THE geographical features of Iceland, and the manners and customs of the people, are no less interesting than the history of the nation. Iceland lies just south of the polar circle, between sixty-three and a half and sixty-six and a half north latitude, and between thirteen and twenty-four degrees west longitude from Greenwich. Its length from east to west, is about two hundred and eighty miles, and its average width one hundred and fifty. In extent of surface it is nearly as large as the State of New-York, containing not far from forty thousand square miles. It is three hundred miles east of the coast of Greenland, a little over five hundred from the north of Scotland, nearly one thousand from Liverpool, thirteen hundred from Copenhagen, and about three thousand miles from Boston. The coast is deeply indented with bays, its valleys are drained by large rivers, and every part abounds more or less with lofty mountains. Though volcanic regions have many features in common, Iceland differs greatly from every country in the known world. It presents a greater array of remarkable natural phenomena than can be found throughout the whole extent of Europe and America. To the naturalist and the man of science, to the geologist, the botanist, and the ornithologist, it is probably less known than any equal tract of accessible country in the world. The burning chimnies of Ætna, Vesuvius, and Stromboli, have given inspiration to Horace and Virgil, and been minutely described by the pens of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny. Not so the region of Hekla and Skaptar Jokull. In the Mediterranean states, art and nature can both be studied; in Iceland, nature alone, but nature in her wildest moods. But how will those mountains in the south compare with these in the north? All the volcanoes in the Mediterranean would scarcely extend over more ground than a single county in the State of New York, while Iceland is one entire volcanic creation as large as the State itself. Though not active all at once, yet throughout the length and breadth of the land may be found smoking mountains, burning sulphur mines, hot springs that will boil an egg, and jets of blowing steam that keep up a roar like the whistle of a gigantic steam engine. The volcanic region of Iceland may be set down as covering an area of sixty thousand square miles; for volcanoes have repeatedly risen up from the sea near the coast, and sometimes as far as seventy miles from land. Though Ætna is higher than any mountain in Iceland, and of such enormous bulk that it is computed to be 180 miles in circumference; yet if Skaptar Jokull were hollowed out, Ætna and Vesuvius both could be put into the cavity and not fill it!

Iceland, too, is classic ground. Not, however, in the same sense that Italy, Sicily, and Greece, are. The hundred different kinds of verse now existing in many volumes of Iceland poetry, the sagas, and other literary productions of the Icelanders, have not been read and re-read, translated and re-translated, like the works of Herodotus, Xenophon, Tacitus, and Cicero, and for very good reasons. The country is not one of such antiquity; it is not a country renowned for arts and arms, and overflowing with a numerous population. As a state, it is nearly destitute of works of art, and its scanty population can only procure the bare necessaries of life. Scarcely a page of Icelandic literature ever put on an English dress and found its way among the Anglo-Saxons, until the pen that gave us Waverley and Rob Roy, furnished us with a translation of some of the more important of the Iceland sagas. The author of the “Psalm of Life” and “Hyperion” has given us some elegant translations of Iceland poetry.

On stepping ashore in Iceland, the total absence of trees and forests, and the astonishing purity of the atmosphere, strike the spectator as among the more remarkable characteristics of the country. The fields are beautifully green: the mountains, clothed in purple heath, appear so near that you are almost tempted to reach forth your hands to touch their sides. At fifteen or twenty miles distance, they appear but three or four; and at seventy or eighty miles, they seem within ten or fifteen. Such is the effect of the magical purity of the atmosphere. In other countries you go and visit cities and ruins; here you see nature in her most fantastic forms. In other states you pay a shilling, a franc, or a piastre, for a warm bath in a vat of marble; here you bathe in a spring of any desired temperature, or plunge into a cool lake, and swim to the region of a hot spring in the bottom, guided by the steam on the surface. In other lands you step into marble palaces that are lined with gold and precious stones, and find hereditary legislators making laws to keep the people in subjection; here you see a grass-grown amphitheater where an elective congress met and legislated in the open air for nearly a thousand years. In other and more favored climes, you find comfortable houses, and “fruits of fragrance blush on every tree;” here, not a fruit, save one small and tasteless berry, and not a single variety of grain, will ripen, and their houses are mere huts of lava and turf, looking as green as the meadows and pastures. In other lands, coal and wood fires enliven every hearth, and mines of iron, lead, copper, silver, and gold, reward the labor of the delver; but here, not a particle of coal, not one single mineral of value, and not one stick of wood larger than a walking-cane can be found. Many of the mountains are clad in eternal snows, and some pour out rivers of fire several times every century. But, though sterile the soil and scanty the productions, our knowledge of the country must be limited if we consider it barren of historical facts and literary reminiscences. A country like this, nearly as large as England, must possess few agricultural and commercial resources, to have at this time, nearly one thousand years after its first settlement, a population of only sixty thousand souls. Yet the Icelanders, while laboring under great disadvantages, are more contented, moral, and religious, possess greater attachment to country, are less given to crime and altercation, and show greater hospitality and kindness to strangers, than any other people the sun shines upon. Their contentment and immunity from crime and offense, do not arise from sluggishness and indolence of character; nor are they noted alone for their negative virtues. They possess a greater spirit of historical research and literary inquiry, have more scholars, poets, and learned men, than can be found among an equal population on the face of the globe. Some of their linguists speak and write a greater number of languages than those that I have ever met in any other country. Iceland has given birth to a Thorwaldsen, a sculptor whose name will descend to the latest posterity. His parents were Icelanders, but he was a child of the sea, born on the ocean, between Iceland and Denmark. Among their poets and historians will be found the names of Snorro Sturleson, SÆmund, surnamed FRODE, or “THE LEARNED,” Jon Thorlaksen, Finn Magnusen, Stephensen, Egilson, Hallgrimson, Thorarensen, Grondal, Sigurder Peterssen; and these, with many others, will adorn the pages of Icelandic literature as long as the snow covers their mountains, and the heather blooms in their valleys. Their navigators and merchants discovered and settled America long before Genoa gave birth to a Columbus, and while Europe was yet immured in the darkness of the middle ages. The works of their poets and literary men have been translated into nearly every language in Europe; and they in their turn have translated into their own beautiful language more or less of the writings of Milton, Dryden, Pope, Young, Byron, Burns, Klopstock, Martin Luther, Lamartine, Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, and many others. In the interior of the country a native clergyman presented me a volume—an Iceland annual, the “NORTHURFARI,” for 1848–9—that contains, among many original articles, the “Story of the Whistle,” by Dr. Franklin; a chapter from Irving’s “Life of Columbus;” translations from Dryden; Byron’s “Ode on Waterloo;” Burns’ “Bruce’s Address;” Kossuth’s Prayer on the defeat of his army in Hungary; part of one of President Taylor’s Messages to Congress; and extracts from the NEW YORK HERALD, the LONDON TIMES, and other publications. With scarcely a hope of fame, the intellectual labors of the Icelanders have been prosecuted from an ardent thirst of literary pursuits. Personal emolument, or the applause of the world, could scarcely have had a place among their incentives to exertion. As an example we need only notice the labors of Jon Thorlakson. This literary neophyte, immured in a mud hut in the north of Iceland, subsisting on his scanty salary as a clergyman, which amounted to less than thirty dollars a year, together with his own labors as a farmer, yet found time during the long evenings of an Iceland winter, to translate into Icelandic verse, the whole of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Pope’s “Essay on Man,” and Klopstock’s “Messiah,” besides writing several volumes of original poetry. Throughout their literary and political writings can be seen that spirit of republicanism, and that ardent love of political liberty, which always characterizes a thinking and intellectual people. Interspersed with their own sentiments expressed in their own tongue, will be seen quotations from other writers, and in other languages. With Dryden they say,

From Byron they quote,

And with the noble poet, again, they express their

Such is the literary and republican spirit of this toiling and intellectual people.

The Icelanders live principally by farming and fishing. They take cod and haddock, from five to forty miles out to sea. Whales often visit their harbors and bays, and are surrounded by boats and captured. Their season for sea-fishing is from the first of February to the middle of May. In the summer they catch large quantities of trout and salmon in their streams and lakes. They have no agricultural productions of much value, except grass. Grain is not cultivated, and their gardens are very small, only producing a few roots and vegetables. The climate of the country is not what we would suppose from its location. Columbus, who was there in February, tells us he found no ice on the sea. It is not as cold in winter as in the northern States of America, the thermometer seldom showing a greater degree of severity than from twelve to eighteen above zero. In summer, from June to September, it is delightfully mild and pleasant, neither cold nor hot. The cold season does not usually commence until November or December; and sometimes during the entire winter there is but little snow, and not frost enough to bridge their lakes and streams with ice. In summer, fires are not needed, and the climate during this season is more agreeable than that of Great Britain or the United States, having neither the chilly dampness of the one, nor the fierce heat of the other. Thunder-storms in Iceland occur in the winter, but not in the summer.

Their domestic animals are sheep, cattle, horses, and dogs. They rarely keep domestic fowls, but from the nests of the wild eider-duck they obtain large quantities of eggs, as well as down. Reindeer run wild in the interior, but are not domesticated. Blue and white foxes are common; and these, with eagles, hawks, and ravens, destroy many of their sheep and lambs. White bears are not found in the country, except as an “imported” article, when they float over from Greenland on the drift ice. The domestic animals in Iceland are estimated in the following numbers:—500,000 sheep, 60,000 horses, and 40,000 cattle. All their animals are of rather small size, as compared to those in more temperate regions. Their horses are a size larger than the ponies of Shetland, and average from twelve to thirteen hands high. Their hay is a short growth, but a very sweet, excellent quality. The Icelanders speak of their “forests,”—mere bunches of shrubbery from two to six feet high. These are principally birch and willow. The beautiful heath, so common in Scotland and the north of Europe, is found throughout Iceland. Their game birds are the ptarmigan, the curlew, the plover, and the tern. Nearly every variety of water-fowl common to Great Britain or America, abounds in the bays, islands, and shores of Iceland, and in the greatest numbers. The Icelanders export wool, about 1,000,000 lbs. annually, and from two to three hundred thousand pairs each of woolen stockings and mittens. Besides these articles, they sell dried and salted codfish, smoked salmon, fish and seal oil, whale blubber, seal and fox skins, feathers, eider-down, beef and mutton, hides, tallow, and sulphur. They import their principal luxuries—flour, rye and barley meal, beans, potatoes, wine, brandy, rum, ale and beer, tobacco, coffee, sugar, tea, salt, timber, coal, iron, cutlery, fish-hooks and lines, cotton and silk goods, leather, crockery, and furniture. From thirty to forty vessels sail from Denmark to Iceland every year. Reykjavik, the capital, on the west coast, is the largest town in the island—a place of about 1,200 people. Then there are Eskifiorth and Vopnafiorth in the east, Akreyri in the north, and Stykkisholm and Hafnarfiorth in the west, all places of considerable trade. All goods are taken to Iceland duty free; and letters and papers are carried there in government vessels, free of postage, and sent through the island by government messengers. By the present arrangement, the government “post-ship” makes five voyages to and from Iceland in a year. It sails from Copenhagen to Reykjavik on the first days of March, May, July, and October, and from Liverpool to Reykjavik on the first day of January. It leaves Reykjavik, for Copenhagen, February 1st, April 1st, June 1st, and August 10th; and from Reykjavik for Liverpool on the 10th of November. One half of the trips each way, it stops at the Faroe Isles. In addition to the mail service by this ship, letter-bags are forwarded from Denmark by the different vessels trading to Iceland.

All travel and transportation of goods and the mail through the interior of Iceland is on horseback. There’s not a carriage-road, a wheeled vehicle, a steam-engine, a post-office, a custom-house, a police officer, a fort, a soldier, or a lawyer in the whole country. Goods, dried fish, and valuables are left out of doors, unguarded, with impunity, stealing being almost unknown. There never was but one prison in the island, and that was used also as an almshouse. Even then it was nearly useless, and most always without a tenant; and finally, to put it to some use, it was converted into a residence for the Governor, and is now the “White House” in the capital of Iceland. Taxes are very light, and do not amount to as much as the expense of carrying on the government, paying the officers, and transporting the mail. The Icelanders are universally educated to that extent that all can read and write. There is but one school or institution of learning in the country—the college at Reykjavik. This has a president and eight professors, and usually from eighty to a hundred students. The boys educated here are nearly all trained for clergymen, or else to fill some of the civil offices in the island, or they expect to go abroad, or live in Denmark. This institution is endowed by the Danish government, and was formerly at Bessastath, a few miles south of Reykjavik, whence it was removed a few years since. The president is Bjarni Johnson, Esq., a native Icelander, a gentleman of rare accomplishments and learning, and one of the first linguists in Europe. The Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Danish, French and English languages are taught here, as well as most of the sciences. It was during college vacation when I was in the country, and I used to meet in the interior, at their fathers’ houses, young men who were students of the college, and who could converse fluently in Latin, Danish, French, or English. The Bible or Testament, and usually many other books, particularly historical and poetical works, are found in nearly every house in Iceland. The population being scanty, with the great majority of the people it is impracticable to have schools, so that education is confined to the family circle. During their long winter evenings, while both males and females are engaged in domestic labors, spinning, weaving, or knitting—by turns one will take a book, some history, biography, or the Bible, and read aloud. The length of their winter nights can be appreciated when we consider that the sun in December is above the horizon but three or four hours. Before and after Christmas he rises, sleepily, at about ten o’clock, and retires between one and two in the afternoon. This is quite different from the earlier habits and longer visits of that very respectable luminary in more temperate and tropical climes. True, he makes atonement in the summer, when he keeps his eye open and surveys the land daily from twenty to twenty-one hours. Then he rises between one and two o’clock in the morning, looks abroad over a sleeping world, and only retires behind the mountains at near eleven o’clock at night.

While traveling in the country, I used frequently to ask the children in poor families to read to me in Icelandic, and I never saw one above the age of nine years that could not read in a masterly style. Their writing, too, is almost invariably of great elegance. This is partly owing to their practice of multiplying copies in manuscript, of almost all the historical and poetical works written in the country, copying them in advance of their publication, and often afterwards. The manners and customs of the people have changed with the progress of time and the change in their form of government. In old times we are told, that when the Icelanders or Norwegians were about setting out on any expedition of importance they used to have a grand feast. At these banquets, horse-flesh was one of their luxuries. Bards and minstrels would recite poems composed for the occasion; and story, song, and hilarity, added zest to the entertainment. After eating, drinking, and singing, to a pretty high degree of elevation, they would close the proceedings by throwing the bones at one another across the tables! We are not informed, however, that the modern Icelanders indulge in these luxuries. Their trade is gone, and they are now a simple, pastoral people. In complexion the Icelanders resemble the Anglo-Saxon race, often having florid and handsome countenances. They are fine figures, frequently tall, several that I have seen being over six feet in height. Light hair most usually prevails, but I have seen some that was quite dark. In a large district in the northwest of Iceland, all the men wear their beards, a practice that has been in vogue for hundreds of years. They always seem pleased when a stranger appears among them who has adopted a fashion so much in accordance with their own philosophy, with nature, and the laws of health, and at the same time that adds so much to the personal appearance of the lords of creation.