THE FJORDS

Next day rain, fog, and mist prevailed, so there was much whist-playing and smoking below, and much blowing of whistle above. Towards evening we were off the coast of Iceland; the land was not visible, for we were enveloped in fog, but there was no doubt about it, for we could hear that land was not far distant. It may seem strange, but it was a fact, we were really feeling our way along the coast by the aid of the steam-whistle. The land thereabouts rises abruptly from the sea, and the echoes from the sheer faces of rock enabled the officers of the vessel to judge their distance. We went dangerously near to another vessel in the fog, but soon afterwards it cleared off a bit, and there, just abeam on the starboard side, was the other vessel, sufficiently close to be a dangerous neighbour in thick weather. At midnight we were going full speed ahead, but when I awoke at seven in the morning it was to find that our experiences of fog were not at an end, that we were again in a very dense one, and that we were lying-to. After breakfast it lifted sufficiently to allow of a course being shaped for Northfjord, our first port of call in Iceland. Much of the scenery of this fjord was obscured by the thick atmosphere, but occasional glimpses through rifts proved that we were missing many fine scenes that are on view when the conditions are favourable. The first sight of Iceland was obtained at Dalatangi Point, four or five miles to the north of the entrance to Northfjord. In the fog we had gone too far north. Other glimpses on the way were of a corrie near Dalatangi, and the face of the mountains near Mjofifjord. Our stay at Northfjord was of but short duration, and there was no time to go ashore, so the only view we had of the town was obtained from the vessel's deck.

We had a number of Faroese passengers on board, bound for various ports in Iceland; they were good types of the race, and I obtained permission to photograph some of them.

Seythisfjord was not far distant, and in a few hours we were steaming up the fjord towards the town at its head. The scenery and geological structure of these fjords were similar to what we had passed through two days before in the Faroes. Towards the head of the fjord there are many waterfalls on the mountain-sides; in fact, it is a district of waterfalls, for there are some fine ones up the valley, where a fair-sized river and its various tributaries rush down from all sides in a series of great leaps and bounds over ledges of rocks fifty, sixty, a hundred feet high, finally joining and tumbling over the lowest ledge in a grand cascade (which I photographed) to the river below—the "valley of waterfalls" would be a descriptive name to bestow upon it.

It was at Seythisfjord that we first set foot upon the soil of Iceland. We were conveyed to the shore by the steam-launch and boats from a man-of-war, the Danish guardship, that was lying in the harbour. We were so honoured because the captain of our vessel was an officer in the Danish Navy, and it was intended as an attention to him. It seems that some of the vessels belonging to the Company are captained by officers of the Navy, who are appointed to the command by the Danish authorities as a sort of reward for services, for during their term—three years, I think—they draw their pay as officers of the Navy in addition to what is due to them from the Company.

On shore our party split up as usual, Miss Hastie and Hill going off in search of plants, while the "Nautical Adviser," Thomas, and I wandered along the sea-shore and into the town. We were pestered by an Icelander having a very crude idea of the English language who had been imbibing the "lemonade" of the country, and if he had not "three sheets in the wind," at least there was one little sheet flapping about, the end of which was flicking at us at inconvenient moments. We tried to shake him off, but it was of no avail. He had a notion that we wanted a guide to conduct us into the interior of Iceland, and he claimed to be very competent and to know everything of the country. We did not doubt his competency, or if so we did not inform him, but tried to make him understand that we had made our arrangements for guidance, and that the men we had engaged were teetotallers. For a long while he dogged our footsteps, and it was not until we had got clear of the town and were making tracks up the valley towards the waterfalls that we lost him. On the way we joined Miss Hastie and Hill, who seemed quite satisfied with the result of their grubbing amongst what—to those of us at least who had not been educated botanically—looked like very common weeds. Together we slowly, very slowly, made our way up the valley, for there were many stoppages while plants were being dug out and transferred to small tin boxes that looked like tobacco tins—indeed, I think they were originally intended to hold the "weed" of the smoker and not "Weeds—various." So much time was occupied by these stoppages, that at last it became a question whether we should be able to reach the lowest and, as we believed, the finest of the waterfalls, for we were expected to be on board at a certain time, in readiness for departure; the question was much debated, and there seemed to be a general desire to discuss the matter rather than to make the attempt to reach the fall. I determined to try, and was informed that I should miss the steamer.

I could see the misty spray rising from the fall not a mile distant, so I set out across swamps and peat bogs, caring but little for such trifles, for I had resolved to see that fall. Well, I did reach the fall, and after photographing it, crossed the river just below it, and returned on the other side of the valley. It was a rather difficult journey, for I had a severe cross-country course to cover, with a number of fairly long jumps over the mountain streams on the way, but, nevertheless, I reached the Ceres half an hour before the other members of the party. Then, strange to say, none of them seemed to believe that I had reached the waterfall at all; but the photograph of it is the best evidence that I can offer in support of my contention that I did.

The soil at Seythisfjord looked very good, and would doubtless yield good crops were the summer a bit longer and the ripening power of the sun rather stronger. There is much peat and boggy land on the slopes below the steep escarpments on each side of the fjord, and in the river-flats up the valley; many ponies are grazed here, and as some of the boggy land is being drained by deep dykes, the number is likely to increase; the peat that is removed in cutting the dykes is built up at their sides to form dividing fences.

The valley at the head of Seythisfjord is a fine specimen of the result of sub-aerial erosion, for its form is due to the denuding action of frost and snow, wind and rain, storm and sunshine. There is a vast corrie at the head, which is shelved in a series of steps right down to the flat through which the river meanders. It is at these shelves or ledges of the harder strata that the waterfalls and cascades already mentioned are to be found—there, where the river and its branches rush over the edge of one terrace and plunge down to the next.

This being our first experience of the Icelanders, our attention was attracted by the peculiar headdress worn by the women, which is common to all classes—a small black knitted cap, about four or five inches in diameter, from which a silver tube hangs suspended at the side of the head; through the tube is strung a number of cords or silken threads that hang down as a tassel.

We ought to have sailed late in the evening, but a thick fog settled over the land and prevented a start. Wonderful echoes can be produced at Seythisfjord; the steam-whistle was sounded several times, and the sound echoed and re-echoed again and again, the reverberation continuing for many seconds before it died away in the distance among the mountain tops. Fog and misty rain continued through the night and well into the small hours of the morning; but at about five o'clock it lifted sufficiently to allow the Ceres to put to sea. Progress was slow, and the frequent blasts of the steam-whistle that disturbed our morning slumbers indicated the state of the atmosphere; however, we entered Vopnafjord soon after mid-day, and shortly afterwards came to an anchorage opposite the town.

Vopnafjord is one of the homes of the eider duck, and it was on the rocky islets opposite to the town that we first saw those birds in their natural surroundings. We borrowed one of the ship's boats and rowed over to the rocks. It was difficult to get near, for the ducks were very shy—more so than usual just then, because many had young; but as they were too young to fly, we did get fairly near by rowing round their rocks. The nesting season was over, and many of the birds had gone away. The production of eider down is an industry that is increasing; the birds are rigorously protected, and a fine of ten kronur (eleven shillings) is the penalty incurred by any one killing an eider duck.

In the afternoon we went ashore in a hired boat that leaked very badly; but we reached the shore without anything very exciting happening. The return journey, however, was attended with considerable risk, for in the meantime the wind had risen, and there was a nasty choppy sea beating against us when we attempted to make the Ceres. Water entered the boat through the leaky spots, and more was shipped; we were near being swamped, but we made the gangway, and got on board without anything worse than a wetting. At the various ports of call there was often considerable difficulty in obtaining a boat, and the passenger wishing to get ashore had to take whatever craft was available, for they were very scarce. Often they were dirty and very leaky. Sometimes a passage was refused, and on one occasion a cargo-boat starting for the shore declined a fare of two kronur, although going direct to the wharf not far distant—the Icelander is an independent personage, and unless it suits his convenience he sometimes refuses a job.

While at Vopnafjord we met with a man, an Icelander, who could speak a little English; we soon discovered that he was proud of having acquired a few British swear words. Thomas and I were taking shots at a number of fish-cleaners at work on the beach, when this man came along; we had previously been in conversation with him, so he remarked airily as he passed that the result of our snap would be "a hell of a picture." We laughed, but he went on a few paces and then stopped beside a fellow-passenger, a man of strict views and ideas, who was photographing the same subject. The Icelander, encouraged, I suppose, because we had laughed, went one better on what he had said to us, and gave his opinion that this result would be "a blank, blanketty blank picture"!—he seemed surprised at the freezingly cold way in which his remark was received.

We left Vopnafjord in the afternoon and in four hours made Langanes, a narrow, flat-topped peninsula several miles long, a perfectly horizontal lava flow, with faces that rise vertically from the sea; the section is exactly the same, whether through the end or side of the peninsula. The whiteness of the points of rock and of the face generally, evidenced the fact that many sea-fowl resort there, and that the rock-face is covered with a deposit of guano.

At midnight we were inside the Arctic circle, and had the weather been favourable, we should have seen the sun just above the horizon. But His Majesty was not on view, for though the fog had lifted in the morning and had enabled us to make Vopnafjord, the weather had been dull all day, with the sun quite obscured, and the same conditions prevailed through the night. It was a pity, because it would probably be our only chance of seeing the midnight sun, for next day we should be in Akureyri, a town lying at the head of a long fjord, and nearly a degree south of the Arctic circle, where the view would, we thought, be obscured by intervening hills and mountains.

Husavik in Skjalfandi was our next port of call, and we arrived there early enough in the morning for us to go ashore before breakfast. Thomas and I were interested in a reported "raised beach"—land originally formed on the margin of the sea, and subsequently raised by tectonic (subterranean) disturbances to a height above sea-level. Miss Hastie was also desirous of seeing the raised beach, and trudged along with us over the hills to the bay where we expected to find it; but on arrival we could see no raised beach: there was some volcanic conglomerate, the rounded and smoothed stones of which had perhaps caused it to be mistaken for a raised beach—unless, indeed, we ourselves were on the wrong track and had mistaken the spot; nevertheless, there was nothing else in view that looked like what we were in search of, so we returned to Husavik over the hills again. Not long ago these hills were completely covered with fine yellow ferruginous loam—a comparatively recent deposit; but it is now being rapidly eroded, and the older moraine beneath laid bare.

At Husavik there is a great accumulation of moraine matter that has been brought down from the valley at the back. It is a terminal moraine that comes right down to the sea, which washes at the foot of its almost vertical face, fifty to sixty feet high. The town stands on the edge of the moraine, and the only approach from the pier is by a long flight of wooden steps; goods are conveyed in trucks that run up a steep inclined tramway, and these are raised and lowered by cables and the use of a windlass and friction brakes. Behind the town great fields of peat are being excavated and stacked ready for use as fuel.

On the voyage from Husavik to Akureyri, one of our fellow-passengers was the Icelandic minister of the church at Akureyri, a man who had a very fine tenor voice, the best in Iceland according to repute; at our request he sang to an accompaniment played on a small harp by a travelling companion. One thing he sang was the Icelandic National Hymn, entitled the "Hymn of Praise," composed by S. Sveinbjornsson to celebrate Iceland's thousand years of freedom. The thousand years were completed in 1874 (874 to 1874), and the fact was celebrated in that year with festivities and general rejoicing, the King of Denmark taking part in them.

On our arrival at Eyjafjord in the afternoon, the weather was clearing up, and as we steamed up the fjord fine views opened out, and we saw many excellent cloud-effects. After about three hours' steaming up the fjord we reached Akureyri, the town next in importance to Reykjavik, the capital, and came to an anchorage there at about eight o'clock in the evening.