The heavy rolling still continues. Hope the cargo will keep right, or we shall come to grief. Thought of the virtues of my friends. However, maugre a dash of danger, a group of us on the hurricane deck really enjoyed the scene as if we had been veritable Mother Carey’s chickens. One sang Barry Cornwall’s song “The Sea;” another by way of contrast gave us “Annie Laurie” and “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled;” and towards evening we all joined in singing “York;” that grand old psalm tune harmonizing well with the place and time—
“The setting sun, and music at the close!”
The gulf-stream and the rollers meeting make a wild jumble. Barometer very low—2810; low enough for a hurricane in the tropics. Stormy rocking in our sea-cradle all day and all night.
Wednesday, July 27.—Vessel still rolling as much as ever. Saw a skua—a black active rapacious bird, a sort of winged pirate—chasing a gull which tried hard to evade it by flying, wavering backwards and forwards, zig-zagging, doubling, now rising and now falling, till at last, wearied out and finding escape impossible, it disgorged and dropt a fish which the skua pounced upon, picking it up before it could reach the surface of the sea. The fish alone had been the object of the skua’s pursuit. The skua is at best but a poor fisher and takes this method of supplying its wants at second hand. Subsequently we often observed skuas following this their nefarious calling; unrelentingly chasing and attacking the gulls until they gave up their newly caught fish, when they were at once left unmolested and allowed to go in peace; but whether the sense of wrong or joy at escape predominated, or with what sort of feelings and in what light the poor gulls viewed the transaction, a man would require to be a bird in order to form an adequate idea.
We cannot now be far from Iceland, but clouds above and low thick mists around preclude the possibility of taking observations or seeing far before us. In clear weather we are told that the high mountains are visible from a distance of 100 or 150 miles at sea.
At half-past Three o’clock P.M., peering hard through the mist, we discover, less than a mile ahead, a white fringe of surf breaking on a low sandy shore for which we are running right stem on. It is the south of Iceland; dim heights loom through the haze; the vessel’s head is turned more to the west and we make for sailing, in a westerly direction with a little north in it, along the shore up the western side of the island which in shape somewhat resembles a heart.
NEEDLE ROCKS—OFF PORTLAND HUK.
The mist partially clears off and on our right we sight Portland Huk, the most southern point of Iceland. Here rocks of a reddish brown colour run out into the sea rising in singular isolated forms like castellated buildings; one mass from a particular point of view exactly resembles the ruins of Iona, even to the square tower; other peaks are like spires. Strange fantastic needle-like rocks or drongs shoot up into the air—the Witches’ fingers (Trollkonefinger) of the Northmen. The headland exhibits a great arched opening through which, we were told, at certain states of the tide, the steamer could sail if her masts were lowered. It is called Dyrhólaey—the hill door—and from it the farm or village close by is named Dyrhólar. Behind these curious rocks appeared a range of greenish hills mottled with snow-patches, their white summits hid in the rolling clouds.
There are numerous waterfalls; glaciers—the ice of a pale whity-green colour—fill the ravines and creep down the valleys from the Jökuls to the very edge of the water. Their progressive motion here is the same as in Switzerland, and large blocks of lava are brought down imbedded in their moraine. I perceived what I thought to be curved lines on the surface like the markings on mother-of-pearl, indicating that the downward motion of a glacier is greater in the centre than where impeded by friction at the sides.