Part 4

It was clear that we must now start forward, for not only was there a considerable amount of snow yet to be traversed, but a howling wilderness of volcanic sand, lava, and mountain torrents had to be crossed which lay between the north base of the Jökull and the nearest habitation. We could not remain in our present position, so deeply were we buried, and so difficult was it to get in and out of the tent; moreover the fury of the storm had beaten the snow hard, so there was no time to be lost. I served out a hearty meal, and as packing up under such circumstances seemed to demand some stimulant, I made some grog out of methylated spirit, for all our whisky was gone. This served to quicken our circulation, although it was far from being palatable, having, as my Icelanders said, “slœmr dropi,” or a bad after-taste, and no wonder, as the first taste was not suggestive of an agreeable sequel. We packed, but with great difficulty, owing to everything being frozen quite hard. Upon leaving, I drew over my mocassins a pair of fishing stockings; they were as hard as sheet iron, and were a very great inconvenience to me; but it was too cold to stop and take them off, for it seemed as if we should freeze as we stood. These stockings had been of great service in keeping me dry hitherto, and I hoped they would protect me now. I felt a hard lump in the bottom of my left stocking; if it was snow it meant a frozen foot. But there was no help for it--we could not think of stopping to change foot-gear in such a tempest. The wind had shifted to the west, almost freezing the side exposed to it. We steered N.N.E.: it was fortunate the wind was almost at our back, for we could hardly have faced it.

After three hours’ hard tugging we reached the height of 6,150 feet, and straight away began to descend, and presently at so rapid a rate that I had to send three men behind, in order to prevent the sleigh from starting on its own account for the bottom of the mountain. Suddenly the clouds cleared away before us, disclosing a deep, snowy valley at our feet, and a tall black mountain, streaked with snow, upon our left and west. Lower and lower we descended, more and more precipitous, till it was evident that we could go no farther upon our present course with the sleigh; so Paul and I went forward to explore. The side of the valley terminated in almost perpendicular walls of snow, which were now frozen perfectly hard, and glazed over by the severity of the frost; the opposite side was more broken, with dark crags here and there protruding, while a copious lava stream appeared to flow northwards from the termination of the snow, though I afterwards found that a fringe of glaciers intervened.

We next decided on striking due north, along the sloping sides of the valley, to what we supposed to be Querkfjall, but afterwards found to be Kistufell. Upon returning to the sleigh, while putting back my field-glass, which I was obliged to do barehanded, for my gloves were a mass of ice upon the outside, my fingers began to freeze; but a little hard clapping, and by getting two of my men to beat them with their hands, the circulation was restored. I now ordered three of my men to put spiked iron clamps upon their feet, for without this precaution I doubt not but we should have ended our career, sleigh and all, by an abrupt descent into the valley beneath, unless we had been stopped by some of the ugly crevasses which yawned half-way down the snowy steep, upon the slippery and precipitous sides of which we were descending.

We proceeded, but with great difficulty; our trouble now being, not that the sleigh was hard to get along, but that it would go too fast; in fact, it seemed likely to run away with us altogether. Behind us was a fierce wind, beneath us a precipice of some 800 or 1,000 feet; and the sloping snow-banks we were treading shelved off at such an alarming angle that it rendered the work more dangerous than pleasant. In this critical position I became painfully aware that I had frozen my left big toe; for the increased exertions and the lessening altitude were causing it to thaw. The pain was horrible; but presently the slope became less abrupt, and we stepped along at such a rate that 1,500 feet were negociated with considerable speed. Hurrah! we were again in bright sunshine; but the moment we stood still, the wind cut us to the bone. Before us lay the long looked-for Norðurland. We arrived at the bottom of the valley, and found it full of loose snow, which was knee-deep, for the crust was here much too light to bear our weight, and at every few feet we sunk into a miniature crevasse. After struggling on for some few hours, however, we pitched our tent.

Right thankful was I to get some warm soup and creep into the bag. One of my men--and a real good fellow he was--named Sigurð, cuddled my left foot in his arms, although my writhings kept him as well as myself awake while the others slept. I have had many parts of my body frozen, but I never suffered so much as from that toe.

After a few hours we again started; and although the sleigh travelled easily over the crust, we still broke through it, which occasioned me so much pain at every step that I sat upon the sleigh and was drawn along until we had descended so much that the crust ceased altogether. The snow terminated in a half-melted slush, lying upon a bottom of ice. Wading through the slush, which at times took us up to the waist, we next reached Kistufell, where the ice and snow terminated. Here we landed on a bed of volcanic débris, which covered the ice to such a depth that one could in no way, except by digging, distinguish it from the adjacent fjall. The Vatna Jökull now lay behind us with its mysterious recesses and volcanoes carefully guarded from intrusion by gloom and storm. To the north of us rose a cluster of mountains from which great quantities of steam were rising, and hovering above their summits in a huge mushroom-shaped cloud; to our left and west lay a wide-spreading lava-field, arms of which stretched amongst the neighbouring mountains like the troubled waters of a cindery ocean. Patches of black sand at intervals broke the continuity of this tract of lava, and culminated in a desert still farther to the north-east. Beyond, all the weird forms of fire-wrought mountains formed a fitting back-ground; their rude outlines rendered still more uncouth and grim by the fierce storms of ages. A huge tongue of glaciers at this point swept down to a distance of some ten miles beyond its most northern limit, as represented upon the map published by Olsen in 1844, from a survey made by Gunnlaugsson, in 1835. I here caught sight of Snæfell; and, upon taking its bearings with the smoking mountains, which were evidently the Dyngjufjöll, I found that instead of being at Querkfjall, which was the point I had intended to strike, we were upon the east side of Kistufell, about ten miles too much to the west. What astonished us most was (granted that we were at the east side of Kistufell) that we could see nothing of the Jökulsá-á-fjöllum, which river, upon Olsen’s map, rises at the foot of Kistufell; besides, upon his map the Jökull ends at Kistufell, while here a huge glacier extended east and north-east as far as the eye could reach, though exactly to our north and north-west it terminated abruptly, and only an insignificant river flowed to the north. We here abandoned our sleigh and snow-shoes which had served us so well, and whatever we no longer required, and, making everything into packs, continued our descent over huge piles of moraine, which doubtless covered glacial ice, buttresses and points of which here and there protruded. Having slidden down several steep slopes of snow, which had collected in all the hollows, affording us ready means of descent, we found ourselves at the height of 3,850 feet, in the bed of what evidently had been a large river, though now only an insignificant stream.

To our east and right stretched the immense glaciers before mentioned, completely overrunning the route taken by Gunnlaugsson in 1835, and diverting the source of the Jökulsá, which rises in several arms from the extremity of the glacial tongue before mentioned. Upon our left and west lay the wide-spreading lava-desert of the Ódáðahraun.

Our way over the sandy bottom of the grand old watercourse was an easy one to travel, for the sand had absorbed sufficient water to make it firm and compact. Our attention was engaged for some time in watching the fanciful shapes that crowned the dark wall of ice upon our right, on the opposite side of the stream which now lay between us and the glacier; and now and then we could not help stopping to peer into some of the dark chasms which seemed to penetrate into the heart of the icy monster, and to admire the little cataracts of foam which spouted from clefts in the dark green ice, or to wonder at some icy pinnacle or turret, that ever and again tumbled from, perhaps, some few hundred feet above us with a roar and a splash into the river, there to be slowly melted, while the sound of its downfall echoed and re-echoed amongst the cavernous openings in the glacier from which it had fallen! After an hour or so we settled on a low sandy island in the middle of the river, which must have formed formidable rapids when the immense stream that had hollowed out this mighty watercourse had roared over its bed; but it was shallow enough now, and by judiciously picking our way it scarcely reached up to our knees as we waded to the little island. I here noticed, as I had often done before, an intermittent occurrence of waves in certain portions of the stream. These, in large rivers, are rather terrible things, but here they were on so small a scale as to make their examination simply a safe indulgence of harmless curiosity. These waves occur in all the sandy rivers, and they are occasioned by the sand and detritus, which is brought down by the river in large quantities, accumulating against some obstacle until such a time as it forms rapids, which increase in proportion to the durability of this suddenly-formed sandbank. In most cases it readily yields to the action of the water, and is carried away; if, however, the material which is thus piled up should be of a heavier character than usual, it soon accumulates to such an extent as to resist the action of the water altogether, and cause the current to alter its course. This shows how the rivers of Iceland may be diverted and changed from this cause alone, converting shallows into deep water, and deep water into shallows, indeed altering the position and character of the rivers altogether.

As we lay down, the volcanoes in the Dyngjufjöll were smoking away with increased violence. My frost-bitten toe would not allow me to sleep much, so after a doze of two hours we started on our way; we had but two days’ full rations left, and as Grímstaðir was the nearest farm, a series of forced marches was necessary. Before us to the N.E. was a cluster of hills, which stretched from the southern extremity of the Dyngjufjöll in a S.E. direction towards the Jökulsá, upon the east and west sides of which valleys appeared to open northwards. Wishing, however, to get a good view of the country before us, as neither of us had been here before, and it was a matter of paramount importance that we should make no mistake as to the direction, I decided to steer for the centre of the hills, and to cross them. For a short distance we skirted the tongue of the Jökull, past a line of moraine which shewed that the glacier had ebbed as well as flowed, then bearing more to the north, after a hard walk of three hours we reached the hills before us. They were composed of the usual confusion of agglomerate, sand and lava, which had issued from it--it was impossible to say where; but they were evidently of a very ancient date, and many of the harder rocks were glaciated, while the softer ones were simply ruinous heaps. After an arduous scramble, we crossed these hills and reached the little desert of black volcanic sand we had seen from the northern edge of the Vatna Jökull. This sand plain lay between the Dyngjufjöll and a chain of mountains upon the opposite side of the Jökulsá-á-fjöllum. It was now raining somewhat heavily, but there was no fog; the burdens of my men were heavy, and I was carrying all I could manage with my bad foot. Under these conditions we were obliged often to rest, which much hindered in our progress. We sighted some low, black, misshapen volcanoes, about half way across the plain, and near these we determined to camp for the night. Two hours brought us to a field of lava which had flowed from and surrounded those eccentric little volcanoes which rose in four ghastly eminences in the centre of the plain, in no part more than 100 feet high. Tired as I was, and greatly inconvenienced by my foot, I could not refrain from examining them. They were situated upon a crack from which the lava had welled up in four mamelonic shapes, which in two instances showed irregular breached craters, nearly filled with sand, which had been drifted thither by the wind. The lava was basaltic, and of a remarkably scoriaceous nature, though in the immediate neighbourhood of the volcanoes no cinders were visible around them, so their eruptions must have been attended with but little of explosive character.

The worst feature of our night’s lodging was the absence of water, so I ordered the waterproof coats to be spread out to catch rain for our use in the morning.

It was 1.30 A.M. before we all turned in for the night. Sand is warm to camp upon, but it gets into everything, and when one is wet it sticks to clothes, &c., in a most objectionable manner. By six A.M. we were all awake, sufficient water had collected for immediate use, and we were soon all under weigh over the lava, which in most places flowed very evenly, and being of a more compact character than that which was close to the volcanoes we had just left, had allowed little pools of rain water to collect upon the surface. We marched for four hours, and then struck a large river upon our east. This was the Jökulsá-á-fjöllum. After following its course for some time, we decided to “cache” everything but the remainder of our provisions, our maps, and my diary, for it was my intention to return with horses to the Dyngjufjöll mountains which now lay to our N.W., when I could recover them without much difficulty. Having carefully made our “cache,” we planted a flag-pole upon an adjacent sandbank, and having carefully taken its bearings, struck for the Vaðalda hills, which were not very far distant. These hills run for some nine miles parallel with the course of the Jökulsá; their base being washed by the Svartá, or Black river, which rises in the Dyngjufjöll, but is soon lost in the sand, re-appearing on the Svartá at the commencement of the Vaðalda. Upon the opposite side of this river we found a root of angelica (Icelandic, _hvönn_), the stem and root of which we shared and ate with great relish; we also saw two white sheep, but how they manage to eke out an existence must have puzzled their sheeps’ heads not a little. Though, proverbially, two heads are better than one, I doubt if the proverb would hold good in their case, but there may be some grass in glens which I have not seen in the Ódáðahraun, where enough herbage may grow to feed Icelandic sheep, as they are not very dainty, and are accustomed to short commons.

The Vaðalda hills, although of no great height, command an extensive view towards the Vatna Jökull, and upon reaching their summit I glanced back over the plain. It was one broad wilderness of black sand and lava, girt about with ridges of volcanic mountains, whose numerous cones and chasms have vomited the immense amount of ash, sand and lava with which the surrounding country is covered. In the centre of the plain rose the little volcanoes by which we had encamped the previous night, grimly and perkily protruding, as if they aped their monster brethren around them. Beyond all was the wide, white expanse of the Vatna Jökull, from which a huge tongue of glacier extended more than half way across the plain; from its extremity commenced the river we had been following (the Jökulsá-á-fjöllum), which stretched through the black bare plain sometimes in many arms, enclosing little islands of black sand and pebbles in its sinuous embrace, then surging along through a single deep channel it had worn for itself in the sand, where the unstable banks, even while we gazed on them, were crumbling and falling in, patch after patch of sand rendering still more murky its already discoloured waters.

From here I obtained the first good view of the Querkfjall, which appeared to be a cluster of conical mountains, one huge crater being on the northern side of the Vatna Jökull. This large crater, though partially filled with snow, was smoking at three points, but presented no other signs of activity. Having advanced about a mile upon the Vaðalda, we were soon upon the pumice which was ejected last year from the Öskjugjá, or chasm of oval casket, in the Dyngjufjöll mountains. It has fallen in a line of about twenty-five miles in breadth from the centre of the Vaðalda to the south of Herðubreið, in a band of continually extending ladià eastward towards the sea shore, destroying in its course six farms in the Jökuldalr, and injuring others in the immediate vicinity. This shows that the prevalent winds during the eruption of Öskjugjá must have been south-west.

This pumice is of a remarkably vitreous nature and vesicular in structure, often assuming very beautiful forms, such as sponge, honeycomb, coral or grained wood. As far as the eye could see, the whole country was buried under greyish cinders, often to the depth of several feet; while in places it had been swept up into huge banks of many feet in thickness by the wind, sometimes burying whole lava fields, the more elevated crags of which protruded, as if struggling to get free, and proclaim the existence of the lava stream underneath. We descended into a valley in which everything, like the surrounding country, was covered with the same white greyish pumice, except where the darkly-flowing river wound silently along, deep, black and foul, bearing upon its surface floating islands of pumice.

The pumice had evidently fallen upon the winter’s snow, for a thick layer lay underneath, protected by the cinders from the influences of the summer temperature. Ever and again this substratum gave way, and we sank deeply into a mixture of snow and ashes. It was trying work, but we were well warmed, and pushed on at a good pace. We again climbed to the crest of the hills, and another valley opened to our view, running S.S.E., and another river not marked upon Olsen’s map helped to swell the waters of the Jökulsá, while the river at our feet poured through a rocky chasm it had worn for itself; further on was a jam of floating pumice which blocked up a portion of the river, causing it in some places to look precisely similar to the adjacent ground. Presently, a wide plain opened before us, from which rose a lofty mountain, shaped like a huge pork-pie, crusted over with ice and snow upon its flattened summit, which rose gradually to a fantastic, ornamental apex in the centre. This was Herðubreið, and it was at once recognised by Paul, who had been in the north of Iceland before. Beyond Herðubreið the country was of a darker hue, no doubt caused by the absence of the pumice, which had not fallen upon the sand and lava desert of the Mývatns Örœfí. We now halted to determine our exact position. We found we were about forty-five miles from Grímstaðir, and upon the north end of the Vaðalda, and as it would be necessary to hit the exact spot where the boat was kept, Grímstaðir being upon the east side of the river and we upon the west, we agreed to follow the course of the Jökulsá. This river, in the map, appeared to flow pretty nearly straight, but in reality does no such thing. As food was getting short we took a light meal off our pipes, and reviewed our supplies. We had a half-pound pot of chocolate and cream, about a pound of hard tack, half a pound of butter, and three square inches of “gravy soup”--rather short commons for six men, with forty-five miles, at the very least computation, of the very roughest country possible before them, and which, as we intended to follow the course of the river the greater part of the way, would be sure to develop into considerably more.

There was a lovely yellow sunset as we descended the northern slope of the Vaðalda; the sun was waning towards the north, and the ashen covering of the surrounding mountains reflected an unearthly light, which added a ghastly grandeur to the chaotic desolation through which we were passing, while we ourselves, dirty, brown, and wayworn, as we travelled almost noiselessly in our moccasins over the ash-strewn ground, seemed fitting representatives of the outlaws and evil spirits with which tradition had peopled this wild region. A very suitable abode it seemed for all of evil omen, but even such must have had a hard time of it if the country were in their day such as it is now, which probably was not the case.

By two A.M. we rested, purposing to take a couple of hours’ sleep. I scooped out a place for myself in the cinders, and lying down under the lee of a large stone, covered myself over with my mackintosh coat. Unfortunately my men could not sleep as they were so cold, so we soon resumed our journey. At five A.M. we were due east of Herðubreið, where we took a slight meal, the most prominent feature of which was water from the Jökulsá. We were travelling over an old lava stream nearly covered with pumice, and the river had assumed formidable proportions, having been joined by a third arm upon the east side, which roared over the lava in its bed. The sun was shining brightly, the clouds were beginning to melt away from the summit of Herðubreið, leaving a cloudless sky; a slight frost was glistening upon everything and stiffening our beards, the pumice was getting thinner and thinner, and presently altogether disappeared. Before us lay a broad waste of sand and lava, and in the far distance loomed the mountains of Mývatn, which Paul recognised as old friends, as some years of his life had been spent in the Mývatn sveit. For the first few miles my foot troubled me a good deal, but as soon as I got warm the pain ceased, and as the day promised to be hot, we made the most of these early hours.