Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood.”
They were apt to scatter in quest of herbage, but Zöga, when his call was not enough or the dogs negligent, quickly out-flanked the stragglers, upon which, they, possessed by a salutary fear of his whip, speedily rejoined their fellows.
We soon lost sight of the sea, and in a short time came to the Lax-elv—or salmon river—which we forded.
Enormous quantities of fish are taken at the wears a little higher up where there are two channels and an arrangement for running the water off, first from the one and then from the other, leaving the throng of fishes nearly dry in a little pool from which they are readily taken by the hand. The fishermen wear rough woollen mittens to prevent the smooth lithe fish from slipping through their fingers when seizing them by head and tail, to throw them on shore. From five hundred to a thousand fishes are sometimes taken in a day. The fishery is managed by an intelligent Scotchman sent here by a merchant in Peterhead who leases the stream and has an establishment of some fifteen tin-smiths constantly at work making cans for “preserved salmon.” The fish are cut into pieces, slightly boiled—then soldered and hermetically sealed up in these tin cases containing say 2 or 4 ℔s. each, and sent south packed in large hogsheads to be distributed thence over the whole world.
The few grass-farms we saw were like hovels; many separate erections, stone next the ground, the gable wood, and the roof covered with green sod. The rafters are generally made of drift wood or whale’s ribs. Turf is used as fuel; but in common Icelandic houses there is only one fire—that in the kitchen—all the year round. The beds are often mere boxes ranged around the room, or, where there is such accommodation, underneath the roof round the upper apartment, which is approached by a trap-stair. They are filled with sea-weed or feathers and a cloth spread over them. In the farm houses we entered there was a sad want of light and fresh air; in fact, these sleeping rooms were so close and stifling that we were glad to descend and rush out to the open air for breath.
The little bit of pet pasture land, round each farm, enclosed by a low turf wall, is called “tun,” a word still used in rural districts of Scotland—spelt toon, or town—with the same sound and similar signification.
Rode many miles through wild black desolate dreary volcanic wastes—no near sounds but the metallic bicker of our ponies’ hoofs over the dry rocks and stones, or fearless splashing through mud puddles—and no distant sounds save the eerie cries, tremulous whistlings and plaintive wails of the curlew, plover, and snipe. Observed the abrasions of the ice-drift very distinctly traced on the rocks, these all running nearly south-west. The slightly elevated rock-surface was frequently polished quite smooth, scratches here and there showing the direction of the friction by which this appearance had been produced. In some instances the rock was left bare, in others detached stone blocks of a different formation rested on the surface.
Wild geranium, saxifrage, sedum, and tufts of sea-pink are very common, when we come to anything green. The wild geranium, from the almost nightless summer of the north, is six times larger than in Britain, and about the size of a half-penny.
