We had expected to start on our tour through the south of Iceland at eight in the morning. It was ten when we left the enclosure where the ponies were saddled and the pack horses laden. There were eight ponies in the troup, two pack ponies, two riding ponies for each of us and two for the guide. If the riding is easy the ridden ponies are changed midway of the days ride. If the road is difficult the ponies are changed twice. Our guide was Johannes ZoËga, the uncle of Helgi. He was nearly seventy years of age and as spry as a youth of twenty. Since he was fifteen he had followed the trails and he knew every path we crossed. Never was he in doubt in the network of trails on the moors or in the valleys but rode rapidly ahead at the crossings and turned the leading pony into the right path. Johannes was fully six feet tall and his favorite pony was the smallest in the string. On rough ground or in the deep ruts, it was amusing to watch his attempts to keep his feet off the ground. He spoke English quite well and understood it better than he spoke it. He was a thorough gentleman, waited upon us unceasingly and made our trip most enjoyable.

When I saw the ponies which were to carry us over so many miles of rough country, up the lower slopes of lava-blistered Hekla and across the bridgeless rivers, I thought that the diminutive beasts would not be able to do the work. I felt ashamed to ask the little fellows to carry my hundred and eighty pounds. I mentioned the matter to Mr. ZoËga. He smiled and said they would do the work required of them in an entirely satisfactory manner. They did. It was our first experience in the saddle, nor had I been on a horse since, as a small boy, I was accustomed to ride bare-back to a mountain pasture in New Hampshire to salt and count the sheep. It proved to be just as well, for no matter what may be one’s horsemanship in other lands and on other steeds, with the Icelandic hestr conditions are different and one must first put aside his acquired ideas of horsemanship and be governed by new conditions and experiences.

Johannes tied the five loose ponies together with a string that seemed ludicrously inadequate. It is customary in passing through a village to tie a small cord around the under jaw of a pony and fasten the other end of this cord to a knot in the tail of the next pony. We started into the main street and turned towards Thingvellir, Valley-of-the-Parliament, with Johannes in the lead with the five ponies. He soon had them all in a trot but do our best our ponies would only walk and then on the side of the street that seemed to please them best. It was an uncomfortable experience, this first exhibition of horsemanship on the main thoroughfare in the busiest portion of the day with the people leaving their work or running to the doorways to watch the Americans. Possibly it was our strange costumes, made for the occasion, which attracted their attention as these never failed to do in the interior. We were pleased to think of it this way. After half a mile of this aimless walking we caught up with the guide who was waiting, as he said,—

“It is not good for guide to let party get out of sight.”

He straightened out his tangled string of ponies and with a sharp “hÓt—hÓt” was away at a smart pace. HÓt—hÓt, hÓt—hÓt! I shouted, in this my first Icelandic, and I said it so vigorously and with so many different accents that I must have got it right once, for away we went in good fashion and held our own at the heels of the train till we reached the ElliÐaÁr, Ship-River. This is three miles out of the city and a famous salmon river the rights to which are annually purchased by a group of English sportsmen.

We stopped to rest the ponies. This is frequently necessary, especially when first starting on a long trip and always in the morning. Better accustomed to the saddle we rode on with much enjoyment of the novelty and with exhilaration, little thinking what those saddles had in store for us before that day’s ride came to a close. Somewhere along this portion of the route I lost my riding belt. Deciding to do without it I refrained from returning in search. Three weeks later this belt was handed to us one evening, it having been sent on from farm to farm. Twelve miles out from Reykjavik we came to the last inhabited dwelling we were to see before night. It is at the branching of the post road from the Thingvellir road. It is a place for light refreshments, much resorted to on Sundays and holidays by the young people out riding. The ponies were turned into the little compound provided for that purpose and we entered and partook of milk, excellent coffee and cakes. Over a year later, on our way down from the north coast, we called at this same place and this time we rode into the yard in true Icelandic style. No matter how careful the Icelander is of his pony, and he favors him all he can, it is a matter of pride to enter a village or ride up to a lonely farm at a keen gallop. As my last guide, Ólafur said,—“With reins tight and head up.” To tighten the reins on an Icelandic pony is to put him into a gallop.

We were now ascending the divide. Every kilometer, (the frequently travelled routes have a stone marker placed every five kilometers), brought us to higher ground, with an ever increasing view. Looking backward, as the ponies climbed the steep gradient, we caught many glimpses of the smiling FaxafjÖrÐr. The ice crown of Snaefells JÖkull loomed larger though we were going from it. Several small lakes, of glacier origin, nestle in the vales to the north marked with a ring of verdant grass about them. The country through which we are passing is mostly devoid of grass and it is difficult to find sufficient feed for the ponies and we regulate our stops accordingly. This is a desolate, dreary country, piled with blocks of frost-riven lava which time has graciously covered with a mantle of lichens. The whimbrels made their appearance and stayed with us throughout the summer whenever we rode the heather. They are noisy birds, swooping overhead uttering their prolonged calls, or running along the trail ahead of the ponies and then perching upon a lichen-encrusted rock to be lost to view except to the close observer. Their colors blend perfectly with their surroundings. Of all the curios which we brought back from Iceland nothing reminds us more of our journeys than the long-billed whimbrel which is perched above our bookcases.

The snow-capped peaks of Esja stand out in bold relief, directly in front rises the dome of SkÁlafell, Hall-Mountain, to the right in the distance, we catch glimpses of the mountain summits at the southern end of Thingvallavatn, Lake-in-the-Valley-of-the-Parliament, which loom higher and higher as we climb the ridge. While in the midst of our contemplation of the scenery, the packs on one of the ponies loosened, the swinging boxes startled him into a frightened gallop which he maintained across the heath till he had freed himself of all the burden. After some time the debris was collected and there being a patch of good grass here, we stopped to rest the ponies, repair the damage and take our first lunch in the open. Saddles and bridles were thrown off, the cases opened and we sat down to a canned lunch with hunger for the sauce. The opened lid of the packing box makes an excellent table.

“Is this not glorious?” questioned Mrs. Russell.

“Yes,” I replied as I shied my first sardine tin at a whimbrel. “This is living, true enjoyment. Rain or shine, we are out for one long holiday and it will be a glorious one.”

It was a picture that I should have photographed, that first lunch upon the mountain slope,—the ponies feeding around us untethered, the whimbrels circling closely above our heads, the plover calling from the heather, mountains upon mountains all around, blue with the distance or white with their perpetual snow mantles, the fleecy clouds drifting softly across the blue sky,—and then those things the camera can not catch,—the comfort of the sprawl upon the blooming heather, the respite from the galling saddles, the chocolate for those who do not enjoy the pipe and the pipe for those who do. We began to get acquainted with Johannes. As he filled his pipe with real American tobacco he told us of the many parties he had guided, how the English differed from the Danes, and the Germans from either of them in their likes and dislikes of the country, which required the most waiting upon and those who seemed the most grateful for the attentions he paid.

“Did you ever act as guide for Americans before?” I asked.

“Before? Are you from America, the United States?”

We assured him that we had that pleasure, whereupon Johannes continued,

“Do you know Mr. ? and Mr. ?? No? Well, they were likely lads and lively and we had a grand time upon our trip. See this whip?”

Whereupon he displayed the peculiar riding whip of Iceland. It consists of a stock about fourteen inches long heavily mounted with silver ferules and with a large silver knob oval in shape at the end. To the end of this stock is attached a strap of good leather three feet long. It is not so much used to whip the pony one is riding as to snap at the ponies that are tempted from their straight and narrow way by a choice bit of grass.

“When those boys got back to Reykjavik they presented me with this fine whip and I have carried it ever since.”

Two years later I was lecturing in New York City and chanced that night to show on the screen a slide in which Johannes figured. He loomed up splendidly from his tiny steed and presented a fine appearance with his flowing beard and slouched hat tipped to one side and with the beloved riding whip displayed in characteristic fashion. At the close of the lecture a gentleman approached me and asked,

“Did you have Johannes ZoËga for your guide? I thought I recognized him in one of the pictures.”

“Yes,” I replied, “he was our guide during our first trip in the country.”

“He was my guide and I presented him with that whip.”

The world is not so large after all.

Johannes then turned to Mrs. Russell and asked,

“What shall I call you? Your man’s name is Russell shall I call you ‘madam’ or what?”

She replied, “You may call me ‘madam’ or ‘Mrs. Russell,’ whichever you choose.”

“What,” replied Johannes, “your name Russell and your Man’s name the same? Two people, man and wife, and same name?”

We then informed him that in the United States when a woman married she dropped her maiden name, or substituted it for her middle name and assumed the surname of her husband. This was difficult for Johannes to understand, inasmuch as in Iceland a woman always keeps her maiden name, even after marriage. A woman is named thus, SigurÐur EiricksdÓttir, or, Johanna StefÁnsdÓttir, and she is always called the “daughter of her father.” Likewise a man is the “son of his father” and is named accordingly. Thus, StefÁn KristÓfersson, or, BjÖrn Eyvindsson, BjÖrn the son of Eyvind. Now when this “son” comes to have a son and wishes to name him he may choose any Christian name he pleases but he must be “his son.” Thus if BjÖrn Eyvindsson were to name his son he might call him Geir, Helgi, Ólafur, etc., but the patronymic would be dropped and he would be called BjÖrnsson. Ólafur BjÖrnsson would be the son of BjÖrn Eyvindsson.

When we were through with our discussion of nomenclature it would have been difficult to have told which party was the more mystified.

The pack saddles were replaced, the fresh ponies saddled and we started upon the second stage of the day’s journey. Soon we mounted to the top of the ridge which is 1,100 feet above the sea. Near the sixth kilometer stone, about eighteen miles, we came to the SaeluhÚs, fortunate-house, an unoccupied hospice in the deserts and mountains for the refuge of travellers who may be unexpectedly overtaken by a storm, especially in winter when the snow is fiercely driven across the moors. To cross in the blinding storm is to invite death. This one is a small stone structure. During our following summer we found several of these and in one of them we were glad to take refuge.

This is the MossfellsheiÐi, Moss-Mountain-Heath, the undisturbed home of the whimbrel and the golden plover. Before the road was built to Thingvellir there were a few scattering cairns to guide the traveller. There are at present many lofty cairns beside the way so that even in the drifting snow the traveller may find his way in winter. In the nearer view there is nothing but the barren land, the gray monotony of the moor and the eye of the traveller is held by the glories of the distant mountains.

The change of ponies was no doubt beneficial to those we had ridden in the morning and they trotted ahead with every sign of contentment, however, it brought no relief to the novices in the saddle. We were too weary to put the fresh mounts to a gallop and the jog, jog, jog on the hard road with the resulting thump, thump, thump on the saddle slightly damped the ardor of the first portion of the ride. We had just read Hall Caine’s Bondman and named our first relay of steeds after the two chief characters in that volume, Michael Sunlocks and Greba. My hestr, Michael Sunlocks, was a light chestnut with heavy forelocks, mane and tail of a beautiful silvery whiteness, the forelocks would have blinded him had they not been carefully fastened to the bridle, the mane reached to his knees and his heavy tail swept the ground. He was plump and mettlesome. To describe an Icelandic hestr, saddle horse, as fat is not describing him at all. I have never seen one in poor condition. Greba was a deep bay mare of gentle spirit. They proved to be personifications of those two characters in the Bondman. What did it matter to us if Johannes called them by unpronounceable names? To us they were ever Michael and Greba, and they came to know their new names. Now it happens that the Bondman is founded upon the attempt of a renegade Dane, Jorgen Jorgensen by name, to produce a revolution in Iceland in 1809. Here then was an appropriate name for my second mount and Jog Jogensen he was christened. He was a fiery little beast with plenty of grit as I found out after I had really learned to ride a hestr.

A charming landscape burst suddenly into view. The largest of Icelandic lakes, Thingvallavatn, is spread like a mirror below the bluffs. Its forty square miles of water are enclosed with scenic, basaltic headlands, its surface broken only by two islands, small and extinct craters. We saw it at its best. Long bands of pearly cloud lay athwart the mountain range while cloud and mountain cone lived doubly in the emerald green. Our weary spirits rose the more we advanced, most of the monotonous moorland stretched in gray billows behind us, and the discomfort of the saddle was momentarily forgotten. When it seemed that we were going directly to the shore of the lake the road took a sharp bend to the left and we descended a gulley to a big brook. We scorned the iron bridge and turned the ponies into the stream to quench their thirst. The water being low, we forded.

At six P. M. we turned from the highway into the turf-walled lane leading up to the farm called KÁrastaÐir, literally, the-farm-of-sickness. Why it was thus named is evident in the name but that was many centuries since. It must be remembered that the names of the farms and all the place-names are the same to-day as they were christened a thousand or more years ago. Every place in Iceland was most appropriately named.

KÁrastaÐir is a pleasant farm located besides a noisy brook on the upland slope of the lakeshore. It is approached between parallel walls of turf. These turf walls also enclose the tÚn, the mowing land, or the home field. They are made of turf cut in long thick strips and placed in layers. The walls are about three feet thick on the ground and narrow to half that width at the top. Grass grows luxuriantly all over them and they are often ornamented with a free sprinkling of wild flowers. I know of no hedgerow in England or country lane in America half so beautiful as many of these approaches to an Icelandic farm house. Hedge clippers, boards and concrete do not make for true beauty. These walls become a portion of the ground, permanent affairs that do not need attention and stand for centuries. The Icelandic farmer can show the New England Yankee how to build a fence, but then he has the material in the toughest of turf. A fence in New England built of native sods would not endure as long as the frail brush fences of our hillside pastures. At the far end of the lane stands the hÚs. This term refers not only to the actual dwelling but to all the buildings within the enclosure whether for man or beast. This turf wall runs around the buildings so as to make an inner plot where no entrance to the mowing lands can be obtained by the live stock.

On dismounting we were cordially received. Our ponies were unladen and taken to the pasture by a boy. The house maids,—a proper distinction for there are house-maids and farm-maids with corresponding duties,—busied themselves in preparing the guest room and the tiny bedroom leading out of it for our accommodation. In a short time the table was spread with rye bread, unsalted butter, cheese, broiled char, a species of trout from the lake, warm milk and boiled eggs. To this repast we did ample justice. Then followed a pot of excellent coffee and a platter laden with a variety of dainty cakes. This is one of the better class of Icelandic farms. We were still on the great highway of Iceland and under the influence of the capital city. The house had wood floors, Norway spruce, polished and aged to a beautiful seal-brown and spotlessly clean. We took our packing boxes into our bedroom as was our custom until we became better acquainted with the character of the people. The bedroom was eleven feet by five. In it was a small table, washstand, three chairs, four packing cases and two beds. When the heavy riding boots were removed there was not much room left in which to turn. The outer room contained a small dining table, an organ, several chairs and many ornaments of local interest in the shape of pictures. Every Icelandic home, no matter how humble, has its photograph album, long since filled and the overflow is spread upon the wall.

Supper over, I visited the out-buildings, which are entirely of stone and turf, except the roof contains timber to give the necessary support for the brush and turf. Near the coast and in the north this timber is obtained from the Arctic driftwood and I have seen many a stick of Siberian larch that has undoubtedly drifted over the polar area and lodged upon this coast. Thus does nature provide an abundance of building material in a land where no timber grows. I examined the haying implements with considerable interest and then followed the brook up the hillside in quest of flowers. Reclining upon a bed of the “mountain bloom” I looked down upon the farm, across the tÚn to the lake and beyond to the ragged peaks. The smoke rose from the peat fire in the kitchen, bringing with it the pleasing odor of burning humus, the farm maids were busy with the milking and the men were swinging their scythes in the meadow, albeit it was half past nine at night. This then is Iceland, the land of my boyhood dreams. These are the home-dwellers, who are not city-struck nor crazed with the lust of gold. These are the people of sturdy ways and simple lives whom I am to know in the years to come.

The two beds were placed end to end on one side of the room. Each was five feet long and not over two and a half in width. How these six-foot men can sleep in any comfort in five-foot beds is a mystery. The mattress is a well stuffed feather bed, the coverlet is of eider down. The down is stuffed into a tick like a pillow and like a pillow it has a white case. One virtually sleeps between two feather beds. In the nightly struggles to kick the foot board out of my short bed, the overgrown pillow, used as a blanket, often fell to the floor and sometimes as a last resort to straighten out, I followed the coverlet to the floor, used it for a mattress and with a steamer rug slept in peace.

Nine in the morning found us at breakfast. An hour later, having paid our host his modest reckoning, with handshaking all round and a hearty gÓÐr Á daginn, pronounced as though spelled go-an-dine, meaning literally “good to the day,” an ancient Scandinavian salutation and universal in Iceland for centuries, we started to Thingvellir. After riding for half an hour over the barren plain thickly studded with fragments of the ancient basalt and with eyes steadfastly fixed upon the beauties of the lake, we came to the brink of a mighty chasm. Below our feet is the plain of Thingvellir, the Mecca of Iceland, the seat of the ancient parliament, the resultant of the combined freakishness of earthquake and volcanic forces. It is a remarkable geological formation. The sunken plain is nearly ten miles long and five miles broad.

We stand on the brink of the AlmannagjÁ, All-Men’s-Rift, so named because in ancient days when the nobles and law-makers were assembled in the plain below, the common people met upon the heights along the brink of this chasm for a great national holiday of about two weeks. To our right, south-west, the sunken valley is filled with the waters of the lake. To the left, northeast, rises the abrupt wall of Ármannsfell, a lofty mountain of trap. To the south-east, five miles away and extending from the far side of the lake to Ármannsfell is the HrafnagjÁ, Ravens-Rift. This rift is parallel with the one upon whose brink we are now standing. The sunken plain varies in the depth of its depression from twenty-five feet at the northeast to over a hundred feet at the south-west, below the level of the surrounding moorland. The plain itself is rent, rifted and shattered into thousands of fragments as if hot water had been dashed against a plate glass window on a frosty morning. Hundreds of chasms intersect each other in the sunken plain in a huge network. They go deep down to the bed of the lake and the lake follows them up under the lava and the water glimmers at the bottom of these chasms.

How was this formation wrought? In prehistoric times, that is before Iceland was discovered, how much earlier we do not know and the rocks do not reveal the secret save the probable period of the flowing of the lava itself which filled all the valley, the surface cooled and the fluid below this crust was under pressure and forced a passage through the barrier where the lake now lies and drained away. This left a mammoth cavern with a hot, laminated, blistered and shrinking roof. Time passed. The shrinking continued. The stress became sufficient to produce the great fault, an earthquake, and in one mighty tumble the entire roof of the lava chamber collapsed, breaking away from the walls which now form the moorland side of the great parallel rifts. As it fell it was shivered into acre-sized fragments, tilted and turned so as to present a billowy appearance. Time has mercifully clothed the ragged mass with verdure, tangled masses of dwarf birch, which, from the distance of the brink upon which we stand, soften the harsh outlines and partially obscure the chasms. As the roof of the cavern fell it broke away from the mountain walls on either side of the plain and pulled the ragged mass with it. This formed a second wall and between these two walls runs the ÁlmannagjÁ on this side of the plain and the HrafnagjÁ on yonder side. From the top of the inner walls the slope is gradual down into the plain, much like the inward sloping sides of a platter. On the moorland side enormous niches extend into the wall and protruding from the second wall are masses of lava pulled out of these places which would exactly fit the ancient matrix could they be restored. These are so numerous in each of the rifts that there is no doubt as to the correctness of our view of the formation of the rifts and of Thingvellir.

Over the brink of the tableland and into the ÁlmannagjÁ tumbles a fine sheet of water, the ÖxerÁ, Axe-River, which follows the chasm down to a break through the inner wall, spreads over a portion of the plain and enters the lake. At our feet there is a narrow side passage leading from the brink down into the rift which has been laboriously levelled and a good road now leads to the lower level. This pass in ancient days was the strategic point of many a stout fight. In the Burnt Njal we read a vivid description of such a fight when the issue of the trial was unfavorable to one of the factions.

We will now ride down the incline, cross the bridge over the foaming ÖxerÁ and draw rein at the ValhÖll, Great-Hall-of-the-King. This was erected when King Frederick of Denmark visited the place in 1907. That the good king toured a portion of Iceland at this time is a blessing to travellers because special roads were built, bridges erected and inns constructed for his accommodation.

We turned the ponies over to Johannes who took them to the pasture upon the moorland above the rift. It was only eleven in the morning and we had ridden but an hour yet we decided to spend the day in a further examination of this historic spot. The time allotted proved inadequate and a year later, on our return from the north, we passed an entire day here. Less than half a dozen people were stopping at the ValhÖll. We were assigned a room like a beach bath house with two bunks, one above the other as in a steamer. We did not know till the next summer that this hotel had first, second and third class lodgings. It was the only place in Iceland where we ever found any distinction. On our second summer we had first class accommodations, which meant a large comfortable room with a regulation bed and the meals served privately in the adjoining room in place of on a bench in the large hall.

Immediately we set out to explore the place. A mist was creeping in from the lake and down from the mountains. This soon developed into a “Scotch mist” which is an easy falling rain. We went to the ÖxerÁ, explored the deep rift between the walls, which in places has been fenced off for sheep cotes. We climbed the wall to the top of the falls, peered down into the numerous fissures and were astonished to find snow at the bottom of one of them. It is a narrow chasm, very deep and the sun can not reach the bottom. We followed the wall eastward for two miles where we found a place to descend into the plain. On the return we wandered among the crevasses, dodging blocks of lava and jumping the narrow rifts where down a hundred feet the water glimmered. We returned in the rain for our mid-afternoon meal which consisted of broiled trout from the lake. It rained vigorously and we devoted some time to the neglected notebooks, also to an examination of the guest book. They do not use registers, simply a book in which the parting guest writes his name and any comments he chooses. There is an old Icelandic proverb which runs as follows,—

Island er hin besta land sem sÓl skina uppi.

Iceland is the best land on which the sun comes up (shines).

This was quoted over one of the signatures. A little later some one had written an addition in German,—“and the rain rains.”

At five in the afternoon the clouds broke away, the sun came smilingly forth and we continued our exploration. We visited the ducking pool, where in ancient days women convicted of heinous crimes were drowned. This is a big noisy basin within the ÁlmannagjÁ a little way below the falls. Well would it have been with the noble Gunnar had HalgerÐa been dipped in this cauldron ere ever he became fascinated with her beauty and caught in her toils. We crossed to the borders of the lake where there is a small tÚn, the Thingvellir parsonage. An ancient church stands within the enclosing walls of the tÚn. We obtained the key of the pastor and entered. Until a few years ago the churches throughout the country were turned over to travellers for sleeping quarters. This was a most excellent arrangement as they afforded plenty of room and were always well ventilated. Some English sportsmen once amused themselves by throwing their boots at the candles on the altar and committing other acts of vandalism and the Bishop of Iceland very wisely forbade the future use of the churches as accommodations for travellers. This has put many people to inconvenience since, not only the traveller but the farmer or pastor who has had to discommode himself to find room in an already overcrowded house. Thus do many people suffer for the wanton acts of a few and a nation gets a bad name because of the deeds of a few of its reckless sons. Until ValhÓll was erected the pastor at this place cared for the strangers if they were without a tent. What a relief to him has been this little hospice. This parsonage figures prominently in the Prodigal Son, which is Hall Caine’s best work on Iceland. It should be read by all who contemplate a visit to this land or are interested in the country. When he wrote the Bondman he had never been in Iceland and he wrote entirely from imagination and without any local color. This was severely criticised in Iceland and so much fuss was made over the misrepresentations and erroneous paragraphs that Caine visited the country, thoroughly explored the vicinity of Reykjavik and then wrote The Prodigal Son which redeemed himself in the eyes of the people. Icelanders are quite sensitive about misrepresentations made by foreigners. Above all other things the Icelander dreads to be laughed at, scorns falsehoods about himself and his country and is jealous of its reputation. This is deep seated patriotism.

The little church contains a very old altar piece, a Last Supper, painted on wood. The altar itself was constructed in 1683. In the yard there is a monolith of lava erected by man. On its eastern face there are several parallel marks cut deeply into the stone. Like the standard Meter kept in Paris and the standard Yard in London, these lines marked the standard alin, ell, measure of linear distance in the ancient days. It is supposed to be of the tenth century. The measures of the country were adjusted by this standard. Thus the Scandinavians fixed a standard of measurement centuries before Great Britain adopted its arbitrary and unscientific measure or the arc of a meridian had been measured for the French scientific standard.

A little way from the parsonage and beside the recently constructed road is the LÖgberg, Mount-of-Laws. Let us ascend it, note the surroundings and recall the past. When the plain fell to its present irregular level and was shattered into hundreds of misshapen masses, here by the lake two of the chasms, like the arcs of intersecting circles, enclosed a long oval fragment of lava which stood high above the surrounding level and overlooked the lake. This is the Law Mount. One of these rifts is known as the FlosigjÁ. At one point the walls approach within eighteen feet and it is said that when the burner of Njal, Flosi, was hotly pursued by his enemies he leaped this chasm. These chasms, through which an underground river finds its way into the lake, are very picturesque with their lichen encrusted walls, with the crowberry in the niches and the wild thyme hanging over the brink. In the old days it was possible to reach the engirdled mount at only one place. This made it easy of defense and secure to the lawgivers and judges against intrusion by the populace. Frosts and earthquakes have pried off many an angular fragment into the gulf and the place is now easy of access.

Standing on the grassy mound the great wall of AlmannajgÁ reaches its black mass from the border of the lake to Armansfell, the ÖxerÁ plunges in one long white curve over the brink, boils musically within its distant canyon and reappears through the rent in the side of the inner wall flecked with foam. Beyond the moorland SÚlur, Stone-Pillars, rears his pinnacles of basalt. Thingvallavatn smiles at our feet. No sail dots its brilliant surface, no houses border its precipitous shore. It is the same as when the Saga heroes fished in its bright depths and these graceful swan and busy ducks enjoy the same tranquility as their remote ancestors. Around the lake a ring of red and purple peaks, robed in transparent atmosphere and embellished with hues unknown in lower latitudes, peep into this molten glimmerglass to behold each others image, while, amid the distance-softened ridges, Hengill sends upward its “columns of white vapor like altar smoke” towards the softened sky. The embosomed isles are skirted with green and at the waters edge are fringed with the aromatic Angelica. Uncounted peaks are around us surpliced with white raiment as though assembled to raise one grand anthem to Nature’s God.

Let us turn back the pages of time 800 years. We stand upon the upper portion of the LÖgberg, upon the bloodstone, where the backs of criminals were broken before they were hurled into the abyss at our feet. The Thingmen are in solemn assembly a little lower down the incline. Along the brink of AlmannajgÁ throng the populace in assembled thousands in their annual August festival, gathered from every portion of the island. They await the issue of some vital subject under discussion on the mound. It is the year 1112 and the trial for the Burning of Njal is well under way. That old man with the quiet mien and full flowing beard is Mord. He rises, faces the Court and says,—

“I take witness to this, that I take a Fifth Court oath. I pray God so to help me in this light and in the next, as I shall plead this suit as I know to be most truthful, and just, and lawful. I believe with all my heart that Flosi is truly guilty in this suit, if I may bring forward my proofs; and I have not brought money into this court in this suit, and I will not bring it. I have not taken money and I will not take it, neither for a lawful nor for an unlawful end.”

The great trial proceeds but a flaw is found in the pleading and the technicality destroys all that has been gained. Now men rush to their weapons and Flosi would gain the Great Rift as a place of defense. Snorri, the Priest, forsees the outcome and has quietly stationed another hardy band at this vantage point. The throng upon the moorland press to the brink to watch the fierce fight waged by the contending factions, who attempt to settle at the point of the spear the question which has just failed in the court. Might is still right. Doughty blows are showered as Odin chants the warsong under the shields of his few remaining warriors. Spear and battle axe ring loudly upon shield and helmet. The verdict is rendered. The decree is written in blood upon the grass. A prolonged shout of acclamation mingled with the roar of disapproval rises from the multitude. The clamor dies away, for the sturdy bodies of these iron heroes, who can give and take such blows, can endure no longer and the struggle ends with lifelong feuds.

Upon the sunken plain along the banks of the ÖxerÁ stand the booths of the prominent Thingmen, the priests, the chieftains and the poets. To these the people assemble in noisy factions to cool their blood in long draughts of mead. See, there by the snowy falls near to the perpendicular wall is the booth of Snorri. Down the river a little distance is the booth where Njal so often gave counsel ere the burning; there by the lake is the booth of the fair and treacherous HallgerÐa. It was here that Gunnar first spied her sitting in the doorway fresh from her bath in the lake. The bloodshed is not quite over, look where the river foams through its rocky jaws, leaping in two great bounds for the lake, impatient for its victims. In that surging eddy within the rift that group of women convicted of infanticide and adultery are now to be drowned and on that mound where those fagots of birch are piled that witch is to be burned.

The 800 years are passed. The writer stands at eventide alone upon the LÖgberg and views with enchanted eye this perfect painting of peace let down from heaven. Mammoth and angular masses, their roughness softened with thyme and forget-me-nots, surround the age-old chasms and live anew in those Nile-green depths. Peaceful it is beyond the power of description. Here the sturdy Viking, wealthy with the spoils of Europe, worked out a constitution, founded a republic, sloughed off the skin of paganism, adopted on the first ballot the Christ-law and crystallized a civilization centuries since. Here in the old and stirring days great minds held sway. What sturdy men they were, mighty in feats of arms, resourceful, inventive, poetic, pregnant with the germs of thought that in their latter day development produced a scholastic, peaceful, Christian nation! What wondrous deeds they wrought, what grand old epics they enacted, let their Sagamen relate.

Beautiful Arctic flowers crown the LÖgberg. The plover whistles on the heather and the whimbrel calls as in days of yore. Around this primitive parliament flow the emerald waters in varied shades of prismic green like polished malachite, long since unpolluted with broken-backed criminals.

I fired my revolver into the green-bedded chasm of the FlosigjÁ to awaken the echoes. Their voices betokened peace. The angry snarl of the bloodthirsty mob, the clash of bill on yielding armor, the wail of drowning women no longer reverberated from chasm to cliff. Echo had but one message, Peace.

Peace to the generations past, whose warriors have long since mouldered in yonder heath! Solemnly, softly, silently the echo fades upon Thingvellir’s plain. So say I.—Peace to the mighty dead! Peace to the little nation now toiling for existence upon this fire-blistered island! Peace, I say, to those Plutonic forces that have wrought far greater havoc and misery in this Arctic realm than all the bloody passions of its first born sons!