After a few days at the capital, I prepared for a journey to the interior. A traveler can take “the first train” for the Geysers, if he chooses; but that train will hardly go forty miles an hour. It is only seventy miles; but if he gets over that ground in two days, he will do well. There’s plenty of steam and hot water here, and “high pressure” enough; but you may look a long while for locomotives; or—if I may perpetrate a bad pun—any motives but local ones, in the whole country. Roads—except mere bridle paths—or vehicles of any kind, as I have mentioned, are unknown in Iceland. All travel is on horseback. Immense numbers of horses are raised in the country, and they are exceedingly cheap. As for traveling on foot, even short journeys, no one ever thinks of it. The roads are so bad for walking and generally so good for riding, that shoe-leather, to say nothing of fatigue, would cost nearly as much as horseflesh. Their horses are certainly elegant, hardy little animals. A stranger in traveling must always have “a guide;” and if he goes equipped for a journey, and wishes to make good speed, he must have six or eight horses; one each for himself and the guide, and one or two for the baggage; and then as many relay horses. When one set of horses are tired, the saddles are taken off and changed to the others. The relay horses are tied together, and either led or driven; and this is the time they rest. A tent is carried, unless a traveler chooses to take his chance for lodgings. Such a thing as a hotel is not found in Iceland, out of the capital. He must take his provisions with him, as he will be able to get little on his route except milk; sometimes a piece of beef, or a saddle of mutton or venison, and some fresh-water fish. The luggage is carried in packing trunks that are made for the purpose, and fastened to a rude sort of frame that serves as a pack-saddle. Under this, broad pieces of turf are placed to prevent galling the horse’s back. I prepared for a journey of some weeks in the interior, and ordered my stores accordingly. I had packed up bread, cheese, a boiled ham, Bologna sausages, some tea and sugar, a few bottles of wine, and something a little stronger! I had company on my first day’s journey, going as far as Thingvalla. There was a regular caravan; about a dozen gentlemen, two guides, and some twenty horses. My “suite” consisted of guide, four horses, and a big dog, Nero by name, but by the way a far more respectable fellow, in his sphere, than was his namesake the old emperor. Our cavalcade was not quite as large as the one that annually makes a pilgrimage to Mecca, but a pretty good one for Iceland. We had with us, Captain Laborde, commander of the French war frigate now lying in the harbor, and several of his officers; Mr. Johnson, president of the college, and some of the Reykjavik merchants. Nationally speaking, we had a rather motley assemblage, albeit they were all of one color. There were French, Danes, and natives; and—towering above the crowd (all but one confounded long Icelander)—mounted on a milk-white charger eleven hands high, was one live Yankee! We were to rendezvous in the morning on the public square, and be ready to start at seven o’clock. Notwithstanding great complaints that travelers sometimes make of the slowness of Iceland servants, we were ready and off at half past seven. On we went, at a high speed, for Thingvalla is a long day’s journey from Reykjavik. The Iceland ponies are up to most any weight. There was one “whopper” of a fellow in our company, mounted on a snug-built little gray that seemed to make very light of him. Indeed ’twas fun to see them go. The animal for speed and strength was a rare one; the rider, not quite a Daniel Lambert:—
“But, for fat on the ribs, no Leicestershire bullock was rounder;
He galloped, he walloped, and he flew like a sixty-four pounder.”
No etiquette touching precedence on the road. You can go ahead and run by them all, provided your pony is swift enough, but if not, you can go behind.
To all appearance, an Iceland landscape does not come up, in point of fertility, to the Genesee country or the Carse of Gowrie. “Magnificent forests,” “fields of waving grain,” and all that, may exist in western New York, in old Virginia, or in California; but not in Iceland. We passed, during the first five miles, one or two farms with their green meadows; then, mile after mile of lava and rock-covered fields. Was the reader ever in the town of De Kalb, St. Lawrence county, New York? That fertile and beautiful grazing country, where the sheep have their noses filed off to a point, so that they can get them between the rocks, to crop the grass! That paradise of the birds, where the crows carry a sack of corn with them while journeying over the country, lest they starve on the way, and tumble headlong on the plain! That delightful region will give a little, a very slight idea of some part of Iceland. By the way, that old town in New York, methinks, is quite rightly named. The name was given it in honor of that Polish nobleman who poured out his blood and yielded up his life on the field of Camden, in the sacred cause of American liberty. Brave Baron De Kalb! Green waves the pine—I once trod the turf—where thou did’st fall. We treasure thy name and title, and endeavor to remember thy virtues, by calling a town after thee—barren De Kalb!
In speaking of rocks in Iceland, it will be borne in mind that every mineral substance here is volcanic—lava, pumice, trap, basalt, jasper, obsidian, &c. The whole island is undoubtedly one entire volcanic creation, produced by a submarine eruption. In the whole country there has never been seen a particle of granite, limestone, mineral coal, iron or precious metal, or any of the primitive formation of rocks. The lava is most all of a dark color, usually brown; some of the very old is quite red, and the new very black. It is scattered about, piled up in heaps, regular and irregular, and of every imaginable shape and form. About a mile and a half from Reykjavik is a large pleasant valley of green grass. This is a common pasture for all the cows and some of the horses that are owned in the town. A few miles brought us to the valley of the Laxá or Salmon river; and here is a very good farm, the owner of it hiring the salmon fishery, which is the property of the crown. Several thousand salmon are taken here every year. The mode of catching them is somewhat peculiar. The river has two separate channels, and when the fishing season arrives, by means of two dams, they shut all the current off of one, and, as the water drains away, there they are, like whales at ebb tide; and all the fishermen have to do is to go into the bed of the stream, and pick them up. Then the water is turned from the other channel into the empty one, and there the unlucky fish are again caught. The period of the salmon fishing is one of interest to the whole community. They are sold very cheap throughout the country, and those not wanted for immediate consumption are dried and smoked, and many of them exported. These smoked salmon are often purchased here as low as a penny sterling a pound, and taken to England and sold from sixpence to a shilling.
In traveling over the country our “road” was seldom visible for more than a few rods before us, and sometimes it was rather difficult to trace. On stony ground the ponies had to scramble along the best way they could. On the grass lands there were paths, such as animals traveling always make. Sometimes these were worn deep through the turf; and a long man on a short pony, when the paths are crooked and the speed high, has to keep his feet going pretty lively, or get his toe-nails knocked off! I got one fall, and rather an ignominious one. My pony threw me full length on the grass, but I had not far to fall and soon picked myself up again. On assessing the damage, I found it consisted of one button off my coat, a little of the soil of Iceland on both knees, and a trifle on my face. The pony kicked up his heels and ran off; but one of the gentlemen soon caught him, and on I mounted and rode off again. About half way to Thingvalla, we stopped where there was some grass for our horses, and had breakfast. Starting at seven gave a good relish to a dejeuner at eleven o’clock. An hour’s rest, and we were again in the saddle. In the morning it rained hard, but towards noon it cleared up, and we had pleasant weather.
Our road led through one of the most desolate regions I ever saw on the face of the earth. But, however rocky and forbidding in appearance the country may be, there is always one relief to an Iceland landscape. A fine background of mountains fills up the picture. Then, too, there is a magical effect to the atmosphere here that I have never seen anywhere else. The atmosphere is so pure, the strong contrasts of black, brown, and red lavas, and the green fields and snowy mountains, make splendid pictures of landscape and mountain scenery, even at twenty miles distance. Captain Laborde said, in all the countries where he had traveled, he never saw any thing at all like it, except in Greece. As we approached lake Thingvalla, he said the mountains opposite formed a perfect Grecian picture. I have thought myself a pretty good judge of distances, and have been very much accustomed to measure distances with my eye, but here all my cunning fails me. At Reykjavik I looked across the bay at the fine range of the Esjan mountains, and thought I would like a ramble there. So I asked a boatman to set me across, and wait till I went up the mountain and had a view from the top. He looked a little queer, and asked me how far I thought it was across the bay. “Well,” I replied, “a couple of miles, probably.” As the Kentuckian would say, I felt a little “chawed up” when I was told that it was thirteen or fourteen English miles, that the mountain was near 3,000 feet high, and I should require a large boat, several men, a guide, and provisions, and that it would be a long day’s work to begin early in the morning! I left, I did.
There are few measured distances in inland travel here. They go by time, and will tell you it is so many hours’ ride, or so many days’ journey to such a place. We were seven hours to-day in going from Reykjavik to Thingvalla, and I think we averaged five miles an hour. It is probably thirty-five or thirty-six miles. Much of the way the roads were bad, and we walked our horses; and when they were good we put them through at the top of their speed. Our fat friend with his pony, did not steeple-chase it much;
“But, those who’ve seen him will confess it, he