THE INTERIOR—TO HVERAVELLIR

We were delayed for about two hours while waiting for the farmer to conduct us over the mountains; it was necessary to take a local guide, for none of our own men had ever been over the ground. When we did move on we tried to make up in pace for the delay; we made good time in ascending steadily from the valley over great accumulations of moraine matter and by ancient tracks through hummocky land. Riding through this hummocky ground sometimes requires the exercise of considerable caution. The continuous traffic of generations across the hummocks wore innumerable tracks, which have since been kept open by the weather, and deepened in some cases. Many of them are very deep, occasionally reaching almost to the knees. One has to raise first one foot and then the other to prevent their being badly crushed, or to avoid being unhorsed by contact with the sides as the ponies go on at a fast jog-trot. One member of the party caught both feet against the sides of the ruts, with the result that he was thrown forward, when he affectionately clasped his pony round the neck.

As we continued to ascend we met with a new experience, for we had to ride up one fairly long snow slope and several smaller ones, following in the tracks of the pack-train over the beaten-down snow. We were then at a considerable altitude, perhaps 2500 feet, and we entered what is known as Litlisandr, the little sand waste. Its name does not quite describe it—waste it is, and desolate enough, but there is not a great deal of sand in the part that we traversed, and we passed through its middle. It is an elevated moraine, comparatively flat, with a number of small lakes whose existence is due to a series of drift dams. It was very cold while we were crossing Litlisandr, for the icy wind was blowing strongly in our faces, so the latter part of the day's journey—a long one, for we did not reach camp till just a quarter of an hour before midnight—was made under considerable personal discomfort.

The going was very rough, and some very steep slopes had to be descended after crossing the sandr, and nothing but the sure-footed ponies of Iceland could have got down them in safety. These ponies are hardy little beasts, averaging about twelve hands; born and bred in the hills, they are accustomed to forage for a living in the roughest country, and their experiences there cause them to become the sure-footed beasts that they are. They seem to run on three legs, for they always have a spare one ready for emergencies. Some of them stumble badly, but as a rule they do not, and it is a very rare thing for a pony to come down. It is wonderful how hard they keep on nothing but green feed; they never see a bit of "hard tack," yet, when required, they can jog along for twelve hours or more and be fresh at the end.

After descending from the sandr, we traversed more moraine matter until we reached our camping-ground at AthalmansvÖtn. Here there are two lakes, and it was on the banks of the more northerly Athalmansvatn that we camped. At the end of our journeys, especially when arriving late, as we did on this occasion, our hands and feet were icily cold—so cold that, to induce a better circulation, we were wont to seize mallets and drive in tent pegs, or to do something else requiring vigorous muscular exertion.

On our way over the sandr we saw the most magnificent sunset effects. Indeed, it was often our luck to witness the glories of an Icelandic sunset.

Towards morning a gale of wind struck us, and threatened to blow our tents into the lake. Fortunately the tents and their cords were sound, and the pegs driven well into the ground, so we escaped the discomfort of a sudden exposure to wind and weather.

Next day we reverted to the usual habit of starting late; but on this occasion it was excusable, for our dinner, or supper, or whatever name may be applied to our third meal, was not finished till past 1 a.m., so a start at 1 p.m. was not so late as it appeared. As it was difficult to draw a line between day and night, an hour or two one way or the other did not matter very much.

Some of our party had hurts which they nursed tenderly: the "nautical adviser" had a knee, Thomas a side, and so on; and great was the consumption of "Elliman's" and "Homocea," advantage being taken of the halts to rub in one or other of these remedies for ills of all kinds; but the "nautical adviser" and Thomas did not seem to take much heed of their hurts when they were in the saddle, for they rode hard enough over the rough moraines that we crossed. At first our course lay over soft peaty ground, but afterwards we were obliged to pick our way over expanses of great boulders. We had to ascend for a while, but suddenly, from the ridge at the highest point in our ascent, there was opened to us a fine panoramic view of two of Iceland's great ice-fields, Hoff JÖkull and Lang JÖkull. A number of prominent peaks stood out boldly, chief among them being Hrutafell, Skeljafiall, Kjalfell, and those of KerlingarfjÖll.

Our next experience was in crossing a wind-blown sand desert, where the wind blew the sand in clouds across our path and we had ocular demonstration of the work performed in such regions by the wind, where great clouds of sand sweep onward day after day, encroaching upon the land and continually altering the surface features. Although this is a genuine sandr it is not so marked on the maps. We covered several miles before we got clear of this sandblown desert and entered a region of ordinary moraine matter.

After lunching beside a small brook we continued over the moraine to the river StrangÁkvisl. The pack had gone on ahead while we were at lunch, but one guide was left behind to pilot us across the river, which is noted for the number of quicksands in its bed. There is a considerable spice of danger in crossing these quicksand rivers, for a pony sometimes gets into the soft treacherous bottom, and the rider runs the risk of a ducking, even if nothing more serious happens. The guides have a wholesome dread of the rivers where quicksands are known to exist, and not without due cause. No definite and fixed course can be taken—the quicksands are always changing their positions. The guide went first, as usual, and we were preparing to follow, when suddenly we saw his pony falter and then plunge wildly as he sank into soft sand. The guide was about to jump into the water in order to relieve the pony, and to distribute the weight over a greater area—this is always done as soon as the nature of the bottom is ascertained—when the pony struggled upon a hard bottom and righted himself. Another course was then chosen, and we all got over without finding any quicksand.

A succession of moraines brought us to the banks of a broad river, the BlandÁ, having several channels and a reputation for quicksands. By this time we had caught up the pack-train, but we waited while it crossed the river, one guide staying behind to pilot us after the pack had safely accomplished the crossing. The guide marked with big stones the point of entrance and then watched intently—as did we all—the passage of the river by the pack. It was forded, however, without misadventure, so we followed carefully in the track pursued by the train. The conductor's pony slipped in the middle of the river and nearly threw his rider into the water, but a quick recovery by the pony prevented a disagreeable wetting and an uncomfortable ride. We had a third river to cross before the day's fording was over. A quantity of moraine and hummocky land intervened, but that was traversed without incident worth recording. The third river is a second BlandÁ, a branch of the other BlandÁ; it is really the main river whose proper name is the Beljandi, but the people do not recognise that name, or so speak of it. Although not a quicksand river, most members of the party narrowly escaped coming to grief. It was very deep at the start, and there were some deeper holes not far from the bank; it had to be entered at a very sharp angle, and with a bit of a drop close to the steep bank. Miss Hastie was the first nearly to come to grief: her pony suddenly dived into one of the deep holes, and she herself was taking a header when her pony made a wonderful recovery from its plunge into the hole, and set her straight again; she, however, was unfortunate in straining her side, but she afterwards pluckily kept on the way; all the others following, with one exception, got into one or another of the deep holes; but they all escaped complete submersion, though wetted about legs and feet. I was the exception, for I was riding last—a position that enabled me to profit by the misfortunes of the others and avoid all the holes. I had a way frequently of bringing up the rear, because of stoppages made to take passing shots with camera at things of interest. This camera was always strapped to one of the rings of my saddle, where, on a comfortable pad on the off-side, it rode in safety—except when I happened to bring my whip down heavily upon it instead of upon the pony. The result of these stoppages was, that there was sometimes a delay in the crossing of a river, or a wait at an awkward spot, or at a point of divergence. It often happened that in coming up with the main party, I found my companions shivering from the effects of inaction in a cold wind—the wind is cold when it blows from one of the ice-fields—and in a frame of mind that must have been affected by the wind, judging from the freezingly cold manner in which I was received.

After crossing the river, we continued along near to its banks for several miles. In a pool just below some small rapids, the only rapids we had seen, there were several swans. Our course lay, as usual, over moraine matter and hummocky land, but there was a big patch of black sand composed of fine lava particles that we had to cross. Thus we proceeded until reaching Hveravellir, our next camping-ground, where we found a complete change in the appearance of the country.

We seemed to have got clear of hummocks and boulders, and to have reached the margin of fairyland, for we found ourselves, with grass around, looking at a series of hot springs, fumaroles, and sinter terraces, down which azure blue water trickled, lodging in a number of basins in the terraces, and adding by its colour to the beauty of the scene. Visions of the delights of a natural warm bath rose before me as I looked upon the terraces, recalling the luxury of bathing at the Pink Terraces in New Zealand, before their destruction by the eruption of Mount Tarawera. There are many pleasures in anticipation, for we did not enjoy warm bathing here; we had none; the water was too hot and the basins too small—though there was one small pothole in which the water was not very hot, where one could, with the aid of a big sponge, imagine better things, for the water did not look clean and sparkling and blue as in other basins.

Miss Hastie might have had an awkward experience at the spring where she elected to perform her ablutions, of whose periodical activity she was at the time unaware. During breakfast, one of the guides informed us that the small geyser Miss Hastie had been using as her hot-water tap had "gone off." Subsequent experience proved such pools untrustworthy for washing of any kind. A number of handkerchiefs left by themselves to soak were found an hour or two later making their way down an escape hole in the basin, and one that had been entirely absorbed by suction was not returned during a subsequent eruption by the dishonest geyser.

We erected our tents beside a blue warm-water stream facing the sinter terraces, and as the next day was Sunday, we camped there for two nights. We all took a number of photographs of the terraces and the hot springs, and tried to catch the small geysers when they erupted, as with a few exceptions they did at short intervals; it is true that the eruption was not very violent, and the water was not thrown to a great height, three feet, perhaps, being the maximum.

The next day was devoted to exploring the surrounding neighbourhood, and the different members of the party were struck with different features. Thomas and I set off together. We made for the higher ground, and looked round; we at once saw that we were at the edge of a recent (geologically) lava flow. About four miles distant there stuck up two horns, which we afterwards discovered to be the only prominent remains of the cone of the volcano, Strytur, whence the lava had been ejected. Strytur stands in the middle of the long strip of country lying between, and about equidistant from, the two great ice-fields, Lang JÖkull and Hoff JÖkull, the area of each of which is roughly about five hundred square miles. The strip is about fourteen miles wide at its narrowest part (not eight as shown on the existing maps), and extends north and south about twenty-five miles. Strytur is on the divide, or water-parting, between one system of rivers flowing north and another flowing south, and it stands on the highest part of this strip of land. The lava, as it issued from the volcano, flowed north and south down gentle declivities, and spread out east and west almost to the outlying ranges on the margins of the ice-fields. North it extends to just beyond Dufufell, and south almost to Lake Hvitarvatn. I had come to this part of the country intending to make a quick survey of it as we traversed it from end to end; Thomas also wished to note its structure, so we both looked with interest over the expanse of broken lava spread out before us. It was the roughest possible country to survey (as was subsequently proved), and we were not altogether taken with the task before us. We made our way to a prominent peak of lava that rose forty or fifty feet above the general level, and thence looked around. I wanted a line on which to base my survey, and I decided that this peak and a similar peak, lying in an easterly direction about a mile away, would be suitable elevated ends for a base line.