Pen and pencil sketches of Faröe and Iceland

by Andrew James Symington

We saw one rude house of refuge, without any roof, built of lava blocks, in the midst of this black desert where everything seemed blasted. Came now on spots where a few tufts of sea-pinks, and many bright coloured wild-flowers were springing up among the stones. Saw flat rock-surfaces shrivelled up and wrinkled like pitch, an effect which had evidently been produced when the lava was cooling; others were ground down and polished smooth in grooves by the ice-drift. As near as I can calculate, some fourteen or fifteen miles of our journey lay over this one long long dreary stony waste, henceforth, ever to be associated in memory with the plover’s wild lone plaintive tremulous whistle.

At 3 P.M. we came in sight of the blue lake of Thingvalla,[^[7]] lying peacefully in the valley before us; while the range of the hills beyond it, bare, bold and striking in their outline, was mostly of a deep violet colour.

During the day, arrowy showers of drenching rain “cold and heavy,” like that described by Dante in the third circle of the Inferno, or wet drizzling mists had alternated with gleams of bright clear sunshine. Towards the afternoon the weather had become more settled and the effect of the prospect now before us, although truly lovely in itself, was heightened by our previous monotonous though rough ride over the dreary stony plateau. The lake far below us, with its two little volcanic islands Sandey and Nesey, lay gleaming in the sun like a silver mirror; while the wild scenery around forcibly reminded us of Switzerland or Italy.

Thingvalla was to be our resting place for the night, and seeing our destination so near at hand in the valley below us, some one purposed a rapid scamper, that we might the sooner rest, eat, and afterwards have more leisure to explore the wondrous features of the place. Forthwith we set off at a good pace, but the Professor was too tired to keep up with us, so I at once fell behind to bear him company. The others were speedily out of sight. Knowing that dinner preparations would occupy Zöga for some time after his arrival, we rode leisurely along, admiring the green level plain far below us. When wondering how we were to get down to it, we suddenly and unexpectedly came to a yawning chasm or rent running down through the edge of the plateau. It seemed about 100 feet deep, 100 feet wide, and was partially filled with enormous blocks of basalt which had toppled down from either side; where more, cracked and dissevered, still impended, as if they might fall with a crash at the slightest noise or touch. This was the celebrated Almanna Gjá or Chasm, of which we had read so much but of which we had been able to form no adequate idea from descriptions.

Of a scene so extraordinary, indeed unique, I can only attempt faithfully to convey my own impressions, without hoping to succeed better than others who have gone before me.

Let the reader imagine himself, standing on the stony plateau; below him stretches a beautiful verdant valley, say about five miles broad, and about 100 feet below the level on which he is standing; to the right before him also lies the lake which we have been skirting for some miles in riding along. It is in size about ten miles each way, and is bounded by picturesque ranges of bare volcanic hills. This whole valley has evidently sunk down in one mass to its present level, leaving exposed a section of the rent rocks on either side of the vale. These exposed edges of the stony plateau running in irregular basaltic strata, and with fantastic shapes on the top like chimneys and ruined towers, stretch away like black ramparts for miles, nearly parallel to each other, with the whole valley between them, and are precipitous as walls, especially that on the left.

The top of the mural precipice, overlooking the gorge at our feet, is the original uniform level of the ground before the sinking of the valley. It forms the edge of the plateau which stretches away behind and also before us to the left of the precipice; for we look down the chasm lengthways, along the front of the rock-wall, and not at right angles from it. A mere slice of the rock has been severed and is piled up on our right, like a Cyclopian wall. It runs parallel with the face of the rent rock to which it formerly belonged, for, say, about the eighth of a mile N.E. from where we stand, and then terminates abruptly there in irregular crumbling blocks like a heap of ruins; while the trench or gjá itself also runs back in a straight line S.W. for about two miles, and terminates at the brink of the lake.

The N.E. side of the valley is the highest, and the S.W. the lowest—shelving beneath the blue water, and forming the bottom of the lake. The river Oxerá, which thunders over the rock-wall on the right, forms a magnificent waterfall, and then flows peacefully across the south-west corner of the valley to the lake.

Between these two rock-walls—the left forming the real boundary of the valley on that side, but the right wall being only a slice severed from the left, and not the other boundary of the valley, which is situated about five miles distant—a long narrow passage descends, leading to the plain below. The flat bottom of this passage 100 feet deep is strewn with debris, but otherwise covered with tender green sward. The bottom is reached from the elevated waste where we stand by a very rough irregular winding incline plane—for although the descent is full of great blocks of stones, dreadfully steep, and liker a deranged staircase than anything else, we still call it a steep incline plane from the level of the plateau to the passage beneath which leads into the valley—high rock-walls rising on either side as we descend. Entering the defile and moving along on level ground, the wall on the right, evidently rent from the other side as if sliced down with some giant’s sword from the edge of the plateau, soon terminates in the valley; but that on the left runs on for many miles like a fire-scathed rampart. The stony plateau stretches back from the edge or level of the summit of this rock-wall, and the lovely green valley of Thingvalla extends from its base to the Hrafna Gjá or Raven’s Chasm—the corresponding wall and fissure, like rampart and fosse—which bounds the other side of the valley.

I am thus particular, because certain descriptions led me to suppose that here we would encounter a precipice at right angles to our path, and have to descend the face of it, instead of descending an incline parallel to its face, from where the stair begins on the old level. As it is, however, it seemed quite steep enough, with the rock-walled incline reaching from the valley to our feet. This wild chasm is called the Almanna Gjá—all men’s or main chasm; while the one on the other side of the vale of Thingvalla is called the Hrafna Gjá or Raven’s Chasm. The whole character of the scene, whether viewed by the mere tourist, or dwelt upon by the man of science, is intensely interesting, and in several respects quite unique; hence I have tried to describe it so minutely.