Part 11

I will not weary my readers any longer by continuing a description of the monotonous dreary scenery met with at this stage of my journey, and in fact as I trudged along dreamily, recalling to mind the many incidents that had crowded themselves upon me since I had been on the island, my eyes had been as it were blind to the surroundings to such an extent that more than once I was only recalled to them by the stumbling of my faithful horse, the rolling of a boulder, or an extra fierce gust of blinding wind; and then, once more reminded of the fact that I was still a traveller, I gazed around like a wanderer amongst the sepulchres of a past race, awe-struck with the lifeless condition of the place, while my mind wandered back from the silent scene to the one or two living giants (Öskjugjá, &c.) that still existed, lonely examples of the activity and power of an age so far removed from the world’s history as to be lost in antiquity, and yet still so vigorous as to fulfil the important and wonderful mission of connecting the present with the most primitive ages of the world.

Well, after trudging along several miles in this dreamy mood we at last arrived at the Skriðufell farm, but here, I regret to say, we found no welcome, for the farmer was a noted churl, and instead of offering us the same generous hospitality as all others had, he positively refused the smallest assistance, even going so far as to object to let us put our horses under the old roof of an outhouse. My companions pleaded in his behalf that he could not help it, as he had had the misfortune to be crossed in love! which I was very sorry to hear, and sincerely trust no similar calamity might happen to spoil the other inhabitants.

However, being compelled to push on again by this unpleasant contretemps, we made as much haste as we could, and were soon pleased to find ourselves in front of a poor little homestead, where we were glad to find a generous welcome, plenty of good milk and other necessaries, of which we availed ourselves, being made truly welcome. After this brief halt we again pushed on to the Hagafell along the banks of the Hagafjall, with Hekla full in sight, its summit being, as usual, enveloped in clouds. Here we obtained a good night’s rest, and wishing to obtain some specimens from the Great Geysir, I decided to reach Reykjavík _viâ_ Geysir and Thingvellir, although it was the longest route, and accordingly in the morning we made our way towards Hruni, upon the banks of the Kálfá. I next turned a little out of my way to examine a white buttress of rock protruding from a grassy hill upon our right hand. This proved to be a ridge of intruded trachytic lava, extending a considerable distance; I mention this as it was the only instance of purely trachytic lava which I had met with, excepting in a pumiceous form. Here we were most cordially and hospitably received by the priest of Hruni, who would not allow us to depart without bringing out a bottle of his best port wine, and hearing an account of our experience. It was late in the night before we arrived at Great Geysir. One of the principal objects of my visit to this part was to seek a box of minerals I had entrusted to the care of the farmer of Haukadalr to take to Reykjavík in the previous year, but which had never come to hand, though he protested that he had delivered them according to my directions, however, I set about collecting fresh specimens, which was no very serious trouble.

Great Geysir did not favour us with an eruption, as we had wished, so we stirred up Stroker with the usual meal of turf, which caused it to spout, but scarcely to the same height as when I witnessed its performance in 1874. In the evening we left for Thingvellir, but as we did not arrive there till one A.M. we did not awake our friend the priest, who, on rising, found us lying asleep, with the tent covered over us, upon the grass just outside his door. This good gentleman upbraided us for not waking him up, brought out everything of his best, and gave us a hearty breakfast, for we were old friends. Five hours’ hard riding later on brought us to Reykjavík, where I again put up at the house of friend Oddr Gíslasson, who had two Scotch ladies staying with him. These I found to be Miss Oswald and Miss Menzies, who had been making a prolonged tour in the island--a plucky undertaking, which perhaps may encourage other ladies to seek health and amusement amongst the wild rocks of salubrious Iceland, undeterred by the fear of having no other escort than an Icelander.

Upon the arrival of the Post ship, I was amused to receive an extract from the “Evening Echo” of August giving a most deplorable account of my health and personal appearance after crossing the Vatna Jökull. Though it amused us all at Reykjavík, I felt sorry to think of the unnecessary distress and anxiety it might cause to my friends at home. If such were the motive of the writer, it may gratify him to learn that he succeeded admirably. However, any one of the Sulphur Company would at once have pronounced the statement to be false.

I rejoiced in the possession of two pairs of Alpine boots, but I preferred wearing Icelandic mocassins, they being easier to walk in. I had also two coats, but always preferred wearing a tight knitted jersey and waistcoat, which were much more convenient for movement, while I generally prefer a knitted cap instead of a hat, for a cap draws down about the ears and keep them warm, and is less at the mercy of sudden gusts of wind. It seemed curious how such a worthless little piece of pure imagination could gain access to London newspapers. The simple facts are, I sent a carefully written letter, giving a succinct account of my journey across the Vatna Jökull and my visit to Öskjugjá, the effects of which volcano were creating much discussion in England at the time. This letter Capt. Burton kindly forwarded for me to the “Times,” and it was set up in type (as the proof came into my hand on my return), but for some reason or another, best known to the editor, it subsided into the waste paper basket, while a more lengthy letter I afterwards wrote to the same journal, giving an account of the eruption in the Mývatns Örœfí, appeared in full. There are anomalies in the civilized world which confound one even more than the idiosyncracies of nature.

With the Post ship came several tourists who were bent on making a few days’ excursion in the island. We therefore made up a party, including Miss Oswald, Miss Menzies, Mr. Young, of Edinburgh, and myself, to pay a visit with Oddr Gíslasson to some solfataras belonging to him at Cape Reykjanes, and a very pleasant trip it was, though the way was extremely monotonous, being as usual over a series of lava streams flowing from the Krísuvík mountains. The part of the S.W. peninsular we were traversing was called the Vatns-leysuströnd, or waterless strand; here there is no fresh water to be obtained except upon the beach where the lava streams terminate. These can often only be reached at low water, and then, as may be imagined, the water is brackish. Two days’ journeying brought us to Kirkjuvogr, where Oddr Gíslasson’s mother and brothers-in-law lived. It is one of the best homesteads in the south, besides having about the largest piece of grass land on this peninsular. It is also a fishing station of some importance, lying as it does upon the south bank of a little boot-shaped creek named Oscar. We were very kindly received, and the next day rode on to the solfataras of Reykjanes at the extremity of the peninsular. The day was miserable, and we were unable to get a satisfactory view. These solfataras, however, are remarkable, as the acid and heated vapours have here, as in other places, formed extensive pools of calcareo-siliceous mud, hardened in some instances into almost a semi-opal, coloured and streaked with blood-red stains from the ferruginous nature of the rocks which have been decomposed, but the sublimations of sulphur were very insignificant.

The most remarkable feature of the locality occurred where the lava was not much decomposed by the erosive action of the vapours, and upon splitting such masses of the partially decomposed rock, scarlet vapours could be seen issuing from crevices beneath, coating any surface that was partially exposed to the air with a film of iron pyrites. Further up the side of the old volcano, at the base of which these curiosities are to be found, are pools and pits of blue, red, and green boiling clay. While in this locality the rain continued and the fog became more dense, and as it would have been anything but pleasant to be caught in a thick fog amongst the lava and solfataras of Reykjanes, we curtailed our visit, and returned with all speed to Kirkjuvogr.

The next day, wishing to avoid the tedious road over the lava by which we came, we rode to Njarðvík, where we hired a sailing boat, and returned by sea to Reykjavík. Here I found that Captain Cockle and Mr. Slimond had returned by the Post-ship with the welcome intelligence that the steamer “Queen” would arrive in about a week, and sail almost as soon as the old tub “Diana.” This was indeed good news to us all, for we had determined to return by a small sailing ship belonging to a horse-trader, Mr. Ascham, rather than subject ourselves to the floating purgatory of the Diana.

In due time the “Queen” arrived, and I bade Iceland and Icelandic friends farewell, feeling satisfied with my summer’s work, and consoling myself with the thought that I had accomplished the little piece of “utter folly” I had thrice undertaken. I resignedly committed myself to the evils of sea-sickness, from which I had scarcely recovered when we arrived at Edinburgh, two days before the Diana, which had sailed from Reykjavík a day before the Queen. Here I accepted the hospitality of Mr. Slimond, of Leith, and greatly enjoyed British fare and a relapse into civilization.

“Ah!” my reader may say with a smile, “after all the toil and trouble undertaken the wonders seen could not have been worth the toil and privation.” My readers, like myself, must by this time have grown somewhat weary of the eternal repetition of lava, pumice, &c., &c., and therefore we will mutually congratulate ourselves upon being able to vary the subject with reference to scenes and subjects more lively and civilized; but I must most respectfully demur to that conclusion, for if the general aspect of nature throughout Iceland be dreary and wild, there is also plenty to reward a man of scientific and athletic inclinations. Indeed the same tiresome pumice and lava and sand, when placed beneath the power of the microscope, is found to possess such wonders and exquisite beauty of form, that the beholder is struck with admiration and astonishment to find so much perfection treasured up in such rough settings, giving material for many an hour of patient study and enjoyment which has alone fully compensated for the hardships of the journey across the Vatna Jökull.

APPENDIX.

It may now be as well to take a retrospective view of Iceland to determine the opinion we have formed of the Icelanders themselves, and sum up the leading physical features and characteristics of the country. Iceland, apart from its historical and literary fame, which it is not our purpose to consider, is of especial interest to the geologist and the physical geographer. It lies almost at the northern extremity of the great volcanic line which skirts the extreme west of the Old World, extending from the island of Jan-Mayen in the Arctic Ocean, through Iceland, the Faroe Isles, Great Britain, the Madeiras, the Azores, the Canaries, along the west coast of Africa, right away down to the Antarctic island of Tristan d’Acunha; and its equal as a centre of volcanic activity can alone be found amongst the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The peculiar manner in which we here find ice and snow mixed up with the igneous productions of its volcanoes imparts a grim beauty to its scenery, that I can well imagine we might travel the whole world over without seeing surpassed. A very short sojourn amongst the weird rocks of Iceland arouses that latent superstition which will lurk in the minds of even the most materialistic, and while we laugh at the mythological credulity of the ancient Icelanders, we cannot help acknowledging that a more fitting place to create an implicit belief in wraiths and demons could not possibly be found, all the way from the elf and pixy dancing amongst the timid flowers, whose bright eyes peep from sheltered rocks in ancient lava streams, to the hobgoblin and the ghoul, moaning and shrieking and performing their nameless deeds upon blasted peaks and barren mountain-tops, where fire strives with frost.

This remarkable little island was colonized 1002 years ago by Norwegians, though its earliest settlement is involved in some obscurity. It afterwards became subject to Denmark, until the year before last, when it received its legislative freedom. The Icelanders are upon the whole a harmless, struggling race, and like most other nations that have been unable to draw upon the arteries of other countries for renewed vitality, are encumbered with that contentment which, however conducive it may be to domestic ease, is fatal to advancement. The last twelve months, however, have introduced the element of enterprise which before was only conspicuous by its absence. This may result from their newly-acquired liberties or the reflective influence of emigration; at any rate it augurs well for Iceland, whose emigrants have already shown that the Icelander contains a good deal of the right sort of stuff in his composition, and the determined pluck of those who accompanied me across the Vatna Jökull shows us that the spirit of their Viking forefathers, who visited both Greenland and America long before the birth of Columbus, is not yet extinct. Pre-eminently perhaps in the Icelanders’ character stands love for his country. It is a remarkable fact that the more barren and unfruitful a country is, the stronger seems to be the attachment and love of the sons of its soil. This trait appears very strongly in the Icelanders’ national song, the first stanza of which runs thus--

“World old Iceland, beloved fosterland, As long as the ocean girds our shores, As long as lovers for their sweethearts sigh, As long as the sun shines upon our mountains, Thy sons shall love thee.”

There is great room for improvement in the home industries of the country, especially in the art of cheese-making, for the milk is rich and excellent, and there is no reason why cheese should not be produced in Iceland that would find a ready sale in European markets. The Icelandic wool, which is unsurpassed, might be likewise worked at home during the winter to a much better advantage; for many choice woollen productions which would command a high price have long ceased to be manufactured. There is also room for improvement in the breeding of stock, and much valuable grass-land might be reclaimed by proper drainage.

The climate of Iceland is very uncertain, but it is much milder than might be expected from its latitude. This is doubtless owing to its insular position, and the influence of the Gulf Stream, one arm of which touches its southern shore. The summer begins in June and ends in September, and during those months the climate is very similar to that of the north of Scotland. The rainfall, especially in the south of Iceland, is very great during the summer, but thunderstorms seldom occur except in the winter. Upon the mountains the climate is still more variable, and I have sometimes experienced a variation of sixty degrees between day and night upon the snows of the Vatna Jökull, at the height of some 4,000 feet above sea level. But few vegetables can now be grown in Iceland--a modicum of potatoes, turnips, radishes, and cabbages alone eking out a struggling existence against an adverse climate, and seldom attaining to what we should consider maturity. The trees of Iceland are mere bushes of birch, willow, and a little ash, and even these are but rarely met with. The chief exports of the country are fish, oil, tallow, wool, horses, sheep, and Iceland spar, but it is to be hoped (now the sulphur mines in the north of Iceland are about to be worked) that in the course of a year sulphur may be added to these. The imports are some of the luxuries and a good many of the necessaries of life. So much for Iceland itself; we will pass by its history, people, exports or imports, and forthwith consider its physical characteristics; these may be defined as the volcanoes of Iceland and their products, the hot springs, the Jökulls, or ice mountains, and their effects upon the climate. Iceland contains no less than twenty-two mountains that have been witnessed in active eruption during historical times. The best known volcano is Hekla. This remarkable mountain rises directly from a plain that has been devastated by its repeated eruptions. As the mountain is approached from the north-west its form appears to be that of an oblong cone; it is about twenty miles in circumference, and 5,000 feet in height; it is capped by three smaller cones, the product of recent eruptions. Its craters are all upon the west and south-west sides, and most of its lava streams have flowed in that direction.

The next best known of the Icelandic volcanoes is perhaps Kötlugiá, which has erupted no less than fifteen times since the year 900. It now presents nothing but a deep valley filled with snow, cutting into the very heart of Myrdals Jökull; it is one of the largest examples of breached craters in the world. The principal phenomena attending eruptions of this volcano are stupendous floods of heated water and the prodigious quantities of sand ejected. It has, I believe, never been known to produce lava, but upon the base of the mountain I found numerous ancient lava streams, proving that at one time Kötlugiá was no exception to its neighbouring volcanoes. The floods from Kötlugiá during eruptions have often submerged a district of 280 square miles, continuing sometimes for days, in spite of the rapid outflow to the sea. These floods are produced not only by the melting of the snow at the time of eruption, but in all probability by the bursting of large cavities in and beneath the mountain, in which water might have been for years accumulating. This aqueous phenomenon is, however, by no means peculiar to Kötlugiá, although it occurs on the largest scale, for during the 13th and 14th centuries all the volcanoes in the south of Iceland erupted water. The most extensive eruption that ever occurred in Europe during historic times proceeded from the south-west portion of the Vatna, named the Skaptar Jökull. This volcano has only been known to have erupted upon that occasion, viz., A.D. 1783, when it produced two of the most extensive lava streams in Europe. The highest volcano in Iceland is Örœfa Jökull, which reaches the height of 5927 feet.

The volcanoes which erupted so violently in the spring of 1875, and one of which wrought such damage in the north of Iceland, are--the Öskjugjá (or the chasm of the oval casket), situated in the Dyngjufjöll mountains upon the north of the Vatna, and a chasm some twelve miles in length, which opened in the Mývatns Örœfí (or sandy desert of Mývatns), but as these have already been described at some length I need only casually mention them.

Having briefly enumerated the more important volcanoes of Iceland, we will now consider their products. First there are the agglomerates, which form such an important feature in the geology of Iceland, formed either directly by debacles at periods of eruption, or indirectly by streams and atmospheric influences. Secondly we come to the lavas; these occur either as stony streams that have flowed from the volcanoes, or as pumice which has been hurled high into the air and fallen in a destructive shower of vesicular cinders. Another class of lavas we must likewise mention, namely, the glassy, but we must for the present confine ourselves more particularly to the physical geology of Iceland, leaving the character of the Icelandic rocks for other consideration. Of the stony streams of lava we have two very good examples; first, the huge lava streams which flowed from Skaptar Jökull in 1783, being 50 miles long and 15 wide; and the other 40 miles in length and seven broad, being in some places 500 feet in depth. It has been computed that the entire mass exceeds in bulk that of Mont Blanc. This lava is basaltic and highly ferruginous, and impregnates very strongly the waters of the river Eldvatn, which flows through it. The second example is the lava stream which has flowed into the far-famed valley of Thingvellir, wherein the Althing, or Parliament, of Iceland used to hold their meetings, and the wonderful rifts of the Almanna-gjá and the Raven’s-gjá occur. At some remote period of the geological history of Iceland a large river of lava flowed from Mount Skjaldbreið, which is about thirty miles distant, into the valley of Thingvellir; a crust, of course, soon formed on the surface, and upon the cessation of the eruption, the still liquid lava at the bottom of the stream continued to flow into the deeper parts of the lake which occupies the south-east end of the valley of Thingvellir, leaving the unsupported crust, which was now of great thickness, to sink down to the present level of the valley, occasioning lateral rifts upon either side of the stream, viz., the Almanna-gjá on one side, and the Raven’s rift upon the other. The valley of Thingvellir is likewise traversed by many smaller fissures and crevasses, which in many instances enclose and almost inosculate large masses of lava; the Lögberg, or “hill of laws,” is such an island of rock, and is rendered inaccessible, except at one point, by deep yawning crevasses. It was on account of these natural fortifications that it was chosen as a forum for the ancient court of Althing, which assembled there once a year. Such are the monuments of Iceland, which take the place of the ruined castles and abbeys of other countries, simply the rude rocks of nature ennobled by brave deeds of history or some touching romance of love.

We now come to the hot springs of Iceland. The chief of these, _par excellence_, is, of course, the Great Geysir; it has been so often described and re-described that it scarcely needs a remark from me. Professor Forbes calculated its age, from the thickness of the siliceous sinter which surrounds its basin, at 1000 years. The Great Geysir is surrounded by numerous other springs of all temperatures and sizes, whose deposits differ according to the character of the rocks through which they pass. There are numerous hot springs scattered about in various parts of Iceland, some of which owe their existence to earthquakes, which instantaneously called them into being--in 1339 a hot spring sixty feet in diameter suddenly opened at Mosfell--and during the earthquakes which preceded the great eruption of Skaptar Jökull in 1783, no less than thirty-five new hot springs made their appearance. We may not dwell longer upon these interesting phenomena, but we will turn our attention to the huge ice mountains or Jökulls of Iceland, which constitute such an important feature in the physical geography of the country. The principle ones are the Vatna, Arnarfells, Hofs, Lang, Myrdals, Godalands, Eyjafjalla, Dránga, and Glámu Jökulls. Of these remarkable features in the physical geography of Iceland we could not find a better example than the Vatna Jökull, which has formed the principal subject of this little book: until recently it was almost a _terra incognita_, and until this year had resisted all attempts to cross it.