ALL pleasant sojourns must end; all oases must fade in the distance as we journey o’er the desert sands of life. Though it rained hard, an hour after I stopped with “mine host,” the intelligent clergyman of Hruni, we were in our saddles, and the white, the black, and the chestnut ponies were scampering “over the hills and far away.” The farmer of Haukadalr left us here, and Mr. Briem sent one of his farm servants to show us the way. It is two pretty good days’ ride from the Geysers to Hekla; and we had yet two large rivers to cross, and sundry mountains, valleys, lava-beds, and green fields to go over or get round, before we were half way to the celebrated volcano. Near the house we passed a very large spring of limpid water that looked most deliciously tempting for a swim. Getting off my horse, I tried the temper of it, and found it 96° of Fahrenheit, just comfortable for a warm bath. Our route took us across the LaxÁ, a broad, shallow river; and here were some of the best farms I had seen in Iceland. The white clover was here, the first I had seen of it, and the meadows evidently produced nearly or quite double the hay that those did which were seeded down with the native grass alone. The blooming clover whitening the fields gave the land a fine appearance, and half made me think I was back home again. A forest of maple and beech trees would have completed the illusion. I saw here, as I did in other places, caraway growing spontaneously in the fields; and it was as tall, as finely-flavored, and as well-seeded as you find it with us. It is not indigenous here; but some being brought to Iceland and planted, it has propagated itself over a good portion of the cultivated parts of the island. The same is true of the white clover.

The meadow lands in Iceland are rough in surface, just in a state of nature, not one acre in ten thousand ever having had the turf broken. They are not plowed and “seeded down,” but get seeded and grassed over by nature. As I have mentioned, there is not a plow or a harrow in the whole country. The garden spots round the houses seldom exceed the sixteenth part of an acre, and they are dug up with a spade. The angelica—angelica archangelica—the same that grows in our wet meadows in America, is here grown and used as a salad. It is a native of Iceland. With us it is reputed poisonous; but here I have eaten it, and think it has a very pleasant taste. Many a boy in our northern States has made a flute out of an “angelica stalk;” but probably few of them ever ate it afterwards, or thought of applying the Highland proverb to it, “Here’s baith meat and music, quoth the dog when he ate the piper’s bag.” Every thing in Iceland seems to go by contraries, the angelica and “red-top” grass, and other of our aquatic and swamp plants, flourishing everywhere, on dry as well as on wet soil.

The peasant soon returned, leaving us pursuing our way south. In the valley of the LaxÁ the lava is seen in great variety of color. Much of it is in high, red hills, as bright as if it had been painted. Some of it is black, and some brown. The red was the softest and most porous. Some of the hilly river-banks were crumbling down like slate cliffs, but a near view showed them to be lava. A few miles travel brought us to the banks of the ThiorsÁ, a mighty river, far larger than any we had seen, and I believe the largest in Iceland. It comes from near the interior of the island, and cannot be much less than 200 miles long. It drains the waters that flow from the glaciers of Hekla, Hofs Jokull, Skaptar Jokull, Vatna Jokull, and Torfa Jokull. A profile view of this river, as laid down on the large map of Iceland, shows the highest branches of it to be 3,000 feet above the level of the sea; half as high as Mt. Hekla.

Here was a ferry, the first we had seen. The ThiorsÁ is nearly three-quarters of a mile wide here; and its depth—I believe I will not tell how deep it is—ask the great northern diver, for he may have been to the bottom of it: I have not. The farmer-ferryman and his son left their hay-field, and in a stout skiff rowed us across. The horses were tied together in a string, the nose of one to the tail of another; and the guide sat in the stern of the boat, and led the forward one. The poor ponies had hard work in swimming the cold river, and seemed to suffer some. They tried hard to get into the boat, but that would have shipwrecked us inevitably. The powerful current threw us a long distance down the river before we landed on the south side. The boatman charged me half a dollar, Danish, about thirty cents; cheap enough certainly for his fatigue and danger. At eight o’clock we arrived at the farm and church of Skarth, where we tarried all night. The clergyman of the parish does not live here, but the obliging farmer did every thing he could to make me comfortable. I think I stated that I had arrived at the dignity of sleeping under the bed. That is a luxury that until lately has only been accorded to princes. The eider-down bed, from the Iceland eider-duck, has long been noted for its lightness and softness. It is perhaps the greatest non-conductor of heat that can be used as a covering. It is altogether too warm. A down bed a foot thick looks as if it would smother you when put on top of the bed, but its perceptible weight is nothing. I usually kicked off this down covering long before morning, for it is impervious to all the insensible perspiration, and consequently in less than half an hour the sleeper finds himself perspiring profusely. I sometimes put the down bed under me, and used my Highland plaid for a covering. The unhealthiness of down beds has been discovered, and kings and nobles have ceased, in a great measure, to use them; and consequently the price of down has greatly fallen, and now every peasant can afford to have a bed of down. Here I slept in a church for the first time. Learning that it was customary for travelers in Iceland, I had no scruples at sleeping under the same roof with the church mice. As we are all destined to take a long sleep some day in a church yard, or somewhere else, I thought I might as well begin now, try it by degrees, and see how I liked it. I did not know but the rapping ghost of old Thor with his sledge hammer would rap confusion into my noddle, after his usual Iceland style of “thunder in the winter;” but I was not disturbed. I slept perfectly sound, till the sun was high in heaven. The green mounds around the church looked as peaceful, and no doubt the spirits of the dead were as quiet in heaven, as if no Sassenach had been here to disturb their slumbers. A good reason why old Thor did not disturb me. He is a heathen deity, and totally indifferent to any use whatever that churches may be put to. Perhaps, were I to go into one of his caves without reverently laying my shoes aside, and offering up my guide as a sacrifice, he might jump out of the crater of Hekla, and hit me a rap that would give my “daylights” their exit, or knock me where the sun never sets. I gave the farmer a dollar, for milk, cream, horse-pasture, and church-rent, and for the first time got a hearty Iceland salute. Throwing his arms round my neck he gave me a smack that fairly echoed from the surrounding hills.

From Skarth, the Eyjafjalla and Tindfjalla Jokulls show their broad, snowy sides and summits; but Hekla is the most conspicuous. The whole mountain, near to the top, is black. Near the summit there are some spots of snow that extend more or less down the north side, while a curling wreath of smoke on the apex reveals the existence of the fire within. We started directly towards the mountain, with the farmer for our guide. On every side of Hekla, as far as we could see, much of the ground was covered with black lava. The land over which we rode here was covered with lava and volcanic sand, and, what is seldom seen in such a situation, tufts of grass grew here and there. Heath is nearly the first vegetation that finds root on the lava. Here, in a pasture near a river, we saw a splendid lot of horses. What a wild, untamed look they had; sleek and fat, with long, flowing tails and manes! They appeared like the flock that crossed the path of Mazeppa. The Iceland farmers usually keep great numbers of horses, and there is no country in the world where they can be raised so cheaply. And they sell these animals cheap. I saw a beautiful, jet black, four-year old, at the Geysers, an entire horse, that had never been saddled. His form was symmetry itself. He was just about twelve and a half hands high. I asked the price—less than ten dollars, our money. In Boston or New York he would bring $150 or $200. We crossed the Vestri RangÁ, a small stream, and arrived about the middle of the afternoon at NÆfrholt, the last farm and the last green spot this side of Hekla. The farmer was from home; and our farmer from Skarth, who had accompanied us, started off after him. He had not got far before down he came, thrown by his horse, or rather falling off, for I could see nothing to bring him out of the saddle. Perhaps Mr. Cogniac Brandy, or somebody else, had put a “brick” in his hat. He was a big, beefy fellow, and fell tumbling down like a meal-sack. I thought he must be killed, and ran to help him; but he was up in a jiffy, and under full gallop in less than a minute, vaulting into his saddle on the off side at that. It takes an Icelander, to fall and not hurt him. I rather think this one would tumble down Mount Hekla and never bruise his shins. The farmer came home, and told us we could put up at his house; and then the Skarth farmer returned to his home. This was the first really pleasant evening I had seen during my journey, and it bid fair for a clear day on the morrow. Unless it were so, it would be useless to attempt the ascent of Hekla, and expect to see any thing. I took the guide, and climbed to the top of a steep mountain, one of several about a thousand feet high that skirt the base of Hekla, and seemed to stand as sentries near their fiery and warlike monarch. Here the recollection of my boyish days and boyish sports came up, and I felt like having a little fun. There was a grand chance for rolling stones down hill, and we improved it. After setting off a number of different sizes, we noticed a ponderous boulder partly buried in the earth. It looked as if it could be moved. It was nearly round, and would weigh five or six tons. I called the guide to help me push it off, but he looked ominously at the house far on the plain below. I convinced him that it could not go there; and then he showed me the farmer’s wall, a beautiful dyke of stones and turf that separated the meadow below from the mountain pasture. I told him I would pay all damage; and we got behind it. With our backs to the mountain, and feet against it, we crowded it out of its bed. It fell with an awful crash through about a hundred feet of jagged rocks, nearly perpendicular, and then took the sloping plain below. But didn’t it streak it? The ground fairly smoked. The surface was smooth sand and gravel, and within thirty or thirty-five degrees of the perpendicular. Lower down, the grass began to grow. The rock took a bee-line for two or three hundred yards, till near the bottom, when it commenced a series of flights of “ground and lofty tumbling” that would have done honor to Ducrow. One leap that I measured was thirty-four feet, and there it struck the farmer’s wall. It walked through it as if it had been a cobweb, making a horrible gap near six feet wide, and moving one stone that would weigh at least a ton. Well, it was capital fun. The old rock curled round in a circuit, and rested in the meadow. The farmer and his family ran out of the house at the noise, and he came up to meet us. The guide got a furious blowing up, all of which he took very coolly. I ended the confab by paying him a dollar for the damage done, and he went away quite satisfied. As I had had my dance, it was all fair that I should pay the fiddler.

The evening came on; as glorious a sunset as ever gilded the tops of Arctic mountains. I retired early, hoping in the morning to climb the rugged steep of Mount Hekla.