When Professor Chadbourne and I came up to it, we gazed down in awe and wonder. We knew that our companions must have descended somehow, for there was no other way: but how, we could not tell. Were we to dismount and let the horses go first, they might escape and leave us; if we attempted to lead them down they might fall on the top of us; to descend on foot would be extremely difficult at any time, and dismounting and mounting again at this stage of our proceedings, was rather a formidable undertaking. “How shall we set about it?” I asked my friend. “You may do as you please,” said he, “but I must keep my seat if I can.” “So shall I, for the horse is surer footed than I can hope to be to-day.” “Lead on then” said the Professor, “and I’ll follow!”
So leaving my pony to choose its steps, it slowly picked its way down the steep gorge; zig-zagging from point to point and crag to crag, or stepping from one great block of stone to another. I was repeatedly compelled to lean back, touching the pony’s tail with the back of my head, in order to maintain the perpendicular, and avoid being shot forward, feet first, over its head, among the rocks. Sometimes at steep places it drew up its hind legs and slid down on its hams, many loose stones rattling down along with us as the pony kicked out right and left to keep its balance, and made the sparks fly from its heels. Descending in silence, at last we reached the bottom in safety, thinking it rather a wild adventure in the way of riding, and one not to be attempted elsewhere.
Looking back with awe and increasing wonder at the gorge we had descended, for it certainly was terrifically steep, we both remarked the cool indifference and utter absence of fear with which we had ridden down such a break-neck place. The fresh air and excitement prevent one from thinking anything about such adventures till they are over.
The high rock-walls, now hemming us in on either side, bore a considerable resemblance to the pictures of Petra—Wady Mousa—in Arabia, and here we could fancy mounted Bedouins riding up with their long matchlocks. All was silent as the grave. The ground was green with tender herbage; great blocks of stone lay about, and others seemed ready to topple over and fall down upon us. Riding along, the rocks on the right soon terminated like a gigantic heap of burned ruins, and allowed us to gaze across the vale of Thingvalla, with the river Oxerá in the foreground. Here we overtook our friends who told us that they had all dismounted and led their horses down the chasm, and would scarcely believe that we had ridden down. All of us were lost in wonder and struck with awe at the scenes we had witnessed. We forded the river in a row, following Zöga’s guidance; and at 5 o’clock in the afternoon rode up to the priest’s house on the other side. It was simply a farm, like others we had seen, consisting of a group of separate erections with wooden gables, green sod on the roof and the whole surrounded with a low stone wall coped with turf. Beside it was the silent churchyard with its simple grassy graves of all sizes. Immediately behind the house were piles of sawn timber, and several carpenters at work rebuilding the little church, which having become old and frail had been taken down. Its site was only about 25 feet by 10.
