After the customary salutations, he accosts everybody on the road with a series of questions, like a master hailing a ship. The first question put, is “What is your name?” the second “Whose son are you?”—for the general absence of surnames renders this necessary—the third “Where do you come from?” Then follows “Whither are you going?” and “What are you going to do there?” These questions are not regarded as impertinent, but as exhibiting a kindly interest. Henderson says, “When you visit a family in Iceland, you must salute them according to their age and rank, beginning with the highest and descending according to your best judgment to the lowest, not even excepting the servants; but, on taking leave, this order is completely reversed; the salutation is first tendered to the servants, then to the children, and last of all to the mistress and master of the family.” Old friends meeting, salute each other, in the old Icelandic way, with the kiss of peace. Clergymen are a privileged body, for, in salutation, even strangers male or female give them the kiss of peace and address them as “Sira,” Father. Hence our words sire and sir. Out of Reykjavik, and away from the factories, there is much of the oriental type about the manners and customs of the Icelanders; the same simplicity, the same native politeness, the same disregard of cleanliness, and the same dislike of change.
We now rode over uneven rocky ground, enriched with brushwood, till we reached the banks of the Bruará. This broad, deep, rapid river drains the valley of Laugervalla, receiving the waters of two lakes, Laugervatn and Apavatn; which in turn are fed by rivers and streams from the snow mountains beyond. A few miles south of us, near Skálholt, it receives the joint waters of the Túngufljot from Haukadal with the overflow of the Geysers, the magnificent river Hvitá which flows from a lake of the same name at the foot of Lang Jökul, and the Laxá, from Grœnavatn; further down to the south-west it also receives the Sog flowing from the lake of Thingvalla; and after draining several hundred miles of country, these waters, united in a little gulf called Olfusá, flow into the sea on the west coast.
Properly speaking, the Bruará terminates when it joins the longest and principal river of those named—the Hvitá or White-river—and below the junction, the whole waters united in one river are simply called the Hvitá; while the gulph, formed on the coast where it debouches into the sea, is called Olfusá.
The place selected for fording the Bruará is immediately above a singular waterfall shaped like a horse-shoe—the concave looks downwards—with a volcanic fissure or rent from two to three hundred feet long in the middle of it. This wedge-shaped gap in the bed of the river runs back to a point, and the water rushes down into it, from either side, falling into the chasm with a noise like thunder. Over this chasm, near the point or part of it highest up the river, are placed some planks with a slight hand-rail on either side, forming a rude bridge about twenty feet long and seven or eight broad. The river was swollen by recent rains, so that at least a foot of water lay upon or rather rushed over the bridge itself. Some thirty feet of the river had to be waded through ere the bridge in the middle could be reached; and—guessing its whole width here, say at 70 feet—again other 20 feet had to be forded after the bridge was passed, ere the steep rough bank, up which we had to scramble on the other side, could be attained. The water was deep, turbulent and rapid; while we could hear large stones grating on each other as they were borne along in the current. The eye took in all these bearings at a glance; there was no pause, Zöga led on and we followed. Our horses were up to the girths, and seemed walking over large movable boulders. They leant up the river so as to withstand the current. The arrowy swiftness of the flowing water produced a strange illusory feeling, akin to giddiness; one could not tell whether the motion pertained to one’s self, or to the river. A little to our right was the roaring cataract, so we kept the horses’ heads well up the river, to avoid missing the bridge; in that case we should inevitably have been swept over. The view, from the bridge, of the foaming mass of water through which we moved, and of the yawning gulph into which it was tumbling and furiously rushing along, far below our very feet, impressed the situation on our minds as something unique.
All having got over in safety, we paused for a few minutes on the top of the high bank to gaze back on the strange spectacle; while, before us, the river rushing along into the chasm, although on a smaller scale and different in kind, suggested Dr. Livingstone’s description of the great Victoria Falls on the Zambesi. The bridge has been renewed here from of old. On this account, the river is named Bruará or Bridge-river; a sufficient reason, when we mention that there is only one other bridge in the whole island.[[8]]
In the neighbourhood of the river we saw many small butterflies—blue and white—both fluttering and flying kinds; and were much annoyed with mosquitoes like gnats, that bit our faces severely and would get in about our necks, persecuting us most pertinaciously.
The Iceland ponies are truly wonderful animals. They carry one over smooth bare rocks, over great blocks of lava, up places steeper than a stair but with footing not half so good; through mud-puddles, water or bogs; over tracks of volcanic sand; through coppices; up hill, down hill; or across rivers. Patient and sure-footed, they stick at nothing. They are guided by the feet as much as by the bridle; a gentle touch with the heel being the Icelandic they are trained to understand. Some riders, we saw, kept up a constant drumming on the poor beasts’ sides. After their day’s work is done, they receive no manner of grooming or stabling; saddle and bridle taken off, they are then left to shift for themselves.
To our intense satisfaction, Zöga pointed out a hill about ten miles off, on the other side of which lay the Geysers. It was detached from the range of hills we had to skirt, rising with a gentle slope at right angles to them, and falling abruptly on the other side; forming a sort of bluff headland resting on a marshy plain. Part of our track lay through a plashy bog; then we had long level tracks of beautiful velvet turf at the foot of the hills, which both riders and horses seemed to think were made expressly for running races upon. When the ponies could be got into their peculiar amble, we progressed very pleasantly, and almost as fast as at a gallop. The hills on our left were mostly green, covered with dwarf birches, willows and blae-berries. On their slopes we saw farms, here and there, as we passed along. The plain immediately on our right, bounded by distant mountains and jökuls, was marshy. When it became very spongy and impassible, generally, we had only to move a little way higher up along the hill side, in order to obtain firmer footing. Approaching the hill which separated us from the Geysers, we crossed the morass, forded a river, rode up a miry lane past a farm house, turned the flank of the hill, and beheld clouds of white steam rising from the slope. The wished for goal now lay before us. Pushing on rapidly, my trusty little pony soon reached and picked its way over a gritty slope, among numerous plopping pits, steaming holes, boiling springs and fountains, up to the side of the Great Geyser, where I dismounted at 9 o’clock at night, having been ten and a half hours in the saddle.