NATURAL BRIDGE.
Early on the following morning the sun-capped peaks of Mount Hecla were visible. There has been no eruption from this mountain since 1845. The principal crater lies 5210 feet above the level of the sea, and is distant fifteen miles from the shore.
Toward noon we made the Westmann Isles, a small rocky group some ten miles distant from the main island. A fishing and trading establishment, owned by a company of Danes, is located on one of these islands. The Arcturus touches twice a year to deliver and receive a mail. On the occasion of our visit, a boat came out with a hardy-looking crew of Danes to receive the mail-bag. It was doubtless a matter of great rejoicing to them to obtain news from home. I had barely time to make a rough outline of the islands as we lay off the settlement.
The chief interest attached to the Westmann group is, that it is supposed to have been visited by Columbus in 1477, fifteen years prior to his voyage of discovery to the shores of America. It is now generally conceded that the Icelanders were the original discoverers of the American continent. Recent antiquarian researches tend to establish the fact that they had advanced as far to the southward as Massachusetts in the tenth century. They held colonies on the coasts of Greenland and Labrador, and must have had frequent intercourse with the Indians farther south. Columbus in all probability obtained some valuable data from these hardy adventurers. The date of his visit to Iceland is well authenticated by Beamish, Rafn, and other eminent writers on the early discoveries of the Northmen.
COAST OF ICELAND.
Nothing could surpass the desolate grandeur of the coast as we approached the point of Reykjaness. It was of an almost infernal blackness. The whole country seemed uptorn, rifted, shattered, and scattered about in a vast chaos of ruin. Huge cliffs of lava split down to their bases toppled over the surf. Rocks of every [!-- Illustration page --] conceivable shape, scorched and blasted with fire, wrested from the main and hurled into the sea, battled with the waves, their black scraggy points piercing the mist like giant hands upthrown to smite or sink in a fierce death-struggle. The wild havoc wrought in the conflict of elements was appalling. Birds screamed over the fearful wreck of matter. The surf from the inrolling waves broke against the charred and shattered desert of ruin with a terrific roar. Columns of spray shot up over the blackened fragments of lava, while in every opening the lashed waters, discolored by the collision, seethed and surged as in a huge caldron. Verily there is One whose “fury is poured out like fire; the rocks are thrown down by him; the mountains quake, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence.”