he supposed arose from springs of boiling water. At four o'clock we came to the Black River (Svartá,) fording which, we fell in with an extensive tract, known by the name of the Kialhraun, which has been at least twice subjected to fiery torrents from a volcano in the neighbourhood of Bald-Yökul, if not from the Yökul itself. This lava is upwards of twenty miles in length; and, in some places, five or six in breadth. Here the road divided: that called Kialvegur, leading to Skagafiord, lay to the left, across the lava; whereas the way to Eyafiord, which we pursued, ran along its eastern margin, now on one side of the Black River, and now on the other. After travelling about eight miles farther, over a very stony tract, we came to the station of Grânaness, which we found to be the termination of a very ancient stream of lava, mostly covered with moss and willows, and having only a little grass in the cavities, which have been formed by the bursting or falling in of the crust. Inhospitable as it appeared, we were obliged to stop, as we were exposed to a heavy rain, and the next green spot was about fifty miles distant. On the afternoon of Monday, the first of August, we commenced the worst stage on our whole journey. Our road, which at times was scarcely visible, lay along the west side of the Hof, or Arnarfell Yökul, a prodigious ice mountain, stretching from the volcanoes above mentioned, in a northerly direction, for upwards of fifty miles, when it turns nearly due east, and extends to nearly thirty miles in that direction. The appellation of Langi Yökul is also given to this mountain on the maps, but improperly, as that designation exclusively belongs to the extensive chain of ice mountains already described, as known by the subdivisions of Blâfell, Geitland, Eirik, and Bald Yökuls. On passing it, however, we certainly found it sufficiently long: for we rode at no great distance from it for the space of twenty hours, and were all the time exposed to a cold piercing wind which blew from that quarter. About eleven at night we came to the Blanda, or Mixed River, the waters of which were of a bluish colour, and, dividing into upwards of a dozen of branches, they rendered our passage both tedious and troublesome. Near the north-west corner of the Yökul, a great number of curiously shaped hills presented themselves to our view, which we found, on approaching them, to be partly volcanic, and partly immense masses of Yökul, intermixed with drosses and fragments of lava, which have been separated from the mountain during some of its convulsions, and hurled along to their present situation by the inundations it has poured down upon the plains. At ten minutes before three o'clock in the morning, as we had got quite surrounded by these hills, and were almost shivering with cold (the waters being covered with fresh ice), we were gratified with a view of the sun, rising in all his glory directly before us. The gloom in which we had been involved now fled away; and we obtained a very extensive prospect of the surrounding country. It was a prospect, however, by no means pleasing; for to whatever side we turned, nothing was visible but the devastations of ancient fires, or regions of perpetual frost: Pigris ubi nulla campis We were not only far from the habitations of men, but deserted even by the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air. Here" no voice of cattle is ever heard: both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone." * Jerem. ix. 10. |