AFTER our sojourn of two days in explorations of Mount Hekla, we took leave of the farmer of NÆfrholt and his family, and traveled towards the southwest coast, the Reykir Springs, and the Sulphur Mountains. There are some pleasing and original customs among the Icelanders; and with these are their ways of saluting, at meeting and parting. Young and old, male and female, have the same affectionate greeting and parting compliments. They first shake hands, then embrace with arms about each other’s necks, and then bring their lips in close contact. I have sometimes fancied, when they took their faces apart, that I could hear a slight clicking sound; but this might have been imagination. When I have been kindly entertained at a house, and especially if there have been one or two pretty girls in the family, I have at parting adopted the same kind of salute. Some of these compliments came off at the base of Mount Hekla on the morning of July 30th. This day I had a charming ride. Our road for some distance lay through a wood, and I have before spoken of the stately grandeur of an Iceland forest. In addition to the usual birch and willow trees, some of which were a little higher than our horses’ backs, there were many bearing a small berry—the “blue berry” they called it; and this is the only thing of the fruit kind in all Iceland. They are eaten by the natives, usually with milk or cream, and wherever they are found are highly prized. I have tasted them, but they seem almost destitute of flavor. It takes a hot sun to give flavor to fruit, and old Sol does not give much of his caloric to this country. What would these northern people think of a luscious peach, just as it is picked from a tree in New Jersey? One species of rose is found in Iceland—the Rosa Hibernica; and I suppose they (the roses) hardly know the difference between Iceland and Ireland. I have frequently observed these rose bushes here, but I have never yet seen them in flower. A rose in Iceland would be a sight. You might as well expect to see

Here, too, we found that most beautiful of all the shrubs and flowers of Iceland, the fragrant heath. It is very plentiful, and of the same species so common in the Highlands of Scotland. Here it is of small size, seldom more than a foot in height. It is one of the first vegetables found growing on the lava beds. It seems to grow on a medium soil between the naked barren lava and the fertile meadows. Nearly one half of Iceland is covered with heath, and some day it may be fertile enough to produce grass. I have been told more than once that this beautiful shrub will not grow in North America, but I cannot believe it. In Europe and the northern isles, and Africa and Madeira, there are over a hundred different varieties of heath. Why will not some horticulturists rear a good variety, and try them from various climes, Madeira, Scotland, and Iceland, and get some of them naturalized with us in America, that they might cover our barren hills and waysides, and adorn our gardens and fields? The heath and the ivy—two plants almost unknown in America—are more beautiful and do more in Great Britain to cover up and adorn barren hills and old walls and ruins than all other vegetation, and yet they are rarely seen with us. I have been told, however, that the late lamented Mr. Downing has planted and naturalized the beautiful evergreen ivy, obtaining it from England. Let gardeners and farmers blush or boast, neither nature nor cultivation has adorned our hills with one nor ten plants that look half so beautiful as the blooming heather that covers the hills of far-off northern Iceland. The same species that grows here, I have seen in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Hebrides, the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It also grows in Africa, as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, the Cape heaths forming the most beautiful varieties of floral contributions that are seen at the splendid Chiswick flower-shows in London. Wilkes, in his Exploring Expedition, describes and pictures the forests of heath in Madeira, the trees nearly or quite a foot in diameter, and forty or fifty feet in height. I have an idea of offering a prize for the most beautiful variety of heath that will flourish in the open air in our Northern States, and then I think I will import some Iceland heath, and carry off the reward myself! Perhaps some of our horticultural societies will take the hint, go to work, and get it all done before I get back to America. Leaving NÆfrholt, we took our back track as far as Skarth, where I had stayed all night, and slept in the church a few days before. The farmer seemed glad to see me, gave me “a grip of his flipper,” and a fine bowl of milk. I returned the grip, gave him a piece of silver, mounted my horse, and off we galloped to the southwest. If the world was not “all before us where to choose,” all Iceland was, and on we journeyed. Some hours’ travel brought us to the banks of the ThiorsÁ, and we prepared to face its turbulent and mighty current. Any one who supposes that that little white spot in the Arctic sea, called Iceland, cannot produce a river worthy of the name, had better try to swim across this one. I should far rather breast the Hellespont, and follow Leander. Larger than the Hudson at Newburgh, swift as an arrow, white with clay from the mountains, and cold as ice,—really it is the most formidable stream in appearance that I have ever seen. But we had ferried it once, and could again; and a frail skiff put off from the opposite shore to take us across. The only ferryman was a small boy, and so I manned one oar myself. The guide sat in the stern of the boat, and led the horses as they swam after us. The boy could not row evenly with me; the current bore us furiously down the stream; the boat leaked badly; and, by the time we were in the middle of the river, the horses got unmanageable, nearly upset our frail craft, and finally broke loose altogether, and floated and swam down the stream, the tips of their noses and their ears just out of water. We let the horses go, and rowed like good fellows, and landed on the west side of the river, but a good long way farther down than the point opposite where we started. The poor ponies followed the boat as well as they could, and after a while all came ashore, some in one place, and some in another. We now traveled directly down the ThiorsÁ, towards the south coast, bordering the Atlantic. We had a fine journey through the valley of this great river. There was no crossing except at the ferries; but the fine farming region, and a wish to get a near view of the Westmann Islands, and, if possible, visit them, induced me to make a long and circuitous journey on the southern coast. The weather was clear and fine, and Hekla, and the Eyjafjalla and Tindfjalla Jokulls stood up in bold relief against the eastern sky. The Eyjafjalla Jokull, as its name imports—Mountain of Islands—shows, on its broad, sloping summit, several knobs that stand up like islands. Near the top, where it inclines towards the west, I could see a broad, deep chasm, filled with snow. This pit must be of immense depth, for while it is nearly filled with snow it is plainly visible for over thirty miles. On the more even summit of the Tindfjalla Jokull, there are several little elevations like islands or miniature mountains. Hekla looks black, clear to the summit, except now and then a small spot of snow. I do not know where those writers get their information from, regarding this mountain, when they speak of the “three-coned Hekla.” From different points of compass, including nearly every position whence Hekla can be seen, and also from a sojourn on its summit, I must say that I have never seen three cones, nor even two. From all sides, the highest point rises in one single cone, like the profiles of most other volcanoes. On arriving at the top, it is rather broad and flat, as I have mentioned; but this is not observed from a distance. It is steeper than Ætna, but not so steep as Vesuvius. That old Madam Pfeiffer should speak of Hekla as having three cones, and no crater at all, is exactly in accordance with the most of her statements about Iceland. Where she does not knowingly tell direct falsehoods, the guesses she makes about those regions that she does not visit—while stating that she does—show her to be bad at guess-work, and poorly informed about the country. The valleys of the HvitÁ, the ThiorsÁ, and the Markarfliot, south, southwest, and west of Hekla, comprise the largest tract of grass land in all Iceland. A large share of it is in cultivated farms, and the rest is bog. In drawing near to the coast, how magnificent the Westmann Islands appear! Rising up like columns, they stand from one to two thousand feet above the ocean. Formed of perpendicular, basaltic rocks, these and other islands of the north of Europe rank with the most splendid coast-scenery in the world. The Westmann Islands are most difficult to approach. The place of landing is so treacherous, that unless the weather is calm and the sea very still, a landing cannot be effected. A high cascade on the main land of Iceland, near the town of Holt, is a sort of weatherometer that decides whether a boat can put off with a prospect of gaining the island. This cascade is one long stream of spray, formed by a small brook falling a height of 800 feet. In windy weather, the spray is blown entirely away, so that from the landing no cascade is in sight. If it is still enough for this cascade to appear constantly two days in succession, then the sea is usually calm enough to allow boats to land, and they venture out. In the winter, it sometimes happens that for weeks no boats can pass between the islands and the main shore.

The Westmann Islands—Icelandic, Vestmannaeyjar—were settled by a colony of Irish slaves, in 875, one year after the first settlement of Iceland. A Norwegian pirate cruising in the Atlantic, came upon the coast of Ireland, landed, and captured forty or fifty persons, men, women, and children, and carried them off as slaves. Before he got home, they rose on their captors, slew them, and went ashore at the first land they met. This was on the largest of the Westmann Islands; that name being given them by the Icelanders, as these people came from the west. Christianity came here with these Irish people; and to this day, crosses, croziers, and other articles of a like nature are dug up on the island, and were undoubtedly carried here by the first settlers. The islands are fourteen in number; but only four of them produce any vegetation or pasturage, and of these only one is inhabited. This is very appropriately called Heimaey or Home Island. This is fifteen miles from the coast, and forty-five from Hekla. On this island is a harbor, partly encircled by a high, perpendicular rock. Here they land and embark in boats. A precipitous path leads to the top of the island, where the people, with their habitations, a few sheep, and their little church, remain two thousand feet above the ocean. The islands are basaltic, like Fingal’s Cave and the Giant’s Causeway; but, instead of being one or two hundred feet in height, rise like immense columns, nearly half a mile above the sea. The inhabitants draw their entire subsistence from the ocean and the cliffs, catching codfish and killing sea-birds, myriads of which haunt the rocks of their sea-girt shores. The sea-fowl furnish large quantities of feathers. Some of the birds are used for food, and some for fuel. They split them open, dry them, and then burn them, feathers and all. From the accounts given of this novel sort of firewood, the odor rising from it must be “most tolerable, and not to be endured”! The birds most used for food are young puffins—the Fratercula arctica—a rather small sea-bird, with a bill shaped like a short, thick plow coulter. In England and Scotland, they are called the coulter-neb puffin. This beak is a most wonderful one, large to deformity—nearly as bulky as all the rest of the bird’s head. There are several circular marks entirely round it, making it look like a small barrel with the hoops on it. But do not these hardy islanders show skill and daring in the pursuit of birds and eggs for subsistence? Wonder how the Yankees would take the birds? Shoot them with rifles, I suppose, “knocking their daylights out,” one at a time. But these islanders do not take this slow method—not they. In the egg season they go to the top of the cliffs, and, putting a rope round a man’s waist, let him down the side of the perpendicular rock, one, two, or three hundred feet; and on arriving at the long, narrow, horizontal shelves, he proceeds to fill a large bag with the brittle treasures deposited by the birds. Getting his bag full, he and his eggs are drawn to the top by his companions. If the rope breaks, or is cut off by the sharp corners of the rocks, the luckless duck-egging fowler is precipitated to the bottom, perhaps two thousand feet into the sea, or is dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Accidents happen but rarely, and here these hardy men glean a scanty subsistence. At a later period in the season, they go and get the young birds.

If the old birds object, they are ready for them, and serve them sailor fashion, knocking them down with a handspike. The old often fight desperately for their young, and will not give up till their necks are broken or their brains knocked out with a club. Where the cliffs are not accessible from the top, they go round the bottom in boats, and show a wonderful agility and daring in climbing the most terrible precipices. They furnish nothing for export on these islands, except dried and salted codfish and feathers. With these they procure their few necessaries and luxuries, consisting principally of clothing, tobacco and snuff, spirits, fish-hooks and lines, and salt. The habit of living entirely on fish and sea-fowl produces a disease among them, that carries off all their children before they are seven years of age. I am told that unless they are taken to the main shore to be brought up, not one single one would live through childhood. Some well-informed Icelanders have told me that the inhabitants of the Westmann Islands would live as well, and be as free from disease, as the natives of Iceland, were it not for their intemperance. Give a people few or no luxuries—bread and vegetables as food being almost unknown—and expose them to great fatigue, wet, cold, and danger; and would we not suppose ardent spirits would be acceptable? The inhabitants of the far-off St. Kilda, the most western of the Western Isles of Scotland, are said to lose all their children that are kept on the island, and from the same causes that occasion the mortality on the Westmann Islands. These islands form a separate Syssel or county, and they have a church, and usually two clergymen. Their church was rebuilt of stone, at the expense of the Danish government, in 1774, and is said to be one of the best in Iceland. It is supported by tithes, still raised here according to the Norwegian mode. Christianity was brought here with the first settlers from Ireland, and here it still remains; and I have sometimes wondered if, during the changes of a thousand years, any of the brogue of the Tipperary boys, or the lads of Connaught, could be discerned in their conversation. Probably it has all been frozen up, or exchanged for the more meliffluous tones of the followers of Odin and Thor.

Doubly secure as these inhabitants are, by their poverty and their almost inaccessible cliffs, one would suppose that they would be secure from any warlike or piratical depredations. Notwithstanding this, they have twice been attacked and pillaged by sea-rovers. As early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, piratical cruisers—many of them fitted out in the English and French ports—came north; and plunder, rapine, and murder desolated all the western and southern coasts of Iceland. One English pirate, named John, was noted for his success and daring. He was called “Gentleman John,” being probably, like the Greek cruiser,

This courteous corsair came to the Westmann Islands in 1614, pillaged the church, and carried off their sacred relics. He probably knew the inhabitants were descendants of the Hibernians, and only showed the spirit of an Englishman towards the Irish. He also plundered their houses, and no doubt from the contents of their beds managed to feather his own nest considerably. He returned to Great Britain, but King James I. caught and punished him, and with the true honesty of a Scotchman, returned their church ornaments. In 1627, a vessel of Turkish or Algerine pirates, after plundering several places on the eastern and southern coasts of Iceland, landed on the Westmann Islands. They murdered between forty and fifty of the inhabitants, plundered the church and set it on fire, robbed the houses, carried off all the food, clothing, and valuables, and then burnt their habitations. They took near four hundred men, women, and children prisoners, bound them in fetters, took them on board their vessel, and carried them in captivity to Algiers. There were two clergymen among them, one of whom, Jon Thorsteinson, was murdered at the time. He was the first translator of the Psalms of David into Icelandic verse. He also translated the Book of Genesis, and some other parts of the Bible, in a similar manner. He is spoken of in Icelandic history as the “martyr.” The other clergyman, Olaf Egilson, with his wife and children, and the rest of the prisoners, were sold into slavery in Algiers.

Mr. Egilson got away two years after, and wrote an account of their sufferings and privations, which was afterwards published in Danish. It was not until 1636, nine years after their capture, that the unfortunate Icelanders were released, and then only by being ransomed by the king of Denmark. Their treatment and sufferings can be imagined; only thirty-seven of the whole number survived, and of these but thirteen persons lived to regain their native island. Notwithstanding the sufferings, calamities, and hardships of the people, the Westmann Islands continue to be inhabited.

Since the earthquakes and great volcanic eruptions of 1783, the fish in the neighborhood of the Westmann Islands, and all along the south coast of Iceland, have nearly all disappeared, so that the principal dependence of the inhabitants is on the sea-fowl. Besides the puffin, they use for food the fulmar—Procellaria glacialis. For their winter supply, they salt them very slightly, and pack them down in barrels. I wonder how one of these poor mortals, accustomed to so little variety, would relish such a dinner as they serve up at the London Tavern, the Astor, or the Revere House! Thor and Epicurus! He would probably surfeit himself, unless it so happened that he could relish none of their dishes, and refused to eat.

But my pony’s head is turned towards the west, and I am probably as near the Westmann Islands as I ever shall be. The disappearing spray of the “Driving Cascade” shows a rough and stormy coast; so good-bye to the contented islanders, their sea-girt cliffs, and their sea-bird food.