CHAPTER II.

THE LANDFALL--FISHING FLEET--TO REYKJAVIK.

After this interlude of Hysteron-proteron, we return to the steamer “Queen,” which has pertinaceously bored through

“The Pentland, where the furious tide, Runs white for many a mile.”

After sighting Cape Wrath, she bade adieu to “Earth’s proudest Isle,” and dashed north-west into the Deucalidian or Deucalidonian Ocean, the Mare Pigrum of the classics, the sea which Adam of Bremen terms _jecoreum et pulmoneum_, because it has a heavy motion like those troubled with asthma, in the same sense as Plautus speaks of asthmatic legs--“pedibus pulmoneis mihi advenisti.” The Germans called it Libersê (Adam Bremensis) and complained that the abnormal quantity of salt made it a Mare Mortuum. Hence Hoffman von Fallersleben sings:

“De lebirmere Ein mere ist giliberot In demo wentilmere westerot Sô der starche Wint Giwirffit die Skef in den Sint,” etc.

The portentous waves remarked by old Icelandic sailors between Iceland and America, are termed by them Haf-girðingar, or Seafens, and the Polar wastes between Norway and Greenland were known as Haf-botnar (deep-sea bay) and Trölla-botnar, because here was the abode of Tröll-carl and Titan. The mighty breakers of the North Atlantic are known to picturesque and poetical tourists, not to seamen, as “Spanish waves.” The sky, before clear, was all cirrus and cirro-cumulus, and the slaty green seas made the too lively “Queen” dance and reel with excitement. The cabin table was put into its straightest waistcoat, and men avoided the deck--on shipboard, as in maritime Iceland, once wet, you cannot dry again. Our numbers shrank at mess, and the passengers seemed to become like the royal and feminine Legs of Spain. Ghostly sounds issued from the cabin; one “Caledonian stern and wild,” attached to a black dog, big as a donkey and hairy as a bear, made fierce attempts to violate the toilette tables and glared hideously at expostulation. Our only consorts were spirting whales and audacious troops of numerous gulls--these escorted us with sundry reliefs of guard as far as Iceland.

Presently we sighted the “Stack,” a split rock with a bald white head, and further to starboard the Bird Skerry, a low dome wholly unprovided with lighthouse--how many a good ship, densely be-fogged, has run her bows upon this Rock of Death, and melted away in the yeasty waves! At 6.30 P.M., we passed the “two solitary islands,” Ronan and Barra, _alias_ Sulisker, of old Sulnasker, north-easternmost outliers of the Hebrides. The former appears in hay-cock shape, the latter is a long flat-backed “horse,” bluff as usual to the north, with a precipice 300 feet high. Both are uninhabited, and might serve for fancy eremites. To starboard rises Fair Isle, half-way between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, once belonging to the former, now to the latter. This rock supplies the shops of Lerwick and Kirkwall with its peculiar hosiery; and the primary colours, blue, red, and yellow, of the Etruscan tombs, and the Temple of Ephesian Diana,[337] are those which Algiers, Morocco, and the East, still know so well to blend. Mixed in the most daring way they are never inharmonious, glaring, and grotesque. It is well worth the artist’s time and trouble to investigate and determine the delicate differences of proportion which can make the “Devil’s livery” so brilliant and pleasing to the eye. “Ye Yle of Fare,” I need hardly note, is supposed to have derived its art from the shipwrecked seamen of the Spanish Armada. “Insula Bella,” says Buchanan; of which Brand remarks, “I neither did see, nor was I informed of anything that affords us any reason why this isle should be so appellatively taken and denominated _bella_ or fair.” The Scandinavian name is Friðarey; otherwise we might believe Fair Isle to be a congener of “Færoes,” from Fier, feathers, or from Fær, a sheep, because _plena innumerabilibus ovibus_” (Dicuil).

* * * * *

_June 6._

Still, as the weather waxed fouler, the aneroids rose higher and higher. We had exchanged an angry Auster, which filled the raw air with damp, for a wrathier Boreas that tore the clouds to tatters. All the northerly winds, which rarely outlast the fortnight in this capricious and treacherous climate, are cold and dry, consequently heavy, whilst those from the rain-bringing south notably want pressure. We are now approaching the region of paradoxes, a practical joke of Nature, where the Rule of Reverse seems generally to apply. Travellers tell us that presently we shall see nine suns, which do not give the light and warmth of one; sub-glacial volcanoes; fire issuing from icebergs--is this not a dream of old Uno Von Troil?[338]--a summer without thunder which is confined to winter; stone crumbling soft under the touch; stalactites and stalagmites of lava, not of lime, Pluto doing Neptune’s work; rivers now bone-dry, then raging floods; forests sans trees; fuel thrown up by the furious sea; deep swamps clothing the high hill-slopes; lakes supplying ocean cod; and wild ducks swimming the almost boiling springs; a land where the men draw and carry water, and a population which, thriving in the worst weather, sickens and dies of malignant catarrh (the Kruym of the Færoes) when the heavens deign to bestow a rare smile.

Our only _passe-temps_ is that of calculating successive positions on the chart. There to starboard lies Foula, which some write Fowla and Foulah, and is evidently Fogla-or Fugla-ey,[339] fowl’s or gull’s eyot. The claims of the “stately headland” to represent

“Thule, the period of cosmographie,”

have been discussed in another place. It belongs to Dr Scott (R.N.) of Melby; it numbers about two hundred souls, and it rejoices in a revenue of some £200 per annum--when fishing and crops are favourable. Like other islands, it has its magic carbuncle. Beyond it lies Papa Stour; Papey, the eyot of Culdees and anchorites: its natural arch will appear familiar after Iceland. About noon we found ourselves off the Færoes, and the rest of the day was spent upon the Ferry of the Northern Sea. We steam all unconscious over the “Sunken Land of Bus,” in N. lat. 58° 2´ and long. 29° 55´; “Arctis,” a continent which has lately been revived, and whose fragments are supposed to be Iceland, the Færoes, Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Franz-Josef’s Land. This is a restoration, or rehabilitation, of Unger’s Miocene Atlantis, which imitates Bailly’s “in having taught us everything but its own name and existence.” Older hydrographic books assure us that the western coast once “occupied many leagues of extent, but that after being overflowed, it is now not more than a league round when the sea is high. There was some years ago a large island named Finsland here, which was full a hundred leagues in circumference, and on which were many villages.” Similarly, Brasil Rock (“Hy Brazile”) was placed in N. lat. 57° 10´ and long. 16°: we have also the submerged land of Lionnesse (Leonnais) extending to the Scilly group and the drowned city of Ys, for which mass was recited till the beginning of the present century; the island of St Brandan, the Masculine and Feminine Islands, the island Scoria with its archbishop, and the island Antillia with the “Septem Cidade,” mythical features, spawns of the old “Atlantis.” Hr Thorsteinnsson of Reykjavik showed me the origin of Finsland, more generally called Friesland, upon a fragment of vellum chart, dating from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, almost “rotten with age,” and ignobly converted into a book-cover. Evidently the “Isola Frislanda” of Messer Antonio Zeno, in A.D. 1380, is a mere clerical or cartographic error for the Færoes appearing in the shape of a large tract of ground close to and south-west of Iceland. Every map of the period supports its existence.

* * * * *

_June 7._

As we approach Snow-land the north wind seems to fall, or rather, to judge from the cirrous sky, it blows high overhead. Sailors in these northern seas believe that after passing beyond the “roaring Sixties” they begin to sail “under the wind.” In other words, they hold that the Polar current, rushing to supply the ascending atmosphere established by solar action at the equator, and forming the upper trades, describes an arc which touches the earth about lat. 60°; whilst in the higher latitudes of both hemispheres, the greatest force of the draught is high overhead. So, on the summit of Tenerife, we stand in a perpetual gale of upper trades, which farther north sinks to the sea surface and overflows Europe.

Our situation was none of the most pleasant. An English vessel, also unprovided with pilot and skilful crew, has lately been wrecked upon the dangerous and inhospitable southern coast of Iceland. The clammy fog enwrapping us like a wet blanket, made altitudes hopeless; the magnet is here bewitched, seeming as if it forgot the pole; the old English hydrographic charts used on board our ships are poor compared with the French and the Danish; and we might have been drifted eastward or westward under the influence of unstudied currents. We crossed the bows of a big-sterned brig, but as she could not exchange a word with us, we “Queens” could only say bitterly,

“Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor illis!”

Under the circumstances we envied Víkingr Floki his consecrated ravens, birds which, since the days of Genesis, are always supposed to make for the nearest land. Perhaps I should say before, as the “croaker”[340] has lately appeared in the mythical seven days’ deluge, related by Sisit (Xisuthrus), and was a very cannibal from the beginning, as well as a bird of augury and sagacity. Sir William Thompson has thus ably discussed the question of raven _versus_ magnet: “We have no certain information of the directive tendency of the natural magnet being known earlier than the middle or end of the eleventh century (in Europe, of course).... That it was known at this date and its practical value recognised, is shown by a passage from an Icelandic historian, quoted by Hanstien in his treatise of Terrestrial Magnetism. In this extract an expedition from Norway to Iceland in the year 868 is described; and it is stated that three ravens were taken as guides, for, adds the historian, ‘in those times seamen had no loadstone[341] in the northern countries.’ This history was written about the year A.D. 1068, and the allusion I have quoted obviously shows that the author was aware of natural magnets having been employed as a compass. At the same time it fixes a limit of the discovery in northern countries. We find no mention of artificial magnets being so employed or even known till about a century later. In a curious old French volume by Givot de Provence, of which the MS. is in the Royal Library at Paris, there occurs the following very interesting passage, which is the first allusion extant to the use of needles in place of the natural magnets for the compass: ‘This same (_i.e._, the Polar star) does not move, and mariners have an art which cannot deceive by the virtue of the magnet, an ugly brown stone to which iron _adheres of its own accord_. When they look for the right point, and when they have touched a needle on it, and fixed the needle on a piece of straw lengthwise in the middle, and the straw keeps it above, then the point turns just against the star undoubtedly. When the sea is dark and gloomy that you can see neither star nor moon, then they bring a light to the needle, can they not then assure themselves of the position of the star towards the point? By such means the mariner is enabled to keep the proper course; this is an art which cannot deceive.’ This passage shows clearly that magnetised needles were actually employed for nautical purposes as they are at present in the twelfth century.” This interesting quotation concerning the Marinière or _La Grenouille_, was obligingly sent to me by Principal D. M’Farlane of Glasgow.

About one P.M. the sea became unaccountably smooth, and as the wind drew round to the north, we judged that we were under the lee of the land. Presently it was whispered that a white gleam of shore had appeared and disappeared over the weather-bow, and that we were running into shallow water, rendering lead more necessary than look-out, whilst upon all ears fell ominous sounds:

“the surf that sings, The bar that thunders, the shale that rings.”

The fog suggested the old traveller’s description, “subito collapsi sumus in illam tenebrosam rigentis oceani caliginem, quæ vix oculis penetrari valeret;” and the sea became a “mare tenebrosum” of the most repulsive aspect. We had intended to make our landfall at the southernmost extremity of Iceland, Portland Head, some forty-five miles to the west. But at six P.M. the water, blackened by the uliginous discharge of an unknown stream, and the dimly-seen pale-grey breakers furiously lashing the low-lying strand, and blurring it with water-dust, told us where we were. Immediately in front of us lay the carse, or alluvial lands, the _déblai_ of those scarped walls that first issued from the deep: here begins what is technically called the Siða, “side,” or sea-shore, the long narrow strip of habitable land between the mountains and the beach. Its western limit is the river Kuðafljót: this, the broadest in the isle, and ridiculously termed “Nile of Iceland,” derives its name from Kúði,[342] the little Norwegian boats which ascended it in the olden day.

We now ran cautiously westward. The southern shore, harbourless as the corresponding part of Sicily, has in many parts, like Norway, two coasts, an inner and an outer; the latter composed of reefs and islands, and somewhat resembling the true or old, and the false or new, shores of tropical Africa, for instance, about Dahome and the Slave Coast. Slowly rose on high, towering through the mysterious gloom, the grisly, black, and scarped form of Hjörleifshöfði, a ghostly castle upon a Stygian strand. But such weather would deform the fairest face that earth can show--would reduce the approach of Venice and of Wapping to an absolute level: as I afterwards saw it in clear sunny weather, Hjörleifs Head is by no means without a certain grim beauty of expression. The huge escarpment is a noble monument to him, who “fell by the basest of slaves” (Irishmen) because he “did not sacrifice to the gods.”

The scene now develops itself and becomes imposing in its cruel hideousness. We are off the eastern Jökull, so called in contradistinction to the western Jökull, now best known as Snæfellsjökull. It is truly Iceland, “everlasting frost,” as oft-quoted Pindar sings, “and fountains of unapproachable fire.” Beyond the ghastly greenish waves, and the low base of black, bleak, and barren shore, appears a contorted _silhouette_ of broken basaltic blocks, a line of “Kárá Bábás” (Black Papas), rising in towers and battlements, and setting off the dead whiteness of the hogsbacks above, gleaming whiter still from their background of angry, watery, purple cloud-rack. The mighty mass starts from the south with the Mýrdals (mire-dale) Jökull, a tract of eighty-four square miles, which often gives a name to the whole; it then connects with the Goðalöndjökull, running east and west about fifteen to twenty miles long, by twenty to twenty-four broad, and utterly unexplored, save only the Kötlugjá;[343] thirdly, rising some way to the westward, the Eyjafjalljökull floats in air, the mighty beacon which guides to his landfall the sailor voyaging from the south. Here the southern or warmer exposure, which Dr W. Lauder Lindsay saw almost bare as late as June 13, shows snow only in the huge rifts gashing its black tormented flanks; whilst its head is crowned with a silvery aureole, possibly the reflection of the northern side, and contrasting sharply with its canopy of slaty-blue sky. The aspect of all this _nevada_ makes the discoverer’s heart beat fast, but the tremendous chasms in the basalt suggest peculiar difficulties.

Still our weary skipper, indefatigable withal, was doubtful about his position, when Professor Paijkull’s volume lying open upon the deck enabled all to recognise the southernmost point, Portland Head (W. long. G. 18° 54´; N. lat. 63° 22´). The broad and high escarpment is faced by three diminutive outliers, and the largest of these is known as Dýrhóla-cy, door-hill-isle; the Napoleon book translates Dýrhólar by _tumulus des arches_. Except that the port-holes number two, it exactly resembles the Doreholm of our Shetland Islands, prefixed by Pinkerton to John Brand’s “Brief Description.” A little to the east lie the Reynidrángar (rowan-needles), a sister formation of drongs, but curving south-eastward and not south-westward.

The freezing wind evidently blew directly from the mighty mass of snow-roofed glaciers lying immediately behind the shore, and it was midnight before we had covered the thirty to thirty-four knots separating Portland Head from the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. The only sensible remark made about these “Irishmen’s islands” was by an ancient seaman who, transferring his quid to the other side of his cheek, declared that they were exactly like a “toon with ill-liggit sta-a-cks.” A small but enthusiastic knot of passengers did not turn in before five A.M.; they were rewarded by seeing sundry cockle-shell craft, the Norwegian steamer making southwards, and a peak which they determined satisfactorily, for themselves at least, to be Hekla.

* * * * *

_June 8._

The morning, if we can so call it where night is negative, not positive, broke clear and cold, the north-westward savouring strongly of Greenland; and under the rosy sky the western horizon was a white streak, as though the gleam of an iceblink,[344] adding a strange Polar charm. After Eyjafjall there is a complete change of feature; the sea faces a great alluvial plain cut by many broad streams, which breaks inland into waves of rolling ground, with dots denoting hill and hillock, and which ends northwards in blue-black ranges jagged with many a detached peaklet. A host of gulls and terns[345] put in an appearance: I afterwards passed twice along this line, and found it almost desert of feather. Our Cockney gun again amused himself by slaughtering and maiming as many unfortunates as he could--it is only fair to own that this wanton cruelty was not looked upon with a favourable eye. The sable-crested and silver-breasted eider ducks with their brown wives fell easy victims. The same fate overtook the black diver (_Colymbus Troile_) and the Lundi[346] or puffin (_Mormon Fratercula_ or _F. Arctica_), called sea-parrot, probably from the disproportionate painted beak which, however, does not lodge a talking tongue. They could hardly rise in the smooth sea, for their wings are short as if they were a transition to the penguins; but they scuttled away, paddling with their web-feet as fast as we approached them. The feathers of the Lundi are collected for stuffing, despite their prodigious growth of pediculi. It is the Shetlanders’ Tommie or Tom Noddy, the Norie of the Orcades, the Priest of Scotland, and the Pope of Cornwall. Some travellers strongly recommend puffin-pie stuffed with raisin pudding and baked, but the oily flesh has a bad name as diet: its chief uses are fuel and fish-bait. Yet the “pope” or “priest,” the half-fledged bird, is pickled and eaten in our islands. The Arctic Skúa (_Lestris Thuliaca_, Prey., or _Stercorarius parasiticus_), the Shetlanders’ Bonxie, kept out of our reach as it chased and plundered its feathery brethren. It derives the opprobrious “_Stercorarius_”[347] from a mere scandal, and “_parasiticus_” from its habit of harrying the tarroch (_Rissa tridactyla_) and the “graceful sea-swallow,” which Mr P. Miles holds to be game (_Sterna macrura_). The Icelanders call this “víking of birds” from its cry, Kjói (pronounced _Kiowi_); and the Færoese Tyovi, “the thief.” The white-robed Dominican, with its black scapular, has a strong wing, and the sharp, crooked claws which garnish the web-feet, make him a raptor addicted, they say, to attacking newly-dropped lambs. The gannets or solan geese (_Sula Bassana_, whence probably Sulisker, the Suleskerry or flat, insulated rock never awash) fell before the shot, but after a short sickness they rose struggling, and winged their way towards land. These interesting birds, made conspicuous by their cream-coloured heads and black primaries, form Indian files or wedges when travelling from place to place, and separate where the tide-rip shows the sea to be unusually fishy. The “_Pelicanus Bassanus_,” though connected by name with the Bass Rock, abounds about the Cape of Good Hope and Madagascar. It is a fowl of many titles. Here it is termed Súla or Haf-súla (deep-sea Sule); whence our solan, misnamed goose; and the Dutch know it as Jan van Genter--whence our “gannet” (?) Its fine shape and flight have probably given it a place amongst the “_singularia naturæ et providentiæ_,” with which the good Bishop Pontoppidan has supplied these northern regions. Hence, according to Meyerus (_de volucri arborea_), the _conchæ avitificæ seu anatiferæ_, birds growing like African oysters on trees: this fable finds a pendant in Los Pateros of Manilla, duck-hatching establishments where men incubate the eggs. Mr James Wilson, speaking of the Solan goose (_Sula alba_) of St Kilda, computes that the 200,000 birds forming the colony consume between March and September 214 millions of herrings. Jerome Cardan (Travels in Scotland) found the “Soland, perhaps Pliny’s sea-eagle,” a bird of general use. In spring they supplied the garrisons with fuel, to say nothing of fish; they patiently endured their young to be taken from them; they have quantities of fat under the skin used for dressing wool (_hac lanas inficiunt_), and a “certain small gut” yields a grease which is excellent for pains in the hip-joint. “The profit this bird gives is manifold, viz., from sticks, feathers, fat, and young ones; and it is said to amount to 500 golden crowns yearly”--an extinct industry!

We ran along the shore of Krísuvíkrberg, with precipices some 200 feet high fronting the leprous splotch upon the conical and jagged highlands that denote the Krísuvík Sulphur Mountain. This formation accounts for the sandstrips, which look notably yellow after the black lowlands to the east; and the colour is rendered brighter by quantities of comminuted sea shells thickly spread on the shore. This south-western projection is one vast “Hraun,”[348] or cold lava-field, a land seemingly afflicted with “black death,” yet it rejoices in the title of Gold-breast Canton (Gullbringu Sýsla); the plentiful fisheries representing the precious metal. At nine _A.M._ we ran by the “Karl” (carle or old man),[349] a detached mass standing boldly out from the lava-crested coast; it has a ridge and steeple, which, especially when seen from the west, justify the English “Church Rock.” Here, like the great lava lip beyond, its flanks are white with the guano of the Filungr or Fulmar[350] (_Procellaria glacialis_), foulest of sea-fowl. Beyond it is a bunch of volcanic cones and tumuli, spiracles and hornitos, all bare rock, or clothed with lapilli; one grass-clad crater appears to be of considerable size, and we easily count four distinct _coulées_ or discharges spilling over the Palagonite cliffs.

Behind the leprous Karl lies Reykjanes, or Reeky Naze, so named with a reason. A puff of steam rose high in the air, suggesting, as I read with astonishment in the _Scotsman_ (June 17th),[351] that “a new Geyser had burst out at a point a short distance inland, and about twenty miles in a south-westerly direction from Reikiavik, throwing up a vast column of water to a height of at least a hundred feet.” The “same outburst was observed in full play on the homeward voyage of the ‘Queen’” (June 11, 1874), and was held to be “premonitory of an eruption of Hecla.” Had the writer looked at the large map of Iceland, he would have seen four blue circlets placed behind Reykjanes to denote warm springs; they are supposed to be the work of the Skaptarfells eruption, which, in 1783, threw up Nyöe, “the new island.” The map of Iceland in Pontanus (1631) shows at this place a “fons commutans lanas nigras in albas.” I may observe that in the first place we saw only steam, not water, or rather that we were too far off to distinguish anything but the former. Secondly, the weather was exceptionally still and rainy; and the damp air, deficient in barometric pressure, allowed vapours to rise high, whereas, under opposite conditions, they would be dispersed, or hug the ground. The Geysirs are said to rage more furiously in wet than in dry weather; and on arrival at Reykjavik we distinctly observed the fumes of Laugarnes, which suggested the name “Reeky Bay,”[352] standing up in a tall, transparent column--it was not seen from the town during the rest of my three months’ stay. I twice voyaged past the site of my friend’s “new Geysir;” every glass was pointed shorewards, but none succeeding in detecting the least trace of water or vapour. In 1862 Mr Symington (p. 46) observed “steam rising from a hot sulphur spring on the coast” near Reykjanes. Finally, as will be seen, Icelanders who have visited the spot describe the features as “Hverar,” caldrons, boiling fountains; or as “Laugar,” baths, tranquil waters.

The Fire Isles being hidden by fog, our attention was drawn to the mosquito flotilla of fishing-boats around us, each confined to its beat by the various buoys and buckets. The general appearance of the craft is that of the Shetlands; Mr Spence compared them with the “Westræ skips,” but the Icelander is not nearly so solid as ours. The largest carry two low masts, both strongly supported by backstays; they are clinker-built, high at stem and stern, with a sharp projection for the rudder, which fits loosely into two iron eyes, and which often proves worse than useless. A transverse section forms the letter V; the planks belly out little, probably for facility of hauling up: the latter process, especially when the sun is hot, renders them exceptionally leaky, and want of care causes them to last for a very short time. There is no such thing as a decked boat in sight; the total of sixty-one to sixty-three which exists in the whole island being almost confined to shark catching on the north coast, whilst there are 3092 open boats, with from two to twelve oars. Row boats are preferred on account of the number of hands they feed; and hence the unusual loss of adult males, which is said to average forty per cent. drowned. At all times the crews must run three to six miles out before arriving at their ground, and repeat the task after work--a vast waste of time and toil. The craft has plenty of what the French call _pied_, and will not hesitate to cross the Faxa Fjörð, some fifty miles broad. The ballast is composed of basalt blocks, and the numerous sails are mere strips of cloth, for greater convenience of lowering. The oars are remarkably narrow, the rule even in “The Islands,”[353] a precaution rendered necessary, it is urged, by the strong currents. I strongly suspect it to be the mere effect of “father-to-son” principle. Below the handle, the shape is a heavy square, on the principle of the Rhine and the Kaikjis on the Bosphorus. The oars fit into coarse thwarts, lined with hoop-iron, or they play upon rude wooden pins doubled to the fore. The stroke is very long and slow, hardly to be recommended for Oxford and Cambridge; and of course feathering is impossible. Iceland nets are ridiculously small, and are floated by gourd-shaped bottles of Danish manufacture, closed at the mouth: these glass balls are also used by Norwegian fishermen. At the capital there are no lighters; farther north they will show themselves, shaped like the fisher-boats, but many-ribbed as herrings. Evidently the first want is a decked vessel of from twenty to thirty tons, which would employ fewer hands, and show better returns.

The smaller craft are four-oared, and at the landing-place we shall find two-oared boats: not a gig is to be seen, and the highest authorities must embark and disembark, if they cannot borrow from a man-of-war, in these receptacles of slime and filth. The seat is a mere perch, decidedly not comfortable; baling with the little wooden scoup is hardly ever thought of, and all are equally wet and greasy. We read in the Sagas of “long ships,” of dragon ships, and of merchantmen, whose common complement was some thirty oars: the figure-heads of the Vikings were so frightful that they terrified the Land-vættir, or local genii; and the decks were protected by awnings, and “girdled for war” by shield being laid to shield on rims or rails.[354] Truly, the mariners of Iceland have lost much by staying at home in ease; and piracy evidently had its advantages.

The crews of these outlandish “skips” are as degenerate as their craft. Silken kirtles, gilded helms, and spears inlaid with gold, are as unknown to them as the “Bisons” and “Serpents” which caused “a furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine!” to be inserted into the monkish litany. The men are good for fine weather, but in danger all become captains; very different from the Danish sailor. The comfortable primitive costume is gone; the Stakkr, hide blouse or jacket, extending from the neck and fastened round the waist; the large Sæskór, or water-boots; and the Leistabrækr, or stocking breeks, also lightly laced about the middle. The moderns are clad much like our fishermen; they have, however, sensibly preserved the long-flapped “sou’wester,” now “out of fashion” in Great Britain. They seem to rejoice in wet feet, wearing three or four pair of coarse woollen socks, which serve to retain the water. The only peculiarity of their dress is the Iceland glove, which even the shepherd and the mountain-guide will never doff. For the convenience of a dry and clean side near the palm, it has two thumbs, one projecting from the little finger, as if all were _sexdigitati_, like the Shaykhs of the Fazli clan near Aden. Little or no provision is taken on board, and the chief luxury is snuff, the pinch being spread in line from the root of the thumb upwards, somewhat after the style of the original Scotch “sneeshin’ mull;” at times the flask is raised to the nose, and poured in till that member, which ought here to be placed bottom upwards, is filled. These water-ousels reap golden harvests of cod during the season, sometimes clearing per diem ten rixdollars a-head; and if you hire a Reykjaviker two-oar for the afternoon, you will not pay less than $5. They are rarely long-lived. Privations, fatigue, and hardships, wet feet, poor food, and defective hygiene soon get the better of the “_triste laboureur de l’ocean_:” weakened by psora and ascarides; by obstinate coughs, measles, and hypochondria, he soon becomes a victim to chronic rheumatism, which will bend the fingers permanently back, and he dies early of visceral or pulmonary affections, gout, or paralysis. Better a life of a canvas-back shooter on the banks of the Susquehanna.

After Reykjanes we bore north (magnetic) along a shore exceptionally populous: farmsteads and chapels, each perched upon its own knoll, and not unlike the clachans of Lewis, formed a straggling line, black and gloomy, surrounded by walls of dry stone. We turned eastward off “Skagi Point,”[355] a long thin lingula with a beacon at the tip, and with a dwarf _enceinte_ of dry stone inland, probably a look-out in the old Víkingr days. Steaming across the big back-bay towards the next headland, Suðrnes, afforded us for some moments an agreeable surprise. Right over the gulf called Faxa Fjörð, and distant some forty miles, rose a long broken dorsum of snow-range, not unlike the Friuli section of the Carnian Alps, the continuation of beautiful Cadore, as seen in winter from the Rive of Trieste. Here, however, the projection, a sister to that of Reykjanes, was terminated by the crescent-shaped head of Snæfell, the western Jökull, whose two cusps at once denoted the extinct crater-cup. The _névé_ towered in the lift, catching a golden gleam which beautifully burnished the virgin silver, whilst above and below it slaty clouds were based upon a darker sea now smooth and mirrory as oil. The travelled few on board pronounced the spectacle grander than Mont Blanc from the Hôtel de la Russie, Geneva, but the fair vision was transient, and presently a _bonnet de nuit_ of chilly lowering mist settling down made it a “Pileatus.” To the north-east, and far nearer, stretched the long sea-arm Hvalfjörð, an inverted arch, with its two giant steeples Akrafjall and Esja, whilst the scarps of Skarðsheiði formed the bottom of the great _cul de sac_. Passing clouds of pseudo-columnar shape, here a common feature, simulated volcanic smoke; mountain head and shoulders were streaked with snow, whilst at their feet brooded the sea-fog, a horizontal line of blue mists broken and detached. Presently the rain came on again, and perforce we confined our attention to the features close ahead.

The pilot now boarded us, leaving his cockleshell in charge of his mate, an angry water-rat with otter-like features, the usual fishy eye, and gold ear-rings, the general usage. We made straight for the little archipelago, which in this weather appears part of the mainland. The nearest item was Akrey: as craft in harbour can be seen to the south-east, and that direction leads straight to shipwreck, “Cornfield Isle,” a mere grass-grown bulge of rock, has an outlying buoy to the north-east, warning us off its long projecting point. The next feature left to port is Engey of the eider duck, a mound provided with the long, curving and knobbed tail of a scorpion. Then came Öffirs-ey,[356] a bit of turf-clad basalt, in places sub-columnar: a red buoy, “stone-men” and a beacon, give warning that its spit is also dangerous. About Öffirs-ey and Akrey are two islets, the Holmar: the larger and outer, _bombé_ and slightly grassy, is the Sker (skerry), or Selsker (little-farm-skerry); and the other, dignified by the name of Grand Holmr, connects, like Öffirs-ey, with the shore at low water by a traversable natural causeway. The other islets are Viðey (wood or withy eyot), which we shall presently visit, and Lund-ey (puffin eyot), at the mouth of Kollafjörð (ewe firth): there are also sundry shoals and banks scattered about to the north and west, making the outer roads of Reykjavik safe enough except when the storm-wind blows from the north-east or the east-north-east.

The amount of shipping surprised us when we remembered that the first steamers appeared here in 1854-55. In the roads lay a French frigate, “Le Cher,” Capitaine Alfred le Timbre, looking taunt and gay: her consort, “Le Beaumanoir,” Capitaine Maylet, will soon come in from the east. The Danish gun-boat “Fylla,” the waiting-maid of Frygga, had lately been outside sounding in preparation for the telegraphic cable: she is a sister ship of the “Diana,” which also flies a pennant, and which to-morrow will land the governor of the island. The “Jón Sigurðsson” had just left, and the “Yarrow” lay inside amongst eight square-rigged ships bearing the flags of various nationalities, whilst, drawn up ashore, was a Noah’s ark, in the shape of a Danish galliot, almost circular, like the old Dutch dogger or the modern Russian monitor. Five to six steamers in port argued well for progress within the last twenty years, and presently we shall see the “Heimdall,” called after the giant foe of Loki.[357] This school-ship for the Danish navy is a frigate (Captain Skowstrŭp), freighted with thirty-six cadets--a rather noisy lot. An English yacht which floats like a sea-bird will also astonish the natives.

The aspect of Reykjavik from the sea is more unlike its description by travellers than, perhaps, anything that I have yet seen--even Humboldt’s Tenerife. One expects, after the Haurán-like profile of the coast, to see a “Giant City of Bashan” rising from the waves. Old sketches suggest the “negative features” of John Barrow, the miserable show of a few tarred pent-roofs topping the black shingle, but free trade has changed all that. Even on this dull day, when it looks its worst, we cannot call its aspect “_triste, morne, désolé_.” Where, again, are the gaudy colours noticed by Mr Bryson? We see nothing but dingy-white, dull-gamboge, verging on rhubarb, slate-grey, and tar-black, a perfect contrast with the Norwegian town--

“Where tawdry yellow strives with dirty red.”

At both extremities, east and west, the ground is stony, and rudely-formed basaltic pillars line the water, guarding ragged scatters of fishermen’s huts. The right point (west) is called the Hliðar-hús (lith-house), a classical name. On the left a grassy earthwork and a flagstaff still remain to remind us of a quaint passage in local history. Icelanders are much given to boasting that their island, which contains the population of a third-rate English town, was never conquered; that Thule is still _invicta_. Yet in 1809, Mr Sam. Phelps, of London, a soap boiler, who considered himself aggrieved by the authorities, landed a dozen jailbirds from Gravesend, and forcibly took possession of the capital. He established an independent republic under the wing of England; and his Cromwell was a Danish seaman, Hr Jörgen Jörgensen, “Protector of Iceland, and Commander by sea and land.” This Dictator, a bad Masaniello, seems to have acted with peculiar energy: he threw up the redoubt; armed it with six small cannon, brought from Bessastaðir; and hoisted over it the flag of independence, three slit cods (stockfish) argent in an oval garland, on a champ azure. Better, at any rate, than Yarmouth, with its three bloaters! The ridiculous affair was squashed by an English frigate, the “Talbot” (Captain Jones): the earthwork was disarmed, and the guns were thrown upon the beach; whilst “Mercator Phelps,” as Bishop Pètursson calls him, Jörgensen, & Co., were removed to England. It was the second time that the island, “bound in with the triumphant sea,” nearly fell to the “Britishers’” lot.[358] Christian II. was upon the point of pledging it, as the Orkneys and Shetlands were temporarily transferred to the Scottish Crown, but he was deposed before the bargain was struck.

Between the points lies the inner or boat harbour, clear water in which floats a crop of “sea-ware,” especially the long, tufty hair of the Hoy or Haar-teari (_Fucus aculeatus_): it is supposed by some to have named the Færoe Islands. But, however clean the water, it is considered too cold for _uso esterno_; and the English eye at once misses the machines and sheds and other appurtenances of a bathing place. The ripple is confined by unclean black sand, strewed with boards, nets, and offals of all kinds, especially thorsk or cods’ heads. There are fair landing-places, plank pierlets, kept steady by caissons full of stones, and not removed in winter: the traveller may see the same style all round the coast, and perhaps he will remember making Venice through the “Murazzi.” The principal buildings, beginning from the right as you face the town, are the Glasgow House, the Bridgehouse, the Post-office, the Club, the merchant stores, and the coal-depots belonging to the Government and to Mr Slimon. Behind rises the steepled Dóm-Kirkja (cathedral), and we see with pleasure that the College, _alias_ the Latin School, is larger and more important than Government House. The tenements mostly face the beach; the roofs, pitched steep against the snow, are slated or boarded; tiles are common, and turf is preserved only by the poorest. They are built of planks like Valparaiso, earthquakes being not unfrequent; but I could hear only of one fire--a notable contrast to the “Vale of Paradise,” where the stone house is impossible, and where being burnt out is purely a question of time. Above the west point is the Catholic chapel and a windmill; the winds can never be very violent, or this thing would soon be blown up like a tent high in the air. The opposite rise is garnished with another windmill, also lacking steerer; and with a double-storied tower of solid masonry, called the Observatory. The surface of the upper country has that dull, dark-green tint, so difficult to shoot against, and so characteristic of the Emerald Isle in early autumn. The people complain that the rains have been scant this year, that hay will be scarce and dear, that the fishing season has been bad, and so forth. The inland view is bounded by a long, unbroken range, which we shall see on the first clear day.

All Reykjavik assembled to gape and chat upon the shore, whilst a torrent of strangers poured on board. They were assailed with questions by the tourists, and the answers were satisfactory as usual. The Hotel had been abolished. The Club did not receive guests; never a room was to be had for love or money. We must pitch tents upon the beach--pleasant during this weather, a bad November in England! There was hardly a riding-pony within fifteen miles, although some four hundred were awaiting embarkment. Guides were unprocurable, all hands at Reykjavik being thoroughly engaged, and the telegraph scheme making even the idlest unwilling to take temporary service. No one would change sovereigns for rixdollars. At the same time, if we would put ourselves unreservedly in the hands of our kind and courteous informants, who were of the horsiest, we might possibly find lodgings, ponies, guides, dollars.

Before landing, I discipline myself severely. From London and Edinburgh, even from Leith, the fall to Reykjavik being heavy, the traveller’s eye is apt to view everything through a jaundiced medium, and the consequence is undue depreciation. Everywhere, and at all times, it is difficult to find a standing point of comparison from which to prospect persons and things, and which shall be fair to the subject, and intelligible to the reader. One man sets out with “the City” in view, and is called a “Cockney traveller;” another and a numerous class looks at matters through the spectacles of civilised life in England, perhaps the easiest way when writing for Englishmen; whilst those who have seen much of the world make themselves unintelligible and unpleasant (myself, alas!) by drawing parallels between scenes unknown or unfamiliar to their Public, who resents the implied slight accordingly. Hence it is generally said that works of exploration are mostly read only because they must be read, and that the book which treats of the land best known to us is that which gives the highest enjoyment. For here we have the pleasure of comparing the impressions made by the same things upon the writer’s mind and upon our own, a process far more personal and more satisfactory than mastering mere discoveries or pursuing a tale of extraordinary adventure, which we often only half believe. And when reading travels in absolutely new lands, we feel that we are reading the opinions of another man, without the concurrence which alone can check them. But the veteran voyager is a practical “Pantisocrat,” and he must especially adopt the advice of Juvenal:

“Audeat ille palam qui vidit, dicere vidi.”

And nowhere is greater care required than in studying a mother-city, the characteristic of its race, the living photograph; the manifest expression of its manners and customs, and especially of its short-comings. “Capitals represent doctrines.” Apply this to the old drab-coloured utilitarian London, now happily passing away, with its boxes of mean brick and of hideous “stone-colour,” where every man’s house, reckless of order, regularity, and economy of space, was his castle, small, dull, and dry as the educated mind; with its Belgravian “palaces” and wretched porticos, which an hour with a crowbar would demolish, expressing a rental more than sufficient for a “_hôtel entre cour et jardin_” in Paris, Vienna, or Rome; with its utterly tasteless and artless works of art which sadden the civilised eye, looking, a foreigner observed, as if the foul fiend had scattered them flying; with its slushy and greasy streets, the richest population in the world being apparently too poor to keep them clean; and with its shops exposing, even in Bond Street, corpses of poultry, sheep, pigs, and cattle for the use of carnivorous denizens. We can hardly wonder when the “wild-cat correspondent” of the Yankee paper describes it as “a vast wilderness of dingy brick and stone, of huge half-empty palaces and roaring torrents of humanity--a money-snatching metropolis where vice and poverty herd and breed in filthy alleys behind the abodes of the great and wealthy.”

We bid adieu to the “Queen,”

“That white-winged monastery moving still, Of rugged celibates against their will.”

She leaves for England on the sixth day, and thus five of our fellow-passengers hardly find time for the shortest scamper across country. Her captain and her crew have claims upon our gratitude; we are unanimous in declaring that all are good men and true, and in recommending them to the author of “Ship, ahoy!” The old traveller ever prefers the English steamer, even at a sacrifice of comforts. He will find fair-weather sailors all the world over, but in the day of danger he will repent having added unnecessary risk to his travels. The French decision upon the conduct of the “Ville de Havre”--a disgrace to a civilised people--is another reason for carefully avoiding foreign craft. Under English, of course, I include Scandinavian and American (U.S.), and carefully exclude the average Latin race. Yet it is only fair to say that the P. and O. boats in the Mediterranean have found it an excellent plan to engage Italian sailors, officered, of course, by Englishmen. The crews are quiet and trustworthy, thrifty, and hard-working; a strong contrast with the turbulent, drunken, ne’er-do-weel which in these days too often represents the old man-o’-war’s man. In England, a sentimental regard for the name “Jack” prevents our seeing the immense deterioration of the class owing to the mixture of “tailors” and good-for-nothing landsmen: my colleagues of the Consular Service will, however, I think, agree with me that foreign port-towns would be benefited if many of the so-called “British sailors” were never allowed to put foot ashore.