Across the Vatna Jökull; or, Scenes in Iceland Being a Description of Hitherto Unkown Regions

Transcriber’S Note

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the two footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.

A superscript is denoted by ^x, for example Edw^d or C^o.

Basic fractions are displayed as ½ and ¼; there are no other fractions in this book.

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All changes noted in the ERRATA in the frontmatter have been applied to the etext.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

[Illustration: MOUNT PAUL.

_Frontispiece._]

Across The Vatna JöKull;

Or,

Scenes in Iceland;

Being A Description Of Hitherto Unknown Regions.

By

William Lord Watts.

London: LONGMANS AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 1876.

LONDON: PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, ST. JOHN’S SQUARE AND WHITEFRIARS STREET.

This Work

Is

Dedicated To His Icelandic Friends

By

W. L. Watts.

Preface.

Having traversed several parts of Iceland concerning which nothing has hitherto been known, I have ventured to publish the few following pages, giving an account of my journey across the Vatna Jökull, and my visit to the volcanoes in the North of Iceland.

W. L. W.

Illustrations And Maps.

PAGE No. 1. Mount Paul--_Frontispiece_.

No. 2. The Öskjugjá 88

Map of Iceland _To face page_ 1

Map of the Author’s Routes from Núpstað to Reikjahlíð ” 45

Errata.

Page 11, line 16, _for_ A.M., _read_ P.M. ” 26, lines 1 and 5, _for_ zoolites, _read_ zeolites. ” 27, line 2, _omit_ comma _after_ Paul. ” 29, ” 26, _for_ 12 A.M., _read_ midday. ” 30, ” 14, _for_ laid, _read_ lay. ” 35, ” 12, _after_ Fahrenheit, _omit_ of frost. ” 58, ” 18, _for_ laid, _read_ lay. ” 100, ” 22, _for_ meat, _read_ feet.

[Illustration:

_London, Longmans & C^o._ _Edw^d. Weller, Litho. Red Lion Square._

Iceland]

Across The Vatna JöKull.

Iceland again! Reykjavík again! Here I am upon the same errand as in 1871 and 1874--foolhardiness and folly as it is denounced by some at home. I fancy I can see some of my worthy countrymen at ten o’clock in the morning, clad in dressing-gown and slippers, breakfast half finished, and a copy of some journal that has condescended to take notice of my little expedition in his hand. Umph! he says, 5,000 square miles of uninhabited country, a howling wilderness, nothing but volcanoes, ice, and snow--a man must be a fool to want to go there; no one ever has crossed this cold, desolate region, why, in the name of everything that is worth pounds, shillings, and pence, should any one be mad enough to want to do so now? It would be in vain to refer him to that element in the Anglo-Saxon, which especially longs to associate itself with the unknown; he scouts the idea of possible scientific results; no pulse would quicken in his frame because he stood where no mortal had planted his foot before. He sees it costs money, time, and labour. He thinks of the hard cash going out that might be advantageously invested (and rightly so, too, if he enjoys the felicity of being a paterfamilias); he magnifies the risk a thousandfold, and stamps the whole concern as “utter folly.” Well! well! let our worthy friend stop at home; it is his element. Only it would be as well if he did not go out of his way to anathematise an expedition which costs him not a farthing, which occupies not one moment of his time, and risks not a hair of his head. Everyone, it is said, is mad upon some point or another. Our worthy friend’s mania may be, that he thinks he is specially called upon to spend his energies in breeding a superior race of poultry; mine may be to wander amongst unknown or unfrequented corners of the earth; but so long as I leave his chicken-house unmolested, I think he should leave off sneering at my wild peregrinations. But a truce to critical stay-at-homes, for we are again upon our travels.

We have endured the unstable liveliness of the old steam-ship “Diana,” and have reached the little capital of Iceland again, to find most of our friends alive and well, and Paul Paulsen (whom the readers of “Snioland” will recognise as my head man upon the Vatna Jökull last year), who greets us with the cheering intelligence that our horses have been all provided, that our complement of men has been already hired, and that as soon as I have paid a few complimentary visits to my friends in Reykjavík, he is ready to raise the shout of, “Forward to the snows of Vatna Jökull!”

Twelve hours are sufficient to effect my friendly purposes, and the evening after that upon which we landed a small boat full of boxes, saddles, and the necessary equipments for our long journey was lying alongside one of the little wooden landing-stages in front of the town. It was 8 P.M. before we made our appearance, escorted by a numerous party of Icelandic friends. As many as could do so, without inconvenience to the rowers, squeezed themselves into the little boat, and we departed amid the cheers of our friends and, I believe, the good wishes of all the inhabitants. Clear of the shore, we hoisted our sail and glided along at no inconsiderable pace towards the little farm of Laugarnes, at the east end of the bay, where our horses were awaiting us, while we enlivened our brief voyage by a Norse song or two, accompanied by an intermittent fantasia by friend Oddr Gíslasson upon the French horn. We found our horses in as fair a condition as was possible for the time of year; but it saves an immense deal of trouble and some money if one knows of any person to be relied on, who can be entrusted with a commission to purchase horses previous to one’s arrival, for we thus avoid not merely the harassing delay incidental to procuring these important necessaries for Icelandic travel, but the payment of a long price for the sorry animals which generally fall to the lot of the tourist, who must purchase a stud as soon as he has landed in the island. My horses had been procured from the south of Iceland; they cost from fifty to ninety dollars each, and were, upon the whole, I think, the finest set of horses I had ever seen in the country.

As I intended to travel as fast as I could to the seat of our summer’s work, I had a change of horses for riding and for the pack-boxes. This is absolutely necessary where anything like hard riding is contemplated, but it is by no means essential where time is not an object. After some delay incidental to reducing the baggage to a portable shape and proportion, which is always a matter of some difficulty at the commencement of either an equestrian or pedestrian journey, we took leave of the remainder of our friends, and accompanied by Paul and another Icelander, we pursued our way eastward, over the roughest path imaginable, towards Eyrarbakki, amid the gathering gloom of what turned out to be a wet and miserable day. It is always necessary to take an extra man to help during the first day’s journey, for the horses are always more unruly and obstinate the first day or two. This is especially the case where the route is a rough one, like that towards Eyrarbakki. The first part of our course lay over a series of ancient lava streams, upon which the scant herbage was being cropped by a few miserable sheep which had escaped the hand of the shearer; their dirty, ragged coats had been partly torn from their backs by the crags among which they had scrambled, giving them a deplorable appearance quite in keeping with the forbidding aspect of the country and the miserable day. About midday we reached the wretched little farm of Lœkjarbotn. It boasted nothing but squalor, stock-fish, and dirty children. I do not know why it is, but most of the farms in the immediate neighbourhood of Reykjavík are of the poorest and most wretched description. It is true their pastures in most cases are poorer than those of other parts of the country, but there is a great difference in the people also. No one can help noticing a settled look of contented despair in their countenance, scarcely to be wondered at considering their surroundings, which, in this particular instance, seemed as much like hopeless wretchedness as anything I had ever seen. Ah, well! our horses are rested, we have waded through the slush pools and the mire which front that heterogeneous mound of lava blocks, turf, and timber, which we can scarcely conceive anyone, by any stretch of sentimental imagination, calling _home_. Our horses struggled down the steep mound of slippery mud which by no means assists travellers either to arrive at or depart from Lœkjarbotn. Leaving this little patch of stagnant misery behind us, we come upon the desolate lava, the dank mists from the adjacent mountains wrapping themselves around us, a driving rain beating into our faces, and a nipping wind exaggerating our discomfort, and assisting the rain to find out the weak places in our mackintosh armour.

We next ascended the hills of Hengilsfjall. This volcano (Hengill) and its neighbours have given vent to numerous pre-historic eruptions, from which vast streams of lava have issued in various directions, not only having poured from the craters of the mountains themselves, but having welled up at various places in huge mamelonic forms. Near the summit of the mountains is a boiling spring, the medicinal properties of which are thought very highly of by the well-known Dr. Hjaltalín, of Reykjavík. In fine weather this part of the country must be very interesting, and even Lœkjarbotn itself might not have looked so extra melancholy. In journeying through these centres of volcanic activity we cannot but be struck with the general lowness of the volcanoes in Iceland. This is doubtless owing to the number of vents which exist in close proximity to one another, so that the volcanic force, having piled up a certain amount of superincumbent matter, finds readier exit by bursting through the superficial overlying rocks in adjacent localities, which offered less resistance than the accumulated volcanic products which they themselves had previously erupted, or by availing themselves of some pre-existing point of disturbance which afforded them a readier escape. The evening found us at the small farm of Hraun, which impressed me more favourably than Lœkjarbotn, although it was kept by a poor widow whose means were excessively limited.

Not having burdened myself with more provisions than I required for the Vatna Jökull alone, we were here again dependent upon the resources of the country, and although this is the worst time of year to travel without provisions in Iceland, still we fared not amiss, obtaining a sufficiency of rye cake, milk, and smoked mutton, which, without being very palatable, answered all the purpose of affording us a meal. Although we had employed a lad to watch our horses during the night, some of them were found astray in the morning. When travelling in this country, especially in the earlier part of the journey, it is by far the best to hire some one to watch the horses, rather than to hobble them while grazing, for, in the first place, even when hobbled, horses will stray a long way, and, very often, the only effect of hobbling is to prevent their picking out the best of the pasture, and one finds in the morning they have decamped just the same as if they had been turned out loose.

Having again got under weigh, we were soon upon the sandy shores of the Ölfusá. This river is formed by the confluent waters of the Hvítá and the Sog, which unite, some twenty English miles from the point where they flow into the sea, forming a very large body of water. Here several seals were basking in the sun, and lying like pieces of rock within a hundred yards of our track, but upon our nearer approach they scrambled into the water with considerable agility. Eyrarbakki really means sandy bank; it is situated upon the east side of the Ölfusá, at the point where that river empties itself into the sea. Upon both sides of the Ölfusá, and on the west side in particular, are great stretches of black sand, while upon the west side these are grown over with wild oats, and the more one looks on the vast accumulation on the west of the river, the more one is struck with its magnitude. Its cause, however, is apparent.

At this point, huge lava streams, flowing down from the volcanoes upon the west side of the river, have obstructed the mud and sand brought down by the waters of that stream; where an immense bed of sand was formed, which diverted the course of the river, causing it to empty itself further to the east, leaving these huge accumulations of sand high and dry on the western side.

Having crossed the stream by means of a ferry, we found that the irons of all our pack-boxes required alteration, and we could not halt at a better place than Eyrarbakki to have them attended to. These irons, which attach the pack-box to the pack-saddle, are the nightmare of Icelandic travel; and travellers cannot be too particular in having them of the most careful construction, also of the best material possible; again, if anything be amiss with them, they should be always attended to at the earliest opportunity, or a breakdown is sure to occur in some inconvenient or outlandish place; and, but for the Icelanders’ remarkable faculty for improvising ways and means, such occasions would cause a serious delay in a day’s march. Eyrarbakki is one of the principal trading stations in the south of Iceland. It is situated upon a dreary sandbank, the view from which is most monotonous and depressing, while the wailing roar of the formidable breakers, which here extend a long distance out to sea, is melancholy in the extreme.

All along this portion of the shore, ancient lava streams have run out into the sea; but upon the land they are indiscernible, owing to the alluvium with which they are covered. The whole of the south coast, from Eyrarbakki to Papós, is rendered inaccessible to ships by shoals, sand-banks, and sunken rocks, and there is not an inlet during all that distance of some 200 miles which a ship could enter.

Having ridden within a few miles of the River Thjórsá, although it was the middle of the night, we stopped at a farm to purchase another horse, and, having roused the inmates from their beds, we completed our purchase, took “schnapps,” and rode away to the Thjórsá. It was past 1 A.M., and the ferryman had gone to bed on the opposite side of the river; it was raining, sleeting, and blowing hard; again and again we shouted, but the storm and the roaring of the water proved too much even for our united lungs, which were none of the weakest. Fortunately, Paul remembered there was a farmer who owned a boat a mile or so further up the side of the river we were on, he therefore roused him while I looked after the horses. This was scarcely an easy task, for, in spite of the driving storm, they strayed away to graze in every direction. Bye-and-bye the farmer and his wife made their appearance. They seemed quite happy at being disturbed from their warm beds in the middle of a cold, stormy night, to earn a dollar-and-a-half by paddling about in the icy cold water of the Thjórsá and ferrying over their nocturnal visitors with their goods and chattels. In fact, our worthy Charon seemed to look upon it as a piece of good fortune. _At this time of the year, it is light all night._

The weather cleared about 8 A.M. and we had a good view of Mount Hekla as we forded the West Rángá. We stopped between the rivers East and West Rángá, where we had to pay for one of the horses we were riding, for Paul had only brought it with him to Reykjavík on sale or return. Here we took coffee, and next proceeded to Breiða-bólstaðr, where, as usual, we were received with great kindness and hospitality. After taking two hours’ sleep, we pushed on to Holt, which we reached about 1 P.M. The day was half spent before we were again on our way; so we rode briskly to Skógarfoss, one of the largest and most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland, where there is a very good farm, and the people are extremely thrifty. I suppose they had never been able to procure any of the legendary gold beneath the falls of Skógarfoss, but they evidently manage to screw a tolerable amount out of travellers who come to admire its beauties.

On, on; past the ice cliffs of Eyjafjalla Jökull to Heiði, where we were so kindly entertained last year. It was 10 P.M. when eight horses, which showed as though they wanted to graze, and two men, who looked as if they wanted to go to bed, drew up in front of this hospitable dwelling.

The farm is a poor one, though the good folks make the best of it. Their lives, like that of all the poorer Icelanders, must be one continuous struggle against poverty, inclement weather, and a fruitless soil. Yet they have a few sheep and cows upon the hillside; plenty of fish in the lake; and withal are contented. But their contentment is evidently of a very different kind to that which we noticed at Lœkjarbotn; it manifestly results from a hope that their circumstances may be improved by domestic thrift, and good fortune with their flocks. Hopeful contentment differs from the contentment of despair in this respect, the one is cheerful and open to improvement, the other is sullen and so sunken in the slough of despondency as to have given up all hope of a change for the better, and thus to be incapable of availing itself of any propitious opportunity, if such should occur. One day’s rest at Heiði, and we mount again, directing our course eastward; riding swiftly over the arid waste of Myrdals Sandr, we reached the banks of the river Kuða-fljót. We find that this river, which we forded with considerable difficulty last year, could now only be crossed in boats. This shows how the unstable beds of Icelandic rivers shift and change about, transforming shallows into deep water, and creating sand-banks amid the deepest river channels.

We purchased of our ferryman some birds (skümur) which were considered very good to eat. We stopped for the night at the farm of Króki. The farmer, who had been previously hired to form one of my expedition across the Vatna Jökull, regaled us with swan’s flesh, which much resembled tough beef; and, although eating it was rather hard work, it was certainly nutritious and palatable. The farmer, Olgi by name, had taken up shooting as his special hobby, and, in spite of his inefficient tools, a very profitable use he appeared to make of it, if we might judge from the numerous swan-skins which were drying outside his house, and the amount of swan’s flesh that was being salted. The swans of Iceland are valuable on account of their down; the outer feathers are seldom of any good, for they are never pure white; the value of a swan skin is about one rix dollar, Danish. After a ramble amongst the lava which had flowed from the Skaptar Jökull during the remarkable eruption of 1783, we resumed our journey; the day was very hot--as much so as any July day in England. Passing the beautiful waterfall of Seljalandsfoss, which appeared in the bright sunlight like curtains of silvery foam upon the face of the dark basaltic cliffs, which here are about 200 feet in height, we arrived at the farm of Hörgsdalr. Here dwelt another of our “Jökull men” (as Paul called those he had hired for my expedition) named Eyólfur; he was one of the toughest, blithest-hearted, and most good-natured fellows I had ever come across.

The bóndi (as the Icelandic farmer is called) was a relation of the farmer at Núpstað, whose farm, where I had received such kindly welcome in 1871 and 1874, was only half-a-day’s journey eastward.

I found the farmer of Hörgsdalr, like his relative, extremely hospitable; taking a great interest in my expedition, and willing to give every assistance in his power.

The next day we ascended the Kaldbakkr, a mountain 2279 feet in height, in order to get a good look at the south side of the Vatna Jökull, which was directly to the north of it. Kaldbakkr is situated a few miles to the north of Hörgsdalr.

Accompanied by the farmer, we rode to the last patch of grass that was nearest the mountain, and, after a smart scramble, reached the summit. The Jökull looked decidedly whiter than I had ever seen it, but there was the same expanse of snow losing itself in the northern distance; pure, silent, dazzling, beautiful, and spotless, save where a few black peaks and uncouth masses of dark rock protruded through the frozen covering. These were scattered at long intervals across the unsullied snow-slopes, and clustered together in the south-west, where lies that portion of the Vatna known as the Skaptar Jökull. Harmless and guileless they looked in the morning sunshine; but they had vomited the lava which had desolated the plain below, and had given vent to the fiery force which from time to time had shaken Iceland to its very foundations! One peak to the north-west especially attracted my attention, on account of its height and its perfectly conical form, and my guide informed me that it had erupted on several occasions, and that the last outburst occurred about thirty years ago.

It was with no small satisfaction I arrived at the now familiar homestead of Núpstað, and received the usual glad welcome from the bóndi Ayólver, who had been expecting us. I again took up my quarters in the disused little church, which makes such a good storehouse for my friend Ayólver, and such an excellent resting-place for chance travellers like myself. It seemed quite home-like as I tumbled into the little bed which had been improvised upon the boxes in the corner, and I experienced the comfortable feeling of being in my old place again as I ate my breakfast off and posted up my diary upon the antiquated communion table. Do not be shocked, good reader! all sanctity had long ago departed from this useful piece of furniture, and if we were to peep into the inside, we should find neither sacred utensils nor vestments; but simply the serviceable homespun garments of the bóndi’s wife.

The farm and the rocks behind it were but little altered since I first saw them four years ago. One year in Núpstað is much like its predecessor, and things go on, year after year, in just the same routine, except where the inevitable changes of life and death intervene. The people had altered the most, for of course they had grown older, and one or two faces were missing! Well, I have grown older, too--it is no good to stand dreaming. There is a bullock to be bought, butchered, and salted, preparatory to making it into “kœfar,” as the Icelanders call the kind of pemmican I make for my Jökull expeditions. Skin-bags and mocassins have to be procured; butter, bread, and stock-fish have to be sought after; in fact, the greater part of three weeks’ provisions for six men must be collected from the neighbouring farms. We made the necessary arrangements, and settled that these various articles are to be ready for us in a week’s time; we then deputed Paul’s father to attend to the levying of our requisitions, and the payment for them. The ox was next slain, dissected, and salted, and we were again ready to start on our travels.

Some little difficulty was experienced in getting all into train, owing to the hurry all the farmers of this locality were in to get this year’s wool to the store at Papós, which is situated four days’ journey to the east; for tidings had been received that the ice of a portion of the Vatna Jökull, known as the Breiðamerkr had advanced to such an extent as to threaten the cutting off of all communication along the sea-shore, since the advance still continued. In consequence of this alarm every farmer was busy preparing the wool for market; steaming cauldrons were cleansing it from its grease, bands of sturdy Icelandic maidens were rinsing it in the clear water of the mountain streams--which are almost sure to be found in close proximity to the farms in this part of the country--patches of white wool were drying upon the ground, while the male part of the community were measuring it in quaint wooden baskets, packing it into sacks, and forming bundles of equal weight to balance on each side of the pack-horses. It would be a very serious thing, indeed, if the road to Papós were to be intercepted, as it would compel the dwellers in this district to journey to Eyrarbakki before they could exchange their produce for the necessaries they require. Leaving Núpstað behind us, we set out for the advancing glacier, and turned our faces towards the snowy slopes of Örœfa.

The Súla river, or Núpsvatn, had to be crossed. It was deeper than I had before seen it, though its volume of water scarcely seemed to have increased. Its bed was changed to one of pebbles and quicksand. In 1871 it was of pebbles only, in 1874 it was black sand, in 1875 it is again pebbles and sand.

We crossed the river and fast sped on our way over the desert of Skeiðarár Sandr. This sand occupies an area of 300 square miles. It has been formed by the joint efforts of volcanoes upon the Vatna and Mount Örœfa, which have strewn this tract with sand and ashes, and whose ejectamenta have been brought down by the shifting waters of numerous glacial streams which traverse the Skeiðarár Sandr in many directions. It would seem that the portion of the Vatna which here bounds the Skeiðarár Sandr upon the north has acted in a similar manner to the Breiðamerkr Jökull; for numerous _moraines_ occur upon these sands, some of which are at a great distance from the utmost limit of the Jökull at the present time. Indeed, there has been an obvious advance at this point since 1871 of the fringe of the glacier which almost surrounds the Vatna Jökull. The existence of scratched rocks in _moraines_ in Iceland below the limit of the glaciers does not of necessity prove that such glaciers have bodily advanced, as during extensive eruptions of glacial mountains huge masses of ice frequently slip forward to considerable distances, scratching the harder and furrowing the softer rocks in their progress, which, upon their melting, leave large piles of glacial _débris_, in no way distinguishable from a _moraine_ stranded upon the lower elevations.

It was blowing hard from the east with heavy rain, but upon the west side of the mountain before us (Örœfa) the sun was shining in the most tantalising manner, so that as we urged our horses along the heavy sands we were fain to fancy ourselves exploring those dazzling glaciers and snowy slopes which seemed to fascinate the sunshine and detain it from reaching us.

We were soon under the lee of the mountains before us. Sheltered from the wind and the storm, we could stop to admire the grand sweep from the Örœfa to the commencement of the Skeiðará Jökull. Looking back at Núpstað, we saw it enwrapped in gloom, the clouds clustering round the Lómagnúpar,[1] a mountain which seems to attract all the bad weather to Núpstað and the storm sat heavily upon the western portion of the plain of Skeiðarár Sandr, which was exposed to the fury of the east winds.

Crossing the river Skeiðará, we reached the Saga-famed Svínafell. Here we stayed to refresh ourselves with the national panacea for the ills of Icelandic travel, namely, a cup of coffee of the real Icelandic brew! The art of making good coffee is one of the greatest accomplishments of the fair sex here, and it is a pity it is not more generally attained by the lady population of other countries. The occurrence of drinkable coffee in Iceland, a good cup of it being always to be obtained at the poorest farm, is the more remarkable, as the coffee sold by the merchants at the various stores is never of the best quality; but is principally the Java coffee. The grand secret of success in this special domestic art is doubtless owing to the fact that the coffee is roasted at home, exactly to the right turn, and deftly manipulated in some particular way which early training and long practice can alone effect. The last and by no means the least adjunct to this national _bonne bouche_ is in most cases a good supply of cream.

Being thus fortified, we were taken to see a birch-tree upon the hill behind the farm. This tree might have been five-and-twenty feet in height, and it was considered the largest tree in this part of the island. There is, however, a considerable growth of bushy trees, principally birch, in the valley called Núpstaða-skógr down which the river Súla flows. It is by far the largest wood in the south of Iceland. Núpstaða-skógr is likewise remarkable for containing a breed of wild sheep, which belongs to our friend Ayólver, who is the owner of the skógar, together with the valuable farm of Núpstað. There is also another patch of wood at the north-west base of Örœfa, which is of great use to Svínafell and the adjacent farms.

The hills behind Svínafell are basaltic; but as we proceeded further eastward, we soon found ourselves surrounded by the more recent products of the volcano Örœfa, which towered above us upon our left hand. Seeing a party of horsemen approaching, we whipped our little drove together, and met them upon the grass which was a few hundred yards off.

The party consisted of an Althing’s-man, who was going to Reykjavík to attend the Althing, or Icelandic Parliament, with his servants, and the priest from Sandfell, at whose house he had been staying, and who was escorting him for a short distance. The priest turned out to be a cousin of my man Paul, so after a brief colloquy, and requesting the Althing’s-man to convey our greetings to friends at Reykjavík, we rode on to Sandfell.

Our road lay past several beds of white pumice which had all been ejected from Örœfa. A smart gallop over cinders and fragments of lava brought us to the church and parsonage. Sandfell is situated at the south base of Örœfa. Behind it rise barren hills of compact agglomerate, composed of volcanic ash and fragments of lava, but our friend the priest is compensated for his dreary surroundings by having one of the prettiest Icelandic women I have seen for his wife. She seemed quite piqued because I could not own to thinking Sandfell a very pretty place. Going hence, we crossed the stream of lava and agglomerate, which I was informed resulted from the eruption of Örœfa in 1862. This stream is a remarkable one, inasmuch as the agglomerate has flowed down in a semi-molten state, cotemporaneously with the lava, both being mixed together; the agglomerate appears to preponderate, but this may be the result of the lava being of higher specific gravity, which causes it to sink to the bottom of the stream.

We stopped for the night at Myrum,[2] on the south-west of the Breiðamerkr Sandr. The bóndi, like all the people of this district, was hastening to get to Papós with his wool. We supped and breakfasted off some birds which our host called Svartfugl. They were the nicest birds I had ever tasted in Iceland, the meat being tender and plenty of it, and I thought so well of this dish that I took one of the birds away with us for our lunch on the road.

Here we hired a fresh horse, leaving Paul’s, which had contracted a sore back, and started over the Breiðamerkr Sandr. The sands, like the Skeiðarár Sandr are the result of the great efforts of the Örœfa and Vatna Jökulls, more especially the part of the Vatna known as the Breiðamerkr Jökull, which was the one whose movements we had to examine.

The road over these sands is long and dreary, especially in such weather as had just overtaken us. We passed an extensive encampment of farmers, who were on their way to Papós; but, despairing of crossing the rivers which traverse the Breiðamerkr Sandr upon such a day with heavily laden horses, they had decided on remaining encamped upon the little patch of grass they had reached. About one third of the way over the Sandr we arrived at the farm of Kvísker, which is situated upon a little oasis of grass-land. We found it a very acceptable halting-place, and although we were wet, we were glad to sit down and take coffee and schnapps, and smoke a pipe inside; the room had no windows, and it was filled with planks and carpenter’s tools, for the house was being enlarged. We could obtain but little food for our horses, and the greater part of our day’s work had yet to be accomplished, so a quarter of an hour saw us again to horse, and rapidly approaching the extreme point of the advancing Jökull. This Jökull appeared unlike most of the Icelandic glaciers I have seen. Instead of terminating in an even slope, or steep rounded cliffs of ice, sometimes fissured, but generally very regular, it terminated in an irregular wall of cloven and contorted masses of the rifled and dislocated glaciers; while the more elevated masses assumed the form of spires, towers and grotesque architectural shapes. As we were intently looking at them, some of them tottered and fell. It is indeed a serious matter to contemplate the short distance now left between the Jökull and the sea--at one point not more than 250 yards--in addition to this, new rivers have been formed between the Jökull and the sea, which have to be crossed, but which it would be impossible to do with a strong south wind blowing. The Jökulsá is quite bad enough, but to have several miles of road converted into quicksand by the diverted waters of the Jökulsá, and to have new rivers in addition to the advance of the Jökull, is enough to make the people of the district fear for the road to Papós. One consolation may exist--that the Jökull has advanced before, and, after a considerable time, retreated. Still, as an old inhabitant of the neighbourhood informed me, “It never has advanced as it does now,” and even upon the other occasion, upon the whole, it gained ground. Alas! poor Iceland--both fire and water appear allied against it; the latter especially, in all its forms--boiling, cold, and frozen, and in the form of rain, hail, snow, and vapour! We were obliged at one point to travel along the sea-shore, where we espied the body of a large fish with some dark objects moving about it. A nearer approach showed it to be a small whale, which, from olfactory evidence, had lain there for some time. The dark objects, startled at our appearance, rose in a covey of--well, the same birds of which we had enjoyed the flavour at Myrum. Svartfugl have never tasted quite so nice to me since. At last the Breiðamerkr Sandr were passed; fresh mountains rose before us, and the weather cleared. To our right was a remarkable lagoon, Breiða-bólstaðalón; which is a narrow fjord, twelve miles in length, enclosed upon the south by a large sand-bank running parallel with the shore. This lagoon is open to the sea at the north-east end, but is too shallow for ships to enter.

Evening found us at Kálfafellstaðr, a place pleasantly situated beneath the outlying hills of the Vatna Jökull. These hills are principally composed of amygdaloidal basalt, abounding in zeolites; chalcedonies are especially plentiful, and I dare say it might pay to look for the precious opal. This eastern corner of Iceland appears to be particularly rich in zeolites; I noticed the same when I was at Berufjörðr.

We stayed for the night with another relative of Paul--he seemed to have kindred nearly all over the island, and a very superior race they appear to be. This relation was the widow of the former priest of Kálfafellstaðr. Here we bought another horse, and hired the widow’s son, a lad about seventeen; for we required a man and a lad to drive our horses round to the north of the island while we crossed the Vatna Jökull. The widow and her daughter accompanied us a short distance upon our return journey, and, after two days’ riding, we were again at Núpstað.

Preparations for our journey across the Vatna now commenced in earnest. The sleighs and the snow-shoes had been made according to our instructions. All was there except the men and the butter; enough of the latter, however, turned up in the morning to enable us to make the pemmican, which I at once set myself to work to superintend.

A fire was lighted and a cauldron of water soon heated, and the beef boiled; then came the work of cutting up an entire ox into pieces the size of ordinary wine-corks. Paul senior, and I commenced operations by first taking out the bones; and, by dint of sharp knives, and a few hours’ hard work, we prepared about seventy-eight pounds of meat. Twenty pounds of salt butter and half-a-pound of salt were then melted in the cauldron, and the meat carefully mixed with it. After a short time it was ready to be packed in the skin bags in which it was to be carried.

The bags were placed in troughs of water during the operation of filling, to prevent leakage at the seams, and when they were filled they were tied up and laid in a stream close by, where stones were piled upon them to press down the meat. When they were sufficiently pressed, and the contents had become cold (which took about twenty hours), they were each placed in ordinary sacks for more easy carriage; for greasy skin-bags full of meat are rather slippery things to carry, and somewhat nasty things to handle.

By June 25th all my preparations were made, and my men arrived; Paul Paulsen and a cousin of his from Skaptarfellssysla; Helgi, from the farm of Króki; Finnur, from Myrdalssysla; and Eyólfur, from Hörgsdalr: these were to accompany me across the Vatna Jökull. In addition were Bjarni, who was with me last year; the farmer from Rauðberg, who carried the post between Prestbakki and Berufjörðr--a deaf and dumb man, and a man named Vigfúss; these four were to return when we reached the mountain which I last year named “Mount Paul,” about a third of the way across the Jökull. I had also arranged with Paul’s father and little Arni, whom I had hired at Kálfafellstaðr, to take our horses from Núpstað round the east side of the Vatna into the north of the island.

Our equipment, which was to be drawn upon hand-sleighs, consisted of a low tent, four feet high; a large sleeping-bag, which would accommodate six of us--this was eight feet long, and five feet wide--one side being made of a layer of cork and felt, covered with mackintosh, and the other of a stout blanket also covered with waterproof. This bag was open at both ends, so that three could sleep with their heads one way and three with their heads the other. Both these openings were covered by a hood, which proved a great protection to our heads while sleeping, and prevented the snow from getting into the bag. This gave us sleeping accommodation for six persons, with a weight of only sixty pounds. This bed, however, had its disadvantages; for instance, if any one was taken with cramp, or dreamt of engaging in any particularly active exercise, its limited dimensions became painfully apparent; moreover, it is almost impossible to keep the inside of the bag perfectly dry, owing to the exhalation from our bodies. I have paid great attention to this matter, but have found that for a prolonged sojourn amidst wet snow, where weight is a subject of paramount importance, it is the best sleeping arrangement that can be contrived.

Our provisions consisted of 100 lbs. of pemmican in skin bags, 50 lbs. of butter, 100 lbs. of skonrok, or Danish ship-biscuits, 15 lbs. of dried fish, 15 lbs. of dried mutton, 15 lbs. of gravy soup, 2 tins of “soupe Julienne,” in packets; 6 tins of chocolate and milk, 2 lbs. of cocoa, and 4 lbs. of sugar; 2 gallons of proof whiskey, 1 gallon of spirit for burning, 5 lbs. of tobacco, and 3 tins of Peek and Frean’s meat biscuits. I had a small Russian furnace, which is an excellent lamp for heating water or melting snow. These articles, with a good supply of warm clothing, waterproofs, and mocassins (for it is impossible to wear leather boots in the snow), and the necessary instruments and implements, completed our outfit.

All things were now ready, and the day had at length arrived when we were to assail the Vatna again. We rose betimes, but it was midday before we were fairly on our way. I took leave of the bóndi Ayólver, who would not charge me anything for my own board and for the keep of my own horses. He was too unwell to accompany us to the Vatna, and seemed quite upset at saying good-bye, as he said he felt sure it would be for the last time, whether we got across the Jökull or not. I cheered him up, and said, I hoped some day or another to come to Núpstað again; and so we started on horseback, and, after crossing the river Diúpá, we commenced the ascent of Kálfafellsfjall, which hill lay between us and the Vatna.

The journey was a very trying one to the horses; it is so at the best of times, but now the melting snow still lay thickly, and in places had converted the unstable soil into quicksands. In some parts it was necessary to cross ravines full of snow, which had melted underneath, leaving the bottom of the ravine roofed. The horses fought very shy of these snow-roofed valleys, and when we came to any hole which had been formed by the subsidence of a portion of the snow into the valley beneath, it was with difficulty we could get them along, as the noise of the stream, which invariably ran below, made them rather fractious. But the snow having regelated into an indurated compact mass, was often some yards in thickness, so I do not think there was any real danger of sinking through it. These preliminary difficulties were soon disposed of, and 6 P.M. found us at that point where the rocks terminate and the eternal snows of the Vatna commence.

A squall of sleet and wind now rolled down upon us. I immediately directed two men to prepare some coffee, for we had brought wood for that purpose, while some gave the horses a feed of hay, and others unpacked the burdens they had carried so pluckily from Núpstað. The coffee was soon ready, the storm cleared, and the scene must have bordered on the picturesque, or perhaps the “_unique_,” as we all clustered round the remnant of the fire, amid the different packages that were to cross the Vatna, our horses pawing the ground, impatient to return to their pastures. The grand white Jökull lay before us, the black crags of the fjalls behind us, and the roar of the Diúpá in our ears, while a beautiful rainbow spanned the eastern sky--a harbinger, we trusted, of good success.

Here we took leave of Paul’s father and his cousin Arni, directing them where to wait for us with the horses, in the north of the island. The evening promised to be showery; but having a lively reminiscence of the black sand of this locality, which at our last year’s encampment upon this spot got into our ears, our eyes, and our food, I determined to advance and camp, as soon as we needed to do so, upon the deep snow, although my men had already begun to put up a temporary abode with loose stones from the terminal _moraine_ of the Jökull.

At this point last year the Jökull was a crevassed glacier, whose surface was covered with aiguilles and hummocks of black sand and ice. But all traces of the glacier were buried beneath a vast accumulation of snow! From the first we were able to use our sleighs, and, turning due northward, we left the habitable world behind us, being face to face with the hardest piece of our summer work. As far as the eye could see was one lifeless, pathless wilderness of snow, destitute alike of animal, insect, or floral life. Our footsteps gave no sound, and our very voices seemed strange in this drear solitude, the death-like stillness of whose snowy wastes is broken only by the howling of the storm, or the outburst of a volcano! It was evident that a much greater snowfall had taken place during the past winter than in the preceding one, and the newly-fallen snow took us up to our knees, making our progress very difficult and slow. After about three hours’ dragging, it began to snow, and a thick fog enveloped us, so I decided to encamp. The plan I usually adopt for sleeping in the snow--and I believe one of the warmest and best methods--is to dig a square hole, three or four feet deep; over this I pitch my tent, banking it well round the sides with snow. I then spread the sleeping bag at the bottom of the hole, with the hoods doubled down over the ends to prevent any snow getting into it. If a storm is blowing, I cast up a bank of snow to windward, and take everything that will be required for immediate use into the tent. The next thing is to draw the sleighs up to the door of the tent; so that if anything extra is required it can be procured without much difficulty, and having stuck up all sticks and shovels firmly in the snow, to prevent their getting covered up and lost, we turn in, changing our wet or snowy clothes sitting upon the waterproof exterior of the bag, and, putting on a dry change, we all get into the bag, having previously fixed up waterproof coats upon the snowy wall at each end, to lean against. If it is not freezing very hard, we hang our snowy clothes upon a line at the top of our tent, with our satchels, &c.; but if it is freezing hard we put them underneath the bed. Snow is then melted, soup or chocolate is made, and rations served, which, with a small allowance of grog, pipes, and a song all round, finish our labours for the day or night, as the case may be, and we go to sleep.

This was the manner in which we now camped, six of us occupying the sleeping-bag, much after the manner of sardines in a sardine box, the remaining four, who were only to accompany us as far as Mount Paul, made themselves as comfortable as they could with rugs and mackintosh coats in the front part of the tent. I ordered every man to fill his flask with snow and put it in his pocket, that each might have a drink of water when he awoke, and in the course of an hour nothing could be heard but the heavy, stentorian breathing of nine out of ten of our party. Having posted up my diary, I slept well for an hour, when I was awakened by a sudden commotion at the other end of the tent. I called out to Paul for an explanation, saying, “Holloa! what’s the matter at your end?” He replied in a deep, solemn voice, “Now is the dumb beating his feet.” Although our dumb friend’s feet were doubtless cold, I could not allow that method of warming them in a tent only 10 by 6½ feet, and I therefore directed that another man should chafe the dumb man’s feet and cuddle them up in his arms. The morning brought us only fog and storm, but after a few hours the latter abated. I served out some warm soup, and we got under weigh. After an hour the fog became so dense, the snow so soft and deep, and a determined sleet had set in, that I was obliged reluctantly to call a halt. Between nine and ten in the evening the weather cleared, the wind shifted to the north-west and the sun came out, and we again advanced; but the snow being up to our knees, I perceived I was tiring my men. So after going on a few miles I again halted, as it had begun to freeze, and the probability was that in about two hours the snow would be firm enough to travel on. Casting up a bank of snow to windward, we six turned into our bag upon the surface of the snow, leaving the tent and all other wraps for our four extra men.

It was bitterly cold, but the atmosphere was very clear. By 3 A.M. I roused my men; the thermometer registered 20° Fahrenheit; a firm crust had formed upon the snow which bore us bravely. It was a glorious morning and a stiff north wind was blowing; the sleigh travelled merrily along, and as the sun illumined the magnificent snow slopes around us, everything seemed to promise fine weather and success. The pure element we were breathing seemed to give us fresh life and strength, and made us feel equal to the work before us. After three hours one of the men (Vikfúss) gave out, said he could go no further, and lay down upon the snow; but as there were not nearly so many degrees of frost now, the man was warmly clad, and I had a great idea he was shirking, I left him behind, much against the will of his companions. Before we were half a mile away I had the satisfaction of seeing him following, apparently not very much the worse for wear. The ascent from the first had been a very gradual slope of snow, which now became undulating and somewhat steeper, especially upon the N.E., where steeps of snow swept up to the mountain. I last year named Vatna Jökull “Housie,” from the great resemblance which its summit, then free from snow, bore, when viewed in one aspect, to the roof of a house. The likeness was now much less striking, from its being all white.

I can scarcely go on without remarking upon the excellence of the postman from Rauðberg. He was always cheerful, willing and obliging, and had twice the hardihood and strength of the other men. I only regretted I could not take him right across the Vatna, but his postal duties would not admit of so prolonged an absence. We sighted Mount Paul at 9 A.M. Here we made a good breakfast, and our disabled man having slunk up, he made better progress with his meal than he did with his sleigh.

Mount Paul is a cluster of one large and several smaller volcanic eminences, rising to the height of 150 feet above the surrounding snow. A semi-circular pit being thawed out by the radiation of the sun’s rays from the south side of the mountain, we found here an abundant supply of water. The mountain is composed of varieties of obsidian, varying from the highly vitreous to the grey stony variety; one portion of it consists of vitreous obsidian cementing together multitudes of the concretionary forms commonly known as spherulites.

We slept for two or three hours; but the state of the snow was such that it was impossible to get the sleighs through it. I sent back my four extra men, for they had little or nothing to carry, and we had left them a good supply of provisions at the commencement of the Jökull. As the accommodation in the tent was but small for them, and it seemed to promise bad weather, they preferred forcing their way back through the soft snow to running the chance of being weather-bound for three or four days. They had not been gone away many hours when it began to rain, and as night drew on it became more and more evident that there would be no frost. The wind had shifted to the S.S.E., the thermometer stood at 33° Fahr., and as the night advanced the snow became so soft and rotten that in some places it took us up over our knees.

The next day the wind was still S.S.E., and the fog and sleet were as bad as ever; and as progress was impossible, I minutely inspected the rocks of Mount Paul. They rise from a large crater now filled with snow. To the south-east is a pit-crater partially filled with snow. Mount Paul is composed almost entirely of perlite and obsidian. This is the only place in Iceland in which I have found obsidian “in situ.” The west side of the mountain particularly attracted my attention, being composed of multitudes of spherulites cemented together by obsidian. Thousands of these small globular formations had been weathered out of the obsidian, and in some places one might have collected a hat-full.

Night brought no improvement in the weather; and a somewhat remarkable scene presented itself of six men lying in a hole in the snow, 4250 feet above the sea-level, in Iceland, all hoping for a frost--but no frost came, and morning found us in the same position. This was very aggravating for one who had spent much money, time and labour, in order to complete a survey across the Vatna Jökull; but the day was fine, and I could post up my diary, plan for the future, learn Icelandic, eat, drink and smoke, upon the volcanic _débris_ on the leeward side of Mount Paul, where the thermometer at midday rose to 75 and 80 degrees in the sun, and it was infinitely preferable to lying in the snow. Towards evening it began to freeze, so we packed up our sleighs and retired to Mount Paul, until the crust was strong enough to bear the weight of the sleigh. By ten P.M. there were twelve degrees of frost, and the wind blew freshly from the N.W. The crust now bore the sleigh, but we sank through it up to our knees at every step. This was such laborious work that after two hours we halted, hoping the crust would soon become firmer; but we were doomed to disappointment, for after a while the wind suddenly shifted to the S.E., and almost simultaneously a fog appeared. However, we were soon upon our legs, and although the surface of the snow became worse and worse, and we sank deeper and deeper into it as we proceeded, we managed to do five hours’ work by halting every quarter of an hour.

About 3 P.M. I noticed a curious phenomenon. The sun was above the horizon, and was occasionally discernible through the fog--for at this time of the year at this altitude, about 4500 feet, the sun can scarcely be said to set--appearing to move in a circle from the meridian westward, and still keeping above the horizon to almost due north, where it dips for about half-an-hour, appearing again about N.N.E., and by six P.M. it bears due east, some forty degrees above the horizon. A strong current of air was drifting the clouds and fog at our level across the surface of the Jökull from the S.E., while dark masses of cloud were perfectly discernible passing at a very rapid rate across the face of the sun from a precisely opposite direction.

The storm now increased in violence, and we were soon so surrounded by whirling clouds of snow that it was impossible to distinguish from what quarter the wind was blowing. The compass had for a long time been almost useless, in all probability owing to the magnetic ore contained in the rocks which underlie the snows of the Jökull. This rendered us entirely dependent upon the wind and the sun for our direction. In clear weather, where the compass is useless, I always steer by a circular piece of card marked off into four right angles, so that by carefully taking the angular bearings of all distinguishable objects, one is able to steer a pretty straight course.

[Illustration:

_London, Longmans & C^o._ _E. Weller, Litho._

Map of the AUTHORS ROUTES _from_ Núpstað to Reikjahlíð]

Being now unable to avail myself of either compass, sun, wind, or card, nothing remained for us but another halt. For two days the storm continued and it would have been impossible to get many yards away from the tent without being lost. On the third day at noon the storm abated, the wind shifted due east, and the sun broke through the clouds. We all turned out, but it was useless to think of struggling through the loose, deep snow. We took our bed out to dry it, for it was wet with the exhalations from our bodies. This, however, was rather against the wish of some of my men, upon whom the inactivity of the last few days had begun to tell. I observed two black peaks protruding through the snow, one about five miles due north, and the other about eleven miles N.W. I was surprised to find a considerable quantity of volcanic ash upon the snow, of a fine, light, grey description. This appeared the more remarkable, as I knew of no volcano that had been in eruption south of the Vatna Jökull, and the storm had blown almost entirely from the S.E. Moreover, I was aware there was no ash of that kind anywhere upon the south. It appeared to me that this must have been carried either from an erupting volcano, or from some ash-strewn district to the north of the Jökull, by a current of air travelling in a different direction to the S.S.E. wind which we had experienced during the last few days, and bisecting the latter current at a point south of our present position, had been unable to resist its force, and had been carried by it to the place where it was now lying.

We here obtained an excellent view of the Vatna Jökull Housie, which appeared to be higher than any other point on the Jökull, our present height being 4500 feet--the summit of the Housie being at least 1500 feet above us. Its form is a lop-sided cone, from which I could trace, through my telescope, the course of huge lava streams, now deeply buried in the snow, but still leaving unequal ridges upon each side of the mountain, and in some instances extending to a considerable distance upon the main body of the Vatna Jökull. An extensive eruption of one of these snow-covered volcanoes must be awful, when any vast volume of lava is suddenly ejected upon such a tremendous accumulation of frozen material; but minor eruptions and smaller streams of lava, I should think, can make but little impression upon such an enormous quantity of snow in the first instance. Probably (unless there has been any great amount of sand or ashes previously ejected) they melt their way through the snow to the rocky bed of the mountain, and forming a sort of tube by the aid of the rapidly consolidated crust upon their surface continue their course, much as a lava stream would upon ordinary ground, or more especially, perhaps, at the bottom of the sea, without occasioning any very remarkable phenomena, and even the effect of the most extensive eruptions must of necessity be but local.

By 4 P.M. the wind shifted back to its old quarter, S.S.E., and, despairing of frost, we again betook ourselves to the tent. Towards midnight, for about the twentieth time, I went out with Paul to look at the weather. We tried the sleighs, and found it was as much as one man could do to pull a sleigh with nothing on it, and a very small weight almost buried the sleigh in the snow, and enabled it to resist our united efforts to get it along. During our experiment we sunk very deep into the snow. For the last three days I had put every one on half rations, and as anything is better than inactivity with insufficient food, we determined to abandon our sleighs and attempt to force our way through the snow, carrying everything upon our backs. It was rather foggy and sleeting, but the wind was blowing pretty steadily. We communicated our determination to the rest of our party, and they quietly accepted it without a murmur. We packed up everything, and leaving our sleighs and a gathering storm behind us, we turned our faces northward with a cheer which was more animated than might have been expected under the circumstances. I must say our position bore rather a forlorn aspect. Six men heavily laden, wading through snow up to their knees at every step, no view but an ever-advancing circle of gloom, the only variation being that it was darker towards the south, from which quarter a strong wind was blowing, with squalls of sleet and snow. About every quarter of an hour we had to stop from sheer exhaustion, and after two or three hours’ arduous toil two of my men became quite incapacitated and too ill to proceed. This was evidently not a case of sham. I therefore halted, and served out with all speed some warm grog; one man was spitting blood, and another was suffering severe pains in the stomach. I had previously advised every man to wear a cloth bandage round his stomach, but none of them had cared to do so. I suffered rather from pains in the bowels the previous year upon the Vatna Jökull, but I was now wearing an abdominal bandage of tarred cloth, and throughout our prolonged stay upon the snow suffered no inconvenience whatever. The next day was finer, with sunshine and increased cold, with snow at intervals, the thermometer being below freezing point all day; one of the sick men had recovered, but the other was still too ill to travel. Towards evening the wind blew from the west, and it began to freeze hard. I therefore sent back for the sleighs, which we had taken the precaution to stand upright and fix firmly in the snow before we left them.

By 9 P.M. it was freezing very sharply. I served out an allowance of warm grog, and as the invalid was greatly recovered and said he would rather die than go back, we again struck N.N.E., allowing him to go free. We had packed everything on one of the sleighs, four pulling and one pushing behind, and so firm a crust had now formed upon the surface of the snow that this heavily laden sleigh travelled as easily as an empty one would have done the evening before. We now gradually ascended until at 1 A.M. we reached a rolling plain, at the height of 5750 feet. It was perfectly clear in the west, and I obtained a good view of Tungufell’s and Arnarfell’s Jökulls, which from the angle they made with our line of march, showed me we were two-thirds of the way across the Vatna Jökull. It was still very thick in the south and east, and the wind had shifted to the south-west. An ice-storm was almost the immediate result, a driving mist encrusting everything with ice; the undulations in the plateau became more and more marked, the variation in altitude being sometimes as much as 100 feet or more. A most obdurate mist continued to prevent our obtaining any further view, which was very exasperating, as we might have passed within a short distance of objects of interest without being conscious of the fact.

We made our first halt at 3 A.M., and took a light meal of Peek and Frean’s meat biscuits and snow. When I say snow I do not mean the pure white frosty snow which lies upon the surface, but the coarse, granular, icy particles of which the crust we were walking upon was composed. I have often been dependent upon snow for the water supply, both in North-West America and upon mountains, and I find the coarser the snow is, and the more it approaches the character of ice, the better it quenches the thirst, and the less likely it is to occasion pain in the stomach. When the fine white snow only can be procured, as every tyro knows, it can be made more palatable by compressing it into a snowball. In other words, the less cold air is swallowed, entangled in the snow, the better; for the very act of squeezing the snow causes it to part with some portion of air, as is shown by the change of colour, as it regelates towards the form of ice. Thus we preferred the coarse icy granules, which formed the crust upon the older snow, to the pure white tempting frost-snow which, owing to the extra amount of air it contained, must have been of a considerably lower temperature than the granulated snow beneath. We were now at the height of 5900 feet, and the temperature was 15° of frost. The rim of the sun was occasionally observable through the fog which surrounded us, giving us a good line to steer by, and bright fog-bows escorted us to windward; but these were simply bows, and had none of the cruciform corona in the interior, which were so observable upon the Myrdal’s Jökull last year. At 6 P.M. we reached a steep ascent, where our compass twisted and turned about in the most eccentric fashion; the heavens became black as night to windward, the wind had risen, and was making the peculiar booming noise I have often remarked in these regions before a storm, and driving a blinding, pitiless drifting snow before it, which eddied about the sleigh and wrapped itself around us, as if longing to enshroud and bury us in its frozen toils. But we had an idea of burying ourselves in our own fashion. “Oskôp mikill stormur kèmur bráðum” (A bad storm is coming on presently), said Eyólfur, sitting down for a moment on the sleigh, and clapping his feet together to knock off the snow which was clinging to his legs, and we were all of the same opinion. We were at the height of 6150 feet, so I ordered a hole to be dug, and the tent to be pitched. The snow was very hard and firm, even at the depth of four feet, and we cut out as clean a hole as if it had been in salt, but the wind drifted so much loose snow into it, that the men were obliged to hold up the tent to windward during its completion. We had barely got ourselves snug and commenced breakfast, when the storm burst upon us, seeming to threaten the tearing up of the very snow in which we had taken refuge; and had not former experience taught us to fortify our tent well all round with banks of snow, I have no doubt it would have been the last we should have seen of that article of furniture. Being satisfied that all was snug, and that the worst which could happen to us was that we might be buried a few feet in the snow, we went to sleep. When we awoke at mid-day the storm had subsided and the fog had lifted, showing three dark mountains to the north--doubtless Skjaldbreið, Herðubreið, and Dyngjufjöll.

We were speculating as to whether we should go on in spite of the still threatening aspect of the weather, when the fog returned, and the booming wind announced another storm to be close at hand. Presently it broke upon us; never before had I heard the wind make such an unearthly wail. It seemed as if every imaginable demon and all the storm spirits of that wild region had assembled to howl and make a united attack upon us. The light was fast becoming obscure, and we were getting fairly snowed up, but that made us all the warmer, all the more secure, and the shrieking of the storm was deadened by the friendly covering. We partook of some chocolate, smoked and sung, and finally slept again. At 8 P.M. the storm had somewhat subsided, and I sent out a man to clear away some of the snow from the roof of the tent to let a little light in. The snow had drifted nearly over the tent, and it took some hard work before we were dug sufficiently out to let in enough light to write by; outside there were 10° of frost, but we were comfortably warm in the tent. The air outside was so full of snow that we could not see a couple of yards in advance. Another day showed us only a continuation of storm and snow which utterly prevented progress. We had now only about a week’s provision left, so I again put every one on half rations. The men were obliged to take turns in clearing away the snow, at intervals of every three hours, from the top of the tent, and before very long the tent had the appearance of lying at the bottom of a deep hole in the snow. We passed the time as best we could, by sleeping, eating, smoking, writing, singing, spinning yarns, and I occasionally amused the assembly by learning strings of Icelandic words by Mr. Stokes’s method of mnemonics, and repeating them in order, either backwards or forwards, which puzzled the Icelanders not a little.

Before I started for the Vatna in 1871, I remember saying I should like to see one of its worst storms: I now had that gratification. Storms are interesting natural phenomena, but when prolonged indefinitely are, to say the least, tedious hindrances to progress; and now, lying upon the top of the Vatna Jökull, with the possibility of their lasting for a month, and provisions materially diminishing, their dreary monotony became intolerably oppressive, and after mature consultation we all came to the conclusion that if the weather did not clear in two days’ time, we would leave all impedimenta behind, except provisions, instruments and my diary, and strike northward, storm or no storm--“_sauve qui peut_.”

When we lay down and were fairly snowed over, the booming of the storm sounded as if it came from the interior of the mountain, and almost any familiar sound could be singled out from the hurly-burly in an exaggerated degree, without any great stretch of imagination. It stormed all night; the wind “Trolls” shrieked around us, the thunder of the storm roared through the, to us, dark midnight hours, surging upon the icy bosom of the Jökull, sweeping up its snowy slopes, bearing with it avalanches of snow-drift which had buried us several feet deep by morning. By 5 A.M. it lessened somewhat, the furies of the Vatna appeared to have given up the idea of overwhelming us, and the disheartened tempest sunk away in melancholy sobs, but a determined drift and south-west wind persevered in harassing us.

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.

Following the course of the river, we found ourselves upon a plain of sand and pebbles, and as we advanced, a little scanty herbage began to make its appearance, while occasional sheep tracks showed that sheep in this quarter were, as usual, wont to stray from richer and more plentiful pastures to those which afforded but a poor and meagre supply. By 8.30 we reached the little river Grafalandá, which here flows into the Jökulsá; and here there was plenty of grass. The sun now shone warmly, and as we were not more than twenty-seven miles from Grímstaðir in a straight line, we lay down and slept for two hours. Upon rising we still followed the river, which, as before remarked, is by no means a straight one. Our road now lay through a considerable quantity of thick herbage, principally galix and coarse grass. Some hills here interrupted our progress, the base of which was washed by the river, and since no way was possible between the river and the over-hanging cliffs, for the river here took a great turn eastward, we decided to ascend the hills. The summits of these, as is often the case in Iceland, were formed of stones imbedded in sand and decomposed rock, after the fashion of a loosely macadamized road. This is doubtless caused by the heavy covering of the winter’s snow, which presses down the stones, and then as it melts converts the material in which they are embodied into slush, into which the fragments of rock, &c., readily sink, so that when the water has drained off and the fine weather comes, it is found transformed into a kind of cement, for the decomposed fellspathic lavas especially set very firmly under such circumstances. By three P.M. we reached a delightful little mountain stream brawling over the rocks and lava, fertilizing the parts of the mountain through which it ran, and calling into birth green borders of galix and grass, forming a beautiful little cascade directly in our path. Here we halted; the sun was intensely hot, but it felt rather comfortable than otherwise. Here we found an abundant growth of angelica, which we ate with the remainder of our provisions. We then washed our socks and laid down to sleep, lulled by the bubble of the stream and the sweet fresh smell of the herbage around us, which our long absence from everything that could produce so agreeable an aroma rendered all the more welcome.

Evening came before we again started, and our road was through a deep loose sand, which was very trying and heavy to our feet, for beneath this was a layer of pure white ash of the consistency of flour--probably decomposed pumice. When this was mixed with sand, it seemed to be a good fertilizer, for wherever it occurred a patch of wild oats was the invariable result. Before we again reached the river, we found it cut directly through a cluster of low mountains, striking a field of very dark and almost vitreous lava. By midnight we sighted Grímstaðir to the S.E., upon the opposite side of the river, although at some considerable distance, and the ferry was beyond the farm, to the north of it. We followed closely down the bank of the river that we might not miss it, for there was no track to guide one across the Mývatns Örœfí, and it was a good three hours before we found the boat, which was a leaky concern, but by dint of bailing and rowing we eventually reached the opposite side. Five A.M. saw us arrived at Grímstaðir, much to the surprise of the occupants, who had not at all expected the intrusion of six men _on foot_ at such an hour, and from such a quarter.

The bóndi having been roused, the whole establishment turned out to have a look at us. Grímstaðir was decidedly the best and most extensive farm I had seen in the island, except, perhaps, Breiðarbólstað in Rangarvallasýsla. The bóndi was a good type of the genuine old-fashioned Icelander, and everything in the place was cleanly and comfortable. He had passed all his life in the north of the island, and had not ever journeyed to Reykjavík.

There was a good-sized windmill in front of the farm, to grind the rye and wheat sold by the store-keepers; and this was a very great improvement upon the old stone handmill so generally used in other parts of the country, especially in the south. Windmills seem to be rather a characteristic of the north of Iceland. My first object was to procure coffee and a good meal; this having been secured, I proceeded to purchase four sheep, and give instructions for their death and disposal. One was destined for immediate use, the other three to be made into pemmican, their skins being dried for carriage to England.

What a glorious institution is a bed! What a happy thought it was of the man who first conceived the idea of taking off his clothes before turning into it! What luxury! a tub, hot water, soap, a sponge, a towel, clean sheets, an eiderdown quilt, a little tallow for my poor sore nose, and sleep! What sublimity of comfort! Well, I slept as only a well-worn traveller could sleep, till I was roused by the novel sound of a knock at the door of my room. “What’s the matter? Who’s there?” My watch said twelve o’clock.

It was the bóndi’s daughter, with coffee and a plate full of delicate little pancakes, each carefully rolled up with a few raisins inside, and nicely powdered over with white sugar. Forgive the weakness, good reader, but that little tray! Can I ever forget it or its contents, to say nothing of its comely bearer? Will I have any more? Oh yes, by all means. My mid-day meal became an interesting speculation, to say nothing of the comely bearer of it, through whom I ordered sheep’s fry, and ere long was greeted with its savoury smell.

Paul had gone to Reikjahlíð to try and hire a man and some horses to enable us to go to Öskjugjá (the volcano we had seen smoking), for my own horses had not yet arrived, but I learnt that it was almost impossible to obtain either horses or men, as all were engaged in gathering in the hay harvest.

In the afternoon two students arrived from the college at Reykjavík to spend their vacation in the north, and a merry evening we had of it with my men, who were in high spirits at having fairly reached the Norðurland by a route which had never before been trodden by the foot of man, since their island first rose above the waters of the North Atlantic--a feat that would immortalise their names in local Icelandic history!

We had then travelled from Núpstað in the south of the island to Grímstaðir in the north, a distance of about 270 miles, in sixteen days, twelve of which had been passed amongst the regions of perpetual snow. I must here remark that the pluck, perseverance, and obedience of the Icelanders who accompanied me are deserving of all praise; for without them I could never have crossed the Vatna Jökull. The next day was Sunday, and at breakfast I was informed that the bóndi would read a service in the baðstofa, an apartment for general use. This room was filled with little truck bedsteads, and somewhat reminded me of a hospital. All the household were gathered about, neat and orderly, sitting on the bedsteads, and the service consisted of singing, reading, and prayer.

One cannot help noticing the softening and harmonising influences of all forms of civilized religion when not clouded by fanaticism, more especially among those whose lives are spent in close contact with the ruder elements of the world.

The beautiful clear sunny weather continued, enabling us on the following day to obtain a good view of the distant hills of the Mývatn, across the arid waste of the Mývatns Örœfí, where occasional puffs of wind were raising small clouds of the light volcanic sand, carrying them high into the air. Sometimes, too, circular currents raised screw-shaped columns of sand, which now and then increased to rather formidable dimensions, and even crossed the Jökulsá, blinding the chance traveller, and scaring any stray sheep that might be cropping the tufts of scant herbage sprinkled at long intervals over the plain.

The volcano in the Dyngjufjöll was smoking away with greater ferocity than ever, and the dark columns which formed the centre of the great mushroom of vapour which still hung over these remarkable mountains showed that something heavier than steam was being ejected.

Paul returned in the evening with a man from Grœnavatn, named Thorlákur, who was to accompany me to the Ódáðahraun and the Dyngjufjöll, but my difficulty lay in not having sufficient horses, as Paul had found it impossible either to buy or hire more than two, and they belonged to Thorlákur; and as I could not afford to wait for my own, I was compelled to modify my plan of operations. Requiring a fresh supply of necessaries, I first despatched Paul to the stores at Vopnfjörðr, and then, with the rest of my men and Thorlákur, set out for the Ódáðahraun on foot, one horse carrying hay and the other provisions. Our first stage was to be the Grafalandá, where there was plenty of grass, and our next some point between the Dyngjufjöll mountains and the river Svartá, within easy reach of the baggage I had left behind. From here I determined to start with Thorlákur and Eyólfur, while the rest returned to the Grafalandá with everything we did not absolutely need, directing them in the meantime to fetch more provisions from Grímstaðir, and a sufficient number of my own horses (which doubtless by that time would have arrived) to carry us and our belongings from the Grafalandá to Mývatn.

In the evening two of the farm servants, who were refugees from some of the devastated farms in the Jökuldalr, recounted their experiences during the eruptions of last spring, which, however, by no means damped the ardour of my men.

The next day was spent in completing my preparations, and in the evening, we bade adieu to Paul and our good friends at Grímstaðir, after which we again turned our faces towards the mountains.

My supplies now consisted of 50 lbs. of pemmican, 25 lbs. of bread, 10 lbs. of butter, two large dried trout from Mývatn, and about half-a-gallon of corn brandy.

Having crossed the ferry, my attention was arrested by a small crater orgjà (chasm), as the natives called it, which had opened in the plain about two miles to the west; it was an ancient vent, named Hrossaberg, and many similar to it occur in the plain of the Mývatns Örœfí. The fissures which had erupted in the spring were of a like nature, and the heated lava from them we could just perceive farther to the west, looking like a black bank, while from it little clouds of steam were occasionally rising, and a thinnish, darker vapour overshadowed it; and even at the distance we stood from it pungent exhalations were perceptible. We continued on our way towards Herðubreið in a southerly direction, over a desert of sand and lava streams which had intersected and flowed over one another, but my foot still greatly inconvenienced me, though I had given it entire rest during my stay at Grímstaðir. At five A.M. we stopped for half-an-hour to let the horses refresh themselves at a patch of wild oats which here grew rather abundantly in patches, generally in shape and size rather resembling ordinary haycocks, so that in the distance they often made the plain appear as if it were covered with hay in cocks all ready for carting. The peculiarity of their form is doubtless due to the roots that protect the sand in which they grow, while the sand on the surface of the surrounding plain is being constantly swept away by the wind.

We were now in a line west of the hills of Grímsfjall, which are not marked upon Olsen’s map. We pursued our journey with the morning sun, and it is surprising what an effect the sunlight has upon one, to refresh, cheer, and revive one’s strength. I have often remarked (and others have told me they have done the same) that, when travelling all night, the sensation of weakness and weariness is most felt between the hours of one and three o’clock in the morning, but as soon as the sun appears there is a consciousness of refreshment almost as though one had slept.

We perceived a small quantity of steam, perhaps from a hot spring or a fissure in the lava, about seven miles to our west, but I could not spare time to inspect it.

We next reached the Grafalandá, which is a small river taking its rise north-west of Herðubreið, and flows north-east into the Jökulsá. This water no doubt comes from patches of snow upon the Dyngjufjöll, the Trölladýngjur mountains and Herðubreið, and as is generally the case around these mountains, loses itself in the sand and lava at their base to reappear as a stream when it can no longer find a subterranean passage. The banks of this stream were covered with dwarf birch and salix, but the larger wood was dead, and this would seem to show that the woods were more extensive and of a stronger growth in bygone years than at the present time. I have observed this in other parts of Iceland. There was also here an abundance of grass, making it an excellent halting place for anyone desirous of exploring the adjacent mountains. It was in this vicinity, tradition tells us, that the last of the Icelandic outlaws found a shelter, and, as late as a hundred years ago, one man, named Eyvindr, lived here for a considerable time, and a cave in the north of Herðubreið hill memorialises his handy-work, in the shape of a horse carved upon its roof or walls. He appears, however, to have been by no means of terrible character, and was in great favour with the country people.

We next moved on to the river Lindá, about four miles in advance, and three miles north-east of Herðubreið. Here there was good grass for the horses, and angelica grew abundantly, and the stems and roots of it were very acceptable and refreshing in a region so void of vegetable life as this. I wonder the inhabitants do not more cultivate it in their gardens, for I believe it would be quite possible for them to acquire a national fondness for it as a staple article of vegetable diet.

A short trudge over the lava brought us level with Herðubreið, and here we soon began to observe signs of the volcano in the Dyngjufjöll in the shape of the peculiar vitreous pumice I have before mentioned.

Weary, weary work for sore feet this pumice-deluged country. Many masses were four or five feet in circumference, but the majority varied from the size of a man’s hand to that of a wine cork. In many places it had drifted into huge beds, which was bad enough for us to travel over, but it was still worse for the poor horses, who seemed much fatigued with their journey. In ascending and descending these large cinder heaps, great quantities would often suddenly shift, leaving us deeper than our knees in dust and pumice. We were steering west of the course we had taken from the Vatna Jökull, and the pumice was thicker than we had yet found it; while occasionally we met with round white masses of lava glazed over upon the outside, but when broken they disclosed a highly vesicular nature in their interior. This stony shower must have been appalling, especially when accompanied by darkness, floods of scalding water, and mephitic vapours.

The dust occasioned by our progress was excessively trying to the eyes, and even penetrated our clothes. In many places floods of water had evidently flowed from the direction of the volcano. The pumice was rapidly decomposing under the action of the atmosphere, especially where it was wet, and a great deal of it appeared to have been ejected in a wet state, and had since absorbed a kind of wet earthy matter, which seemed materially to assist its decomposition. These floods of water from volcanoes which are neither glacial nor snow-capped mountains, can only be explained in two ways, either by supposing the water to have accumulated as a subterranean lake in the chimney of the volcano, or that it was previously entangled in the very elements of the matter ejected. We were now leaving the Vaðalda hills to the east, and we could see by what a tortuous course we had travelled by keeping so close to the river Jökulsá on our journey to Grímstaðir. At two A.M. we rested and gave the horses some hay, for they were very tired, and most of my men had scarcely recovered from their long march. After an hour’s rest, we again moved on; the men were suffering much from thirst, for Icelanders drink more water when on a walking expedition than any people I ever met with, which I suppose is because they are accustomed to consume a great quantity of milk when at home.

The pumice became finer and less deep as we advanced, and remembering it had fallen in the winter, I dug through it to reach the snow, which greatly relieved our thirst. We were now between the Vaðalda and the Dyngjufjöll mountains, and from the top of a lava field, almost buried beneath the pumice, we beheld the broad sand plain we had crossed upon our journey from the Vatna. I here noticed some rounded masses of lava, which were just the reverse of the bombs I had seen before, being harder and more compact in the centre than upon the exterior. The pumice now grew less and less, and a gentle slope brought us to the sand plain; so, having deposited our loads about one mile south-east of the Askja, and two west of the southern extremity of the Vaðalda, I despatched two men with the horses to seek the remainder of the belongings we had left a week before upon the sand, about four miles away to the S.S.E.

We then pitched by the side of three or four large shallow pools of water, formed by several small streams which here run from the Dyngjufjöll and lose themselves in the sand, re-appearing, as I have before described, as the Svartá, a few miles to the S.S.E.

The sand was very trying, for a westerly wind filled the air with clouds of a most irritating dust. It was some time before the men returned, when they informed me they had seen several sheep, looking plump and well, and had found some grass near the source of the Svartá, where they had given the horses a rest. Having taken a good meal, I sent three of my men on their return journey, for we had not sufficient hay to keep the horses any longer. I was now left with only Thorlákur and Eyólfur, so we pitched our tent in order that we might take a good sleep before setting out for the Dyngjufjöll. The wind had died away upon the plain, the sand no longer troubled us, the sun was shining warmly, so after our long journey we were rewarded by a most refreshing sleep. Seven P.M., however, saw us again on our legs. I had determined that the volcanoes of Öskjugjá must be north-west of our present position, and therefore decided to take a northern course along the E.S.E. face of the mountains, and take the first _gill_ which should anyway lead in a westerly direction. I also arranged for five days’ provision to be taken with us, and the remainder to be _cached_ upon the sand. Our whisky was now reduced to two small bottles full, for I had been compelled to be rather liberal with it the previous night. I therefore directed that a pint or more of water should be placed in the keg, and this we left in the cache to await our return.

Having crossed a few small streams to the north, which flowed into the pools by which we had encamped, the road became tolerably good, being formed of very fine pumice, sand, and mud that had evidently been cast up by the volcano in question. This, in all probability, had been showered down towards the termination of the eruption, when the pumice had been many times ejected and swallowed again by the volcano, thus reducing it to very small pieces, lapilli and mud,--while at the same time the eruption itself was waxing feeble. Our good road terminated after about three hours’ walking, and then we trod again upon a series of heaps of large and most execrable pumice. All night we continued our difficult progress, but no _gill_ presented itself, up which we might turn towards the object of our search.

My position may be imagined by the reader supposing himself toiling over vast piles of rotten cinders, with 20 lbs. weight on his back, in wet skin socks, with villanously sore feet. The circumstances demanded a halt, for the sun was beginning to show itself in an arc of misty, crimson light, which grew broader and broader and more vivid with approaching day. To our left there arose crags to the height of over 1000 feet above us, their sides being draped with slopes of lava and shifting pumice. Around us were misshapen rocks and conical eminences, carrying our thoughts back to eruptions in bygone ages of the volcanic fires beneath. Here was a chasm, yawning widely where it had not been filled up with pumice, while many others cut deeply into the flanks of the surrounding mountains. These were probably the result of the earthquakes which had preceded the recent eruptions; while in the north of the volcano we were now ascending they were very numerous, but I did not observe any to the south of it. The wind was blowing from the east, and hitherto the volcano had not troubled us with its noisome smell; but as the heavy midnight clouds began to roll down the mountain sides, a pungent sulphurous odour reminded us that the dread power which had created the wilderness around was still alive, though somewhat feeble, in the heart of the mountains which seemed to scowl upon their nocturnal intruders. The snowy turban of Herðubreið, however, was glowing in the sunlight, and the bright face of the luminary broke through the eastern mists, showering beautifully upon the cinder-strewn country around us the heavenly gift of morning sunlight. “Já blessuð sólin,” exclaimed both my companions. “Aye, the blessed sun!” and we all for some minutes silently watched the approach of the tutelar spirit of Icelandic travellers. Who can wonder at the uneducated or the uncivilized worshipping the sun? Crude nature always regards what it cannot understand with superstitious fear, and sometimes with love and worship, and if we did not recognise in all a great Primeval Cause, we might worthily deify the sun; but it was useless to lay dreaming and it was too cold to lie still, and lying still would not get us up the mountain, for up the mountain we were fain to go. We had already gone too far to the north, and as there was no gill, we must needs climb straight up, and steer for the thickest steam and the foulest smell; in short, when our eyes failed, to follow our noses.

Toiling up the sides of the mountain, the mist thickened, while dense clouds settled around us as though they would draw us into the volcano; the smell grew sickening, and the pumice more muddy. What was falling, rain or sand? Neither; it was a kind of fatty loam, falling in coarse granules, the smells from which were most offensive, and it was very fortunate we were almost to windward of the volcano, or progress would have been impossible. My aneroid here marked 3500 feet, and as higher and higher we climbed the mist cleared a little, until we stood upon the top; while beneath us lay a pandemonium of steam and hideous sounds. Suddenly a fearful crash made us stand aghast; it seemed as if half the mountain had tumbled in upon the other side of this horrible valley, and for some time we could see nothing for the dense clouds of steam which seethed up before us, and the heavy rain of loam which was falling, while the most hideous shrieks, groans, booming and screaming sounds rose from all parts of this terrible depression, the bottom of which was now utterly obscured. Again and again came a crash and a roar from the opposite side, and also occasionally from the side we were standing upon. The sides of the crater were evidently falling in, and huge wide cracks, even where we stood, showed us that our position was not altogether a safe one; but the wind was clearing the clouds away, so, seating ourselves upon some large blocks of pumice, we lit our pipes and waited until we could obtain a better view. One thing was certain, this was evidently the volcano of the Öskjugjá which had wrought so much devastation in the Jökuldalr and its vicinity, and we were upon the eastern wall of its crater! Presently the clouds lifted in the distance, and as gap after gap, and space after space cleared, we could see the scorched and blasted country which stretched for many a league behind us. Mountain after mountain gradually shook off the clouds in which the night had enfolded them, and as the mist cleared toward the north we could distinguish a three-cornered plain, encircled except at one point, N.N.E., by semi-detached sections of volcanic mountains, some of which had broken out in ancient times, and by their insignificant lava streams had helped to swell the widely-extending lava stream of the Ódáðahraun.

The crater upon the eastern edge of which we stood was situated in its southern corner. This plain was the Askja (or oval wooden casket). It is about six miles long, and from three to four broad, and at this end was some 4000 feet above sea level. I believe it could be easily reached by a glen upon the N.E. side of the Dyngjufjöll. Presently, apparently about a mile away to the north, we could see the rim of the crater, at a great depth beneath us, and while we were looking at it, a great crack opened upon the margin, and a huge slice slipped with but little noise into the crater, deep down beyond the range of vision. The mist, however, somewhat cleared away, and then a shaft, like the mouth of a large coal-pit, was disclosed to the N.N.E. corner of the valley, but beyond the rim of the crater, from which a straight column of pitch-black vapour was issuing. Boom, boom, from its hoarse black throat, was succeeded in a few seconds by a heavy shower of the coarse earthy granules before mentioned; then a long line of chasms and holes burst to view in the dark floor of the crater, from which issued screaming noises, intermingled with inky vapour, patches of steaming ground, and gaping rifts and chasms. The sun now broke through, and almost simultaneously the clouds lifted from the valley, shaking off the Plutonic vapours which had chained them during the night, and, as if ashamed to own their temporary bondage in the presence of the lord of day, they slunk away to windward. By this time we could see the whole of the crater and its surroundings, except in places where the thick smoke and steam intervened. I felt it was well worth taking the journey from England to stand even for a moment and look into the abyss which opened at our feet, with its black pits and grim chasms all contributing to the general aggregate of steam, and loam, and stench, and horrid sound; while behind us stretched a wild waste of glen, desert, and mountain, a country moaning in ashes, and howling with desolation.

This crater, which perhaps we may be allowed to call Öskjugjá, or “the chasm of the oval casket,” is triangular in shape, and is about five miles in circumference, the base of the triangle being to the N.W., and about 1¼ English miles across. From this base, which was nearly at the level of the plain of Askja, a perpendicular wall of rock cut off all communication with the floor of the crater, which sloped gradually towards the centre, to the depth probably of four or five hundred feet below the plain above described; but I had no opportunity of measuring it, as I could not get down to the crater at any point, neither could I see nor hear the stones which I flung in strike the bottom, as they gave back no sound, on account of the soft mud into which they must have fallen; for the floor of the crater appeared to be covered with the same soft loam which was at intervals rained upon us.

[Illustration: THE ÖSKJUGJÁ.

_Page 88._]

The eastern and western sides of the crater converged towards the south, being shut in by lofty mountains, which rose in some places to the height of 1000 feet above the plain of Askja; so that they appeared to be shorn of their inner faces by the violence of the eruption, which had left perpendicular cliffs of great height. The edges of the crater, too, were rapidly tumbling in, and had formed in several places steep slopes of pumice and débris, which it was quite possible to descend; all access to the floor of the crater, however, was prevented by an interior rim of precipice immediately at the bottom of these heights. How long this shape will remain unaltered is, however, a matter of great doubt, for during our stay there, sometimes scarcely a minute elapsed between the roar of the stony avalanches, which increased the din and gradually altered the form of the crater! Three principal lines of fissures, pits, and irregular openings diverged from the centre of the crater to the south-east and west respectively. These, together with black patches of steaming ground and several minor cracks, were all that remained of the huge chasm which at one time must have occupied this valley.

I now selected a spot where there had been a considerable fall in the wall of the crater, forming a slope of a much smaller angle than anywhere else, and exposed a stratum of the previous winter’s snow which enabled us to obtain sufficient water for our breakfast.

My men slept here while I posted up my diary, but I was presently disturbed by a peculiar rushing sound. I instinctively looked towards the crater, and there saw what at first sight seemed to be a fog-bow amongst the steam, but presently the increasing noise gave sufficient evidence of its true character. It was a huge column of water springing up from a fissure in the bottom of the crater, which, being ejected in a slanting direction, almost described an arc, rising to a much greater height than even the level of the spot we were encamped upon, was, of course, converted into spray long before it reached such an elevation, and falling with great violence upon the opposite edge of the valley, caused a great portion of the wall of the crater at that point to fall away with a prodigious noise, the concussion of which produced a series of avalanches in various other parts of the volcano. One could imagine, from the effect of such a comparatively small body of water, what a terrible scene must have presented itself when the mountain was in a state of general activity, and when the entire crater vomited a vast volume of pumice, mud, and water, and the whole valley beneath was a seething cauldron of fire and water! We next removed to the lee of a large rock of agglomerate, and having scooped a bed in the pumice, slept comfortably, with the tent spread over all of us like one large blanket.

Upon awaking I ascended the highest point in the wall of the crater, which was almost its southern extremity, and there I found its height by my aneroid to be about 4500 feet above sea level, the angles by my azimuth compass being from Herðubreið 40° west, Skjaldbreið 103° east. From this point the floor of the crater appeared more bent about and upheaved, while many of its gaping fissures seemed much wider than before, doubtless the result of the longitudinal view of them which the position commanded; in fact, each fissure seemed trying to excel its neighbour in making the most horrible noise, while emitting the most nauseous smell. I doubt if even Cologne, in all its former nastiness and “thousand well defined and separate stinks,” could have produced anything so utterly putrid and abominable as the effluvia which were wafted to the summit we were standing upon! At one point it seemed just possible for us to reach the floor of the crater, and as it would save us a considerable detour if we were able to cross it, we packed up and began again to descend a very precipitous slope of pumice. From thence we descended as far as 750 feet, and then found our way barred by the interior rim of precipice before spoken of. Hitherto we had been unable to see its full extent from the overhanging wall of the crater, but from this vantage-ground it seemed to be about 300 feet deep, while the floor appeared to be dark mud: many of the fissures must have been twenty or thirty feet across, and others at least a quarter of a mile in length. I tried to measure the precipice by flinging over a large lump of the heaviest pumice, but it gave no sound as it reached the bottom, for it was so light I could not fling it far enough to see where it struck, hence we were afraid to go to the extreme edge of the precipice on account of the loose and crumbling nature of the rocks. Nothing now remained for us but to climb back again. This was no easy matter, because of the great angle of the slope, so I was compelled to dig my sore toes into the pumice with all my might; and in one place, for a distance of some 200 feet, to dig steps with my ice axe. We reached the summit at last, very warm, but very glad to be at the top instead of at the bottom of those 750 feet, for had we slipped, we should in all probability have fallen to the bottom of the crater. At last we arrived at the plain of Askja by following along the top of cliffs upon the eastern side of the crater, and there we found everything covered with a dark brown loam, which was still falling thickly around us. I next inspected the pit I had noticed in the morning, which was situated by itself at the top of the precipice, and found it about a quarter of a mile in circumference. Upon looking into it, for a long time nothing could be seen but dense clouds of steam and loam which were rising from it with intermittent violence; but after a while a large portion of the margin slipped in, and stopping the steam for a few moments, enabled us to discern a black funnel-shaped pit tapering towards the bottom, from which huge volumes of steam were again beginning to rise; then came a sudden burst of hot steam, loam, and stench, which again compelled us to make a precipitate retreat. I next investigated every part of this side of the crater in order to see if I could by any means descend to the floor of it, but I found the interior precipice extended all round, and at every point prevented my doing so. We therefore camped but a short distance from the pit, that we might be the better able to watch the wonderful and varying manœuvres which from time to time were enacted.

The worst of our position now was, that it lacked both snow and water, but the loam made us a tolerably nice soft bed, and we slept soundly. Soon, however, a heavy fall of loam upon our tent awoke us, and our eccentric friend outside was uttering such fiendish noises, and giving off such a putrid stench, that we thought the better part of valour was to retreat; so we hastily packed up amid a copious shower of loam, our movements being quickened by the surmise that we might also be treated to a little pumice and hot water. Moreover, the stench was beginning to tell upon us, causing us to feel sick. We next proceeded along the N.N.W. side of the crater, as I wished to count the number of paces along it, in order that I might approximate the size, which I found to be about one and a quarter miles in length. The ground was now much fissured, and disclosed in many places the snow of the previous winter at the depth of six feet beneath the pumice, as well as a quantity of loam which had been flung out by the volcano. After breakfasting beside one of these fissures, at mid-day we turned our backs upon what I can imagine to be one of the most marvellous, and perhaps I may add, one of the most indescribable sights the world can anywhere present! On resuming our journey, we set our faces towards Skjaldbreið, alias Trölladyngjá, and the first part of our journey was across the little plain of Askja, over a lava stream, which here enters from the Ódáðahraun, and had run for some distance up hill. The loam which had been showered down by Öskjugjá had taken the edge off the lava, which was a great source of comfort, and soon we were glad to sight the broad black desert of the Ódáðahraun. There was the snowy mound of Skjaldbreið, spotted with black lava, with its curious tuft of rock at the top, somewhat similar to that on Herðubreið. Before us there was Kistufell, by which we had first descended into Norðurland, and behind all, the broad expanse of the Vatna Jökull, sweeping the horizon from east to west, where it appeared in the distance to be joined by Tungufell and Tindafells Jökull. From here, we could not see the Sprengi Sandr, which lay between them, but perceiving through my telescope a patch of snow upon the hills which almost joined Skjaldbreið upon the east, I determined to strike a line across the Ódáðahraun to it, that I might take another rest and relinquish all our loads before we ascended Skjaldbreið the next morning.

I may here remark that the Ódáðahraun is a desert of sand and lava, extending over an area of 1200 square miles, the greater part of which seems to have flowed from Skjaldbreið, so I think it must be one of the oldest lava flows in Iceland, for this volcano has not erupted since 1305. Some of the lava may, however, have flowed from the Dyngjufjöll, or, possibly, from fissures in the plain itself. I could, however, trace no distinct stream from the above-named mountains, nor has any one, I believe, travelled along the west side of them for the purpose of ascertaining. In several places the lava of the Ódáðahraun has run up hill. This, I believe, has been occasioned by the crust which flowed upon the surface of the lava stream, constituting a sort of pipe with the ground upon which the stream rested; and the air being thus excluded, the still liquid lava underneath has acted in the same way as water would when enclosed in a pipe, by finding its own level, or approximately so, according to its degree of fluidity. At any rate it took us five hours to cross the Ódáðahraun and reach the snow patch I had seen. There we rested, and early next morning, accompanied by Thorlákur, I set off for Skjaldbreið, leaving Eyólfur, who was very tired, in camp. We next followed an immense lava stream about half-way up the mountain, and during the early part of our walk I several times heard the muffled sound of water running beneath the lava. When about half-way up, we reached deep indurated snow, through which protruded the black hummocks and masses giving Skjaldbreið such a mottled appearance when I first saw it from the Dyngjufjöll mountains. Skjaldbreið is, however, nothing but a huge mound of basaltic lava, partially covered with snow, rising by a very gradual slope to about 4000 feet above sea level, and from it has evidently flowed the greater part of the Ódáðahraun, though, as all the neighbouring mountains seem to have erupted at some period or another, it is but fair to presume they have also helped to swell this vast wilderness of volcanic dregs; but I have been unable to trace any lava stream in the Ódáðahraun to any other source than Skjaldbreið. The summit of Skjaldbreið I found was thickly enveloped in clouds, so I stopped when within 300 feet of the top to look at the surrounding country. To our north lay the arid waste of the Ódáðahraun, the unearthly desolation of which I have never seen equalled. Truly, it may be said that it extends over but a small area when compared with many of the mighty deserts in other parts of the world, but there is a forbidding, yet fascinating grimness about this which is an especial characteristic of Icelandic scenery, and as this savage region extends as far as the eye can see, it produces none the less vivid impression upon the mind of the beholder, although one can refer to the map and find that it extends over only about 1500 square miles. When first gazing at a dreary Icelandic lava desert the sensations are something akin to those experienced when for the first time one sees a prairie immediately after the fire has swept across it; but although one is conscious that there may be a million instead of a thousand square miles of burnt, black, cindery country around, it does not impress one with its awful magnificence and grandeur of desolation as the Ódáðahraun does. To the north and east were the Dyngjufjöll mountains, with their volcanoes smoking away with renewed vigour in the cold morning air. A point further to the east was the long weary route we had just traversed, stretching away bleak and bare to where the grey pumice in the distance gave the country the appearance of lying in bright sunshine. To the south rose the Vatna Jökull, cold and gloomy, with its heights wrapped in fog and mist. Kverkfjall and Kistufell, however, were exceptionally clear; the former was smoking in three places, and a great quantity of sand and lava appeared to have proceeded from it. Between us and the Kverkfjall swept the broad tongue of glacier, reaching two-thirds of the way northward towards the Vaðalda hills, and from its extremity I counted five arms of the Jökulsá which issued from it, while the small stream from Kistufell was hidden by the intervening hills. We next continued our journey to the summit, and then found a small but perfectly formed crater, about 500 yards in circumference, but of no great depth, while in the centre rose a ridge of burnt lava, which gave the mountain the black tufted appearance I had noticed in the distance.

The latest eruptions, I should imagine, from the contour and disposition of the surrounding lava, have taken more the form of prodigious boilings over than of explosive outbursts, and it seems as if it had continued to burn tranquilly long after its last outburst. From here we descended a short distance upon the north-west side, in order to get below the fog, and obtain a view of the country to the west. The same dreary desolation presented itself--the pure white Jökull, with the black sand and the rugged lava fields were alike cold, silent, motionless, and dead! The mountains were a little different in form, but there was the same grand desolate wilderness, seeming ready to blast every living thing that dared to intrude on its enchanted solitude. We therefore returned to camp, and were not sorry to sit down to a good breakfast of pemmican, bread and butter, and water. The sun shone fiercely at midday, and the heat, radiated by the sand and lava, became so great that we rested till the cool of the evening, when we struck for the south-east end of the Dyngjufjöll, which we reached about midnight, but as a thick fog descended upon us, I steered close along the base of the mountains, preferring a little circuit to wandering about all night in uncertainty upon the plain. Our course from here was over an old lava stream, buried in light volcanic dust, which was very trying to travel over, for we sunk rather deeply into it, and had to stop every now and then to empty our shoes, which were constantly becoming filled with sand. At length we struck upon the pumice, which showed we were nearing the volcano of Öskjugjá; soon after we came to a small stream, and being all very thirsty, the water was highly appreciated. Seeing that the pumice increased, and fearing we should be getting too far to the east, I resolved to follow the course of the next stream, conjecturing that it would bring us down to the pools by which we had made our cache. It was a crooked way, but it brought us right at last; for as the mist dispersed we sighted the pools, and it was not long before we gladly lighted upon our cache. The first thing that came to hand was a box of Fry’s chocolate powder, so we all sat down upon our packs and with our broad knife blades began to operate upon the powdery treasure. Eating chocolate powder we found was thirsty work, so having emptied the box, we took a good drink of water, pitched the tent, and turned in.

We had hitherto been using stones for tent pegs, but here there were none to be had, and as we could not now avail ourselves of little screws of hay, as we had done when last camped upon the same spot, we took off our mocassins and buried them, with a string attached to each, at intervals round the tent; these answered the purpose of pegs very well, and as it is always necessary to bury untanned mocassins while resting, to prevent them from shrinking and becoming too hard to wear, we, by this device, managed to “kill two birds with one stone.” After a good sleep, I debated on the possibility of reaching the Kverkfjall, which I particularly wished to examine, but the Jökulsá and a long stretch of country lay between us, and as Thorlákur assured me if we did so we should have soon “_to go on our naked feet_,” it was a matter for grave consideration what was best to do. The lava had already played sad havoc with our foot-gear--we had each of us worn out four pairs of mocassins since we left Grímstaðir--and those which were doing duty as tent pegs were almost played out, while there were but two pairs remaining in our small stores, which was anything but encouraging. Moreover, we had a long way before us yet; so all things considered, I came to the conclusion that Kverkfjall was impracticable. I determined, therefore, to ascend the Dyngjufjöll again, and from the peak above us take a farewell look around, directing Eyólfur in the mean time to carry all our things to a small stream at the foot of the mountains, about two miles north of our present position, which could be easily done in two shifts. Accordingly, I began my climb accompanied by Thorlákur, but our progress was continually interrupted by deep “gjás,” or fissures, many of which were of great depth, probably several hundred feet. In some cases, however, we found bridges of snow and pumice, by which we were able to cross these chasms.

At this time the sun was wending its way westward across the snowy slopes of the Vatna, as we reached the top of this part of the Dyngjufjöll, and really language quite fails me when I attempt to describe the wildness of that view! Behind us was the volcano, from which vast volumes of dark smoke and steam were rising; the various mountains which studded the sterile wastes before us were all clothed in the same dull grey covering; the black sand of the Mývatns Örœfí was just visible to the north, and as far as the eye could see eastward, there stretched a series of mountains, valleys and wasted plains. During nearly two hours we might almost be said to have slept in the view before us; indeed, I was hardly conscious how the time had gone until the sun seemed to have slipped behind the Hofs Jökulls, giving their snows a golden outline, while my watch reminded me that it was nearly 11 P.M.

The atmosphere now turned very cold, the frost was already sparkling upon the surrounding rocks, a purple glow stole over the mountains, blending their softened outlines with the tinted sky, and we felt that a little brisk work would sensibly add to our comfort. Our descent afforded us some amusement, sliding down the steep beds of small pumice, which we did at a furious rate. It had taken us more than three hours to ascend the mountain, but less than one to come down it! We found Eyólfur where I had directed him to wait; making a good meal, we patched up our mocassins as well as we could by moonlight, and by a different route to that by which we came we struck a straight line for Herðubreið. Ultimately we reached Herðubreið with the sun, and I was not at all sorry to find myself on my way home; for increased inflammatory symptoms in my great toe showed that a liberal application of blue-stone and rest were absolutely indispensable to its cure. The weather by this time appeared very uncertain, for the heavens were spotted all over with masses of golden nimbus, drifting rapidly before a wind which was blowing above, though the atmosphere beneath was perfectly calm, which are invariably indications of storm in Iceland.

We were now clear of the pumice, and after a hard scramble over some very rough lava, part of which had flowed from an ancient volcano not marked upon the map, about eight miles S.S.E. of Herðubreið, part, apparently, from the Dyngjufjöll mountains, and some from Trölladýngjur (Troll’s bowers). Here we camped by a pool of water.

Herðubreið, whose trigonometrical height is 5447 feet, is a snow-covered cone, resting upon a perpendicular mass of rock, whose height equals about twice the diameter of the cone. Upon its south-east and west sides are tali of disintegrated and greatly weather-worn rocks, and bulging, misshapen masses of agglomerate. At every point except the S.E. and N.N.W. the sides are perfectly perpendicular, presenting walls of about 2000 feet from the base of the mountain to the commencement of the snow-covered cone; it is surrounded by a dry sandy foss, and choked in places with rounded _débris_, which had fallen from the agglomerate of which Herðubreið is principally composed.

Probably the most remarkable feature of this mountain is that no streams of water flow down its sides, while the base of most other Icelandic snow-capped mountains are generally watered with streams, which, as we have already seen, often disappear in sandy or cavernous ground; but here all the water which must result from the melting of the frozen accumulation upon the summit of Herðubreið seemed utterly lost, until it issued in springs such as those which form the source of the Lindá, at a considerable distance from the base of the mountain, or collects in pools such as Herðubreiðvatn.

The gulleys which had in many places worn the side of Herðubreið into the fantastic forms so peculiar to this formation (agglomerate), appear to be the result of rain and wind, and the only points from which the mountain is assailable are the S.S.E. and N.W. It was from the latter that Captain Burton attempted it in 1872, and that experienced traveller seems to regard it as the core of a much larger mountain; possibly such may be the case, but its shape is decidedly against its being a volcano of anything but the most ancient order. History tells us, however, that this mountain has erupted upon several occasions. The eccentricity of its form is sufficient to suggest any amount of speculations as to its origin and character, while nothing but a careful investigation of the mountain from the base to the apex could enable anyone to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. The palagonitic agglomerate (which, as I have said, constitutes the greater part of the mountain), is of so friable a nature, and so rapid is the erosive influence of the Icelandic climate, while so disturbed and metamorphosed has the whole of the island been by volcanic agency, that one ceases to wonder at the eccentric shape and anomalous character of its mountains.

I much regretted being compelled to pass by Herðubreið without attempting to ascend it, but our foot gear was in tatters and my sore toe required immediate attention, so we camped in a large gulley of sand and lava, which extended a mile or more, gradually rising to the level of the plain towards the south. Here, while we were lying with the tent spread over us all, blanket fashion, and had just dropped off to sleep, we were suddenly awakened by such a blast of wind, and a deluge of the finest sand and pumice, that for the moment I didn’t know what it was. At first we started to our feet, only to get our eyes full of finely-powdered pumice, and as I tried to speak I got my mouth full. We saw all the smaller articles of our packs making the most speedy tracks for the more settled portions of the country. I tried to save my hat, but in so doing kicked my bad toe against a lava block, tangled my feet up in the tent rope, and fell down, the latter being about the most sensible thing I could do, for in a few moments the gust was past and I could look up.

Blind with the sand, and wild with the agony it was occasioning us, we all rushed for the water, and opened our eyes in it. While so doing there came another gust, which compelled us to wait upon our knees, keeping our heads in the shallow water until it was over; and then, soaked with sand and water, we made our way back to where our things had been. I say _had been_, for all were not there then; my broad-brimmed Danish hat, and half my small etceteras were gone, and, worst of all, my map and case, where were they? Four white spots upon a lava field a quarter of a mile away caused me to run--yes, run--bad toe and all! However, my painful and spasmodic effort was amply repaid by the recovery of Olsen’s map, which had been nicely mounted and packed up in a case by the bookbinder at Reykjavík; now, even the bookbinder would scarcely have recognised it. Its journey across the Vatna Jökull had not improved its “personnel,” but the short cut it had made through the neighbouring pool had in some places rendered it illegible. Fortunately the Vatna Jökull and its surroundings, with my various markings, were miraculously preserved, but its case I never saw again.

To return to camp. Everything that had been buried in the sand had been dug out, and just as we were about to start again another gust came sweeping down the gulley, half smothering us. We buried our faces in our mackintosh coats until it was past, when my companion Thorlákur remarked, “This is not fine;” to which I assented in the most emphatic language my stock of Icelandic would command. We now made very fair progress over the lava field, where, under an overhanging lava block, we bathed our eyes with sulphate of zinc and rose water, which had often been a great relief during my Icelandic journeys, and I advise all travellers who may follow in my wake by no means to omit taking so essential a medicament. We soon reached the grass at the source of the Lindá, which river rises from a single spring about two miles N.N.E. of Herðubreið. Here we took the rest we had been unable to obtain at our last halting-place, and by evening we reached the remainder of our party at the Grafalandá, where I was rejoiced to find our horses and a good supply of provisions, which had been sent with a kind note from the good people of Grímstaðir, who had sent us some pancakes, flat bread, coffee and milk, and the latter, though sour, was very acceptable. From Vopnafjörd I also had ordered some schnapps and chocolate; so that we made what seemed to us a right royal feed, and after a good wash, I enjoyed a night of sound rest in the sleeping bag, which had previously sheltered my men who had been waiting for us upon the banks of the Grafalandá.

At 5 A.M. the next morning we were on horseback, and away over the sand and the lava of Mývatns Örœfí, leaving the Vatna Jökull and the land of the outlaws behind us, enveloped in clouds of light grey dust which were blown up from the pumice by a S.E. wind. This dust, I must explain, was of the most irritating nature, resembling finely-powdered glass; our clothes got saturated with it, and I was already beginning to feel its effect in the severe abrasion of skin it was inflicting upon me. By 12 A.M. we were level with Grímstaðir, only much more to the west, and here we stopped to allow the horses to graze off the wild oats, for the heat of the sun was intense. After lunch we must all have taken a nap, for suddenly looking up, I found it was one o’clock, and the horses were nowhere in sight, and more than an hour elapsed before we recovered them. Having secured the vagrant animals, we made for the new lava, which was produced by the eruptions of last spring in the Mývatns Örœfí. Sulphurous and acid vapours had long announced its proximity, although the wind was unfavourable for their reaching so far. This lava stream, which is about fifteen miles long, and varies from one to three broad, has flowed almost entirely over ancient lava streams, most of which have flowed from an old crater situated in the vicinity, called Sveinagjá. The new lava extended to about an English mile to the north of the old road from Reykjahlíð to Grímstaðir.

At this particular point it is bordered by a rather fertile stretch of ground, where a few sheep managed to sustain a miserable existence on cinders and salix, though further to the north and east there are excellent pastures. The lava stream was basaltic, and presented the usual chaos of black crags, waves, and fanciful shapes, blisters, and heaps of clinker. It was intensely black, and still hot; thin, pungent choking fumes being emitted in all directions, while from various places puffs of steam were constantly bursting out. This stream, or rather, these two streams, which have since joined one another, I find have flowed from a long fissure in the plain, the course of which was marked by a line of conical mounds thrown up by the eruptions in the late spring; of these a fuller description will be found upon another page, and an account of the previous eruption in the Appendix.

We climbed a few hundred yards over the lava stream, but could not reach the mounds from which the lava had flowed, on account of the deleterious fumes exhaled from them. The fissures were lined with various sublimations, to the thickness in some places of half-an-inch. Amongst them chloride of ammonia was very prominent, but this was in a state of rapid deliquescence. It might have paid to collect it, for the quantity was considerable.

We next turned more than a mile out of our course, to a part where Thorlákur expected to find some water, for we were all very thirsty. Our road, however, was over old and viscous lava for some distance, and we came upon some coarse hillocky grass land, in a line north of the lava stream. Here we encountered a variety of fissures which had been formed by the earthquake, several of which, Thorlákur informed me, had cast out sand, stones, and a little lava. We found only dry pits at the place where Thorlákur had expected water, so nothing remained but to strike westward for Reykjahlíð. No doubt the various cracks and fissures so recently formed in the plain accounted for the absence of water.

The new lava obliges a traveller from Grímstaðir to Reykjahlíð to go three miles out of his way. We here crossed a depression of about thirty feet, extending over several square miles, caused by the late volcanic disturbances. In the vicinity of this depression the ground was upheaved and much fissured. Thorlákur informed me that the depression was formed shortly after the first eruption in the Mývatn Orœfí in the preceding spring. We were, however, soon amongst the hills of Mývatn, where we obtained some water, and before long ascended the Námufjall, whose dirty yellow, red and brown sides, had in some places the appearance of washed-out posters. Here the smell was filthy. In this locality the treasures of the Northern Sulphur Mining Company are situated, but as I was thinking more ab