Captain Andriessen had wished to sail to-day, but could not get men to work on Sabbath discharging the cargo; at which I was well pleased, both for the right feeling it indicated on the part of the Faröese, and for our own sakes. Here we lie peacefully anchored in the bay, enjoying the Sabbath quiet, while the tempest is now howling wildly outside the islands, and the lashing pelting rain is pouring down on the deck overhead like a shower-bath.
“Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never
Remember to have heard.”
The rain having abated, ere retiring for the night, walked the deck for half an hour. Thorshavn, as seen in the strong light and shade of evening from the steamer’s deck, has truly a most quaint old-world look—all the more so now that we know it from exploration—so very primitive that one can scarcely imagine anything like it. It is unique.
BASALT CAVES—SOUTH POINT OF STROMOE.
Monday morning, July 25.—From an early hour, all hands busily occupied discharging the cargo, heavily-laden boats following each other to the shore. At half-past one o’clock, the last boat pushes off, the steam-whistle is blown, and we sail away round the south point of Stromoe, shaping our course north-west through Hestoe Fiord. The coast of the islands is abrupt, mostly rising sheer from the sea; many basaltic columns, and a succession of wave-worn caves, in front of which countless sea-birds are flying, swimming and diving. The trap hills are regularly terraced like stairs. Clouds drifting among the hills, and from every gully cataracts leaping down in white foam to the sea. The general colour of the rocks is gray and brown, slightly touched here and there with green. These islands might be characterized as several groups or chains of hills, lying nearly parallel to each other and separated by narrow arms of the sea, which run in straight lines north-west and south-east. The summits of the larger islands reach an elevation of from one to two thousand feet; while the highest hill—Slattaretind, near Eide in Oesteroe—is two thousand nine hundred feet high.
The hills around still exhibit a succession of grassy declivities, alternating with naked walls of black or brown rock. The flat heights of these islands, we are told, are either bare rock or marshy hollows. There are also several small lakes, the largest of which, in Vaagoe, is only two miles in circumference, and lies surrounded by wild rugged mountain masses.
We count a dozen foaming cataracts, all in sight at once, and falling down over precipitous rocks around us into the sea. The wind perceptibly sways them hither and thither, and then dispersing the lower portion of the water raises it in silvery clouds of vapour on which rainbows play. They resemble the Staubach in Switzerland; and remind us of the wild mist-veil apparition of Kühleborn, in the charming story of Undine.
The tidal currents, in the long narrow straits which divide the northern islands from each other, are strong but regular; running six hours the one way and six hours the other. Boatmen must calculate and wait for the stream, as the oar is powerless against it.