A SOLITARY ISLAND.
The government of Iceland have commissioned Mr Thoroddsen to undertake systematic explorations of that island, with a view to investigating its physical features and describing its natural history. While on a visit to Grimsey, a small island twenty-two miles due north of Iceland, he found it inhabited by eighty-eight human beings, debarred from all communication with the mainland, excepting once or twice every year, when, at great risk, the natives contrived to visit the mainland in their small open boats.
After describing the flora and meteorology of this secluded islet, Mr Thoroddsen informs us that the ‘pastor of the island, M. Pjetur Gudmundsson, has for many years been engaged in exceedingly careful meteorological observations on behalf of the Meteorological Institute of Copenhagen. This most worthy gentleman, living here in conspicuous poverty, like a hermit divorced from the world, though he has the comfort of a good wife to be thankful for, is not only regarded as a father by his primitive congregation, but enjoys, moreover, the reputation of being in the front rank among sacred poets in modern Iceland.
‘The inhabitants derive their livelihood for the most part from bird-catching, nest-robbing, and deep-sea fisheries. The precipices that form the eastern face of the island are crowded with myriads of various kinds of sea-fowl. On every ledge the birds are seen thickly packed together; the rocks are white with guano, or green-tufted with scurvy-grass; here everything is in ceaseless movement, stir, and flutter, accompanied by a myriad-voiced concert from screamers on the wing, from chatterers on domestic affairs in the rock-ledges, and from brawlers at the parliament of love out at sea, the surface of which beneath the rocks is literally thatched at this time of the year with the wooing multitudes of this happy commonwealth. If the peace is broken by a stone rolled over the precipice or by the report of a gunshot, the air is suddenly darkened by the rising clouds of the disturbed birds, which, viewed from the rocks, resemble what might be taken for gigantic swarms of bees or midges.
‘The method adopted for collecting eggs is the following: Provided with a strong rope, some nine or ten stalwart men go to the precipice, where it is some three hundred feet high, and one of the number volunteers or is singled out by the rest for the perilous sig, that is, “sink” or “drop,” over the edge of the rocks. Round his thighs and waist, thickly padded generally with bags stuffed with feathers or hay, the sigamadr, “sinkman” or “dropman,” adjusts the rope in such a manner that he may hang, when dropped, in a sitting posture. He is also dressed in a wide smock or sack of coarse calico, open at the breast, and tied round the waist with a belt, into the ample folds of which he slips the eggs he gathers, the capacity of the smock affording accommodation to from one hundred to one hundred and fifty eggs at a time. In one hand the sinkman holds a pole, sixteen feet long, with a ladle tied to one end, and by this means scoops the eggs out of nests which are beyond the reach of his own hands. When the purpose of this “breath-fetching” sink is accomplished, on a given sign the dropman is hauled up again by his comrades. This, as may readily be imagined, is a most dangerous undertaking, and many a life has been lost over it in Grimsey from accidents occurring to the rope.
‘For the pursuit of the fishery, the island possesses fourteen small open boats, in which the men will venture out as far as four to six miles cod-fishing; but this is a most hazardous industry, owing both to the sudden manner in which the sea will rise, sometimes even a long time in advance of travelling storms, and to the difficulty of effecting a landing on the harbourless island.
‘Now and then the monotony of the life of the inhabitants is broken by visits from foreigners, mostly Icelandic shark-fishers, or English or French fishermen.
‘Of domestic animals the islanders now possess only a few sheep. Formerly there were five cows in the island; but the hard winter of 1860 necessitated their extermination, and since that time, for twenty-four years, the people have had to do without a cow! Of horses there are only two at present (1884) in the island! Strange to say, the health of the people seems on the whole to bear a fair comparison with more favoured localities. Scurvy, which formerly was very prevalent, has now almost disappeared, as has also a disease peculiar to children, which, in the form of spasm or convulsive fit, used to be very fatal to infant life in former years.
‘Inexpressibly solitary must be the life of these people in winter, shut out from all communication with the outer world, and having in view, as far as the eye can reach, nothing but arctic ice. The existence of generation after generation here seems to be spent in one continuous and unavailing arctic expedition. The only diversion afforded by nature consists in the shifting colours of the flickering aurora borealis, in the twinkling of the stars in the heavens, and the fantastic forms of wandering icebergs. No wonder that such surroundings should serve to produce a quiet, serious, devout, and down-hearted race, in which respect the Grimsey men may perhaps be said to constitute a typical group among their compatriots. However, to dispel the heavy tedium of the long winter days, they seek their amusements in the reading of the Sagas, in chess-playing, and in such mild dissipations at mutual entertainments at Christmas-time as their splendid poverty will allow.’