Of every despotism in every nation.”
Such is the literary and republican spirit of this toiling and intellectual people.
The Icelanders live principally by farming and fishing. They take cod and haddock, from five to forty miles out to sea. Whales often visit their harbors and bays, and are surrounded by boats and captured. Their season for sea-fishing is from the first of February to the middle of May. In the summer they catch large quantities of trout and salmon in their streams and lakes. They have no agricultural productions of much value, except grass. Grain is not cultivated, and their gardens are very small, only producing a few roots and vegetables. The climate of the country is not what we would suppose from its location. Columbus, who was there in February, tells us he found no ice on the sea. It is not as cold in winter as in the northern States of America, the thermometer seldom showing a greater degree of severity than from twelve to eighteen above zero. In summer, from June to September, it is delightfully mild and pleasant, neither cold nor hot. The cold season does not usually commence until November or December; and sometimes during the entire winter there is but little snow, and not frost enough to bridge their lakes and streams with ice. In summer, fires are not needed, and the climate during this season is more agreeable than that of Great Britain or the United States, having neither the chilly dampness of the one, nor the fierce heat of the other. Thunder-storms in Iceland occur in the winter, but not in the summer.
Their domestic animals are sheep, cattle, horses, and dogs. They rarely keep domestic fowls, but from the nests of the wild eider-duck they obtain large quantities of eggs, as well as down. Reindeer run wild in the interior, but are not domesticated. Blue and white foxes are common; and these, with eagles, hawks, and ravens, destroy many of their sheep and lambs. White bears are not found in the country, except as an “imported” article, when they float over from Greenland on the drift ice. The domestic animals in Iceland are estimated in the following numbers:—500,000 sheep, 60,000 horses, and 40,000 cattle. All their animals are of rather small size, as compared to those in more temperate regions. Their horses are a size larger than the ponies of Shetland, and average from twelve to thirteen hands high. Their hay is a short growth, but a very sweet, excellent quality. The Icelanders speak of their “forests,”—mere bunches of shrubbery from two to six feet high. These are principally birch and willow. The beautiful heath, so common in Scotland and the north of Europe, is found throughout Iceland. Their game birds are the ptarmigan, the curlew, the plover, and the tern. Nearly every variety of water-fowl common to Great Britain or America, abounds in the bays, islands, and shores of Iceland, and in the greatest numbers. The Icelanders export wool, about 1,000,000 lbs. annually, and from two to three hundred thousand pairs each of woolen stockings and mittens. Besides these articles, they sell dried and salted codfish, smoked salmon, fish and seal oil, whale blubber, seal and fox skins, feathers, eider-down, beef and mutton, hides, tallow, and sulphur. They import their principal luxuries—flour, rye and barley meal, beans, potatoes, wine, brandy, rum, ale and beer, tobacco, coffee, sugar, tea, salt, timber, coal, iron, cutlery, fish-hooks and lines, cotton and silk goods, leather, crockery, and furniture. From thirty to forty vessels sail from Denmark to Iceland every year. Reykjavik, the capital, on the west coast, is the largest town in the island—a place of about 1,200 people. Then there are Eskifiorth and Vopnafiorth in the east, Akreyri in the north, and Stykkisholm and Hafnarfiorth in the west, all places of considerable trade. All goods are taken to Iceland duty free; and letters and papers are carried there in government vessels, free of postage, and sent through the island by government messengers. By the present arrangement, the government “post-ship” makes five voyages to and from Iceland in a year. It sails from Copenhagen to Reykjavik on the first days of March, May, July, and October, and from Liverpool to Reykjavik on the first day of January. It leaves Reykjavik, for Copenhagen, February 1st, April 1st, June 1st, and August 10th; and from Reykjavik for Liverpool on the 10th of November. One half of the trips each way, it stops at the Faroe Isles. In addition to the mail service by this ship, letter-bags are forwarded from Denmark by the different vessels trading to Iceland.
All travel and transportation of goods and the mail through the interior of Iceland is on horseback. There’s not a carriage-road, a wheeled vehicle, a steam-engine, a post-office, a custom-house, a police officer, a fort, a soldier, or a lawyer in the whole country. Goods, dried fish, and valuables are left out of doors, unguarded, with impunity, stealing being almost unknown. There never was but one prison in the island, and that was used also as an almshouse. Even then it was nearly useless, and most always without a tenant; and finally, to put it to some use, it was converted into a residence for the Governor, and is now the “White House” in the capital of Iceland. Taxes are very light, and do not amount to as much as the expense of carrying on the government, paying the officers, and transporting the mail. The Icelanders are universally educated to that extent that all can read and write. There is but one school or institution of learning in the country—the college at Reykjavik. This has a president and eight professors, and usually from eighty to a hundred students. The boys educated here are nearly all trained for clergymen, or else to fill some of the civil offices in the island, or they expect to go abroad, or live in Denmark. This institution is endowed by the Danish government, and was formerly at Bessastath, a few miles south of Reykjavik, whence it was removed a few years since. The president is Bjarni Johnson, Esq., a native Icelander, a gentleman of rare accomplishments and learning, and one of the first linguists in Europe. The Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Danish, French and English languages are taught here, as well as most of the sciences. It was during college vacation when I was in the country, and I used to meet in the interior, at their fathers’ houses, young men who were students of the college, and who could converse fluently in Latin, Danish, French, or English. The Bible or Testament, and usually many other books, particularly historical and poetical works, are found in nearly every house in Iceland. The population being scanty, with the great majority of the people it is impracticable to have schools, so that education is confined to the family circle. During their long winter evenings, while both males and females are engaged in domestic labors, spinning, weaving, or knitting—by turns one will take a book, some history, biography, or the Bible, and read aloud. The length of their winter nights can be appreciated when we consider that the sun in December is above the horizon but three or four hours. Before and after Christmas he rises, sleepily, at about ten o’clock, and retires between one and two in the afternoon. This is quite different from the earlier habits and longer visits of that very respectable luminary in more temperate and tropical climes. True, he makes atonement in the summer, when he keeps his eye open and surveys the land daily from twenty to twenty-one hours. Then he rises between one and two o’clock in the morning, looks abroad over a sleeping world, and only retires behind the mountains at near eleven o’clock at night.
While traveling in the country, I used frequently to ask the children in poor families to read to me in Icelandic, and I never saw one above the age of nine years that could not read in a masterly style. Their writing, too, is almost invariably of great elegance. This is partly owing to their practice of multiplying copies in manuscript, of almost all the historical and poetical works written in the country, copying them in advance of their publication, and often afterwards. The manners and customs of the people have changed with the progress of time and the change in their form of government. In old times we are told, that when the Icelanders or Norwegians were about setting out on any expedition of importance they used to have a grand feast. At these banquets, horse-flesh was one of their luxuries. Bards and minstrels would recite poems composed for the occasion; and story, song, and hilarity, added zest to the entertainment. After eating, drinking, and singing, to a pretty high degree of elevation, they would close the proceedings by throwing the bones at one another across the tables! We are not informed, however, that the modern Icelanders indulge in these luxuries. Their trade is gone, and they are now a simple, pastoral people. In complexion the Icelanders resemble the Anglo-Saxon race, often having florid and handsome countenances. They are fine figures, frequently tall, several that I have seen being over six feet in height. Light hair most usually prevails, but I have seen some that was quite dark. In a large district in the northwest of Iceland, all the men wear their beards, a practice that has been in vogue for hundreds of years. They always seem pleased when a stranger appears among them who has adopted a fashion so much in accordance with their own philosophy, with nature, and the laws of health, and at the same time that adds so much to the personal appearance of the lords of creation.
CHAPTER IV
Ask where’s the North: at York ’tis on the Tweed,
In Scotland at the Orcades; and there
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.