Though the Strokr plays once or twice every day, of its own accord, yet I took a malicious pleasure in provoking it to a “blow out;” and a few hours after the first, I asked the guide to give it another dose of turf. He looked into it, and seeing the boiling rather feeble, said it was no use; it had not yet received strength for another effort. Still he tried it, and we waited to see it “go on a bu’st”! It would not; but about two hours afterwards it exploded, and we saw another grand eruption, similar to the first. Our sensations are altogether different in looking at these works of nature, from what they are at seeing an artificial fountain, however brilliant. In the latter case we know the power that propels the water, but here we look on and wonder at the unseen power that for hundreds of years keeps these marvellous fountains in operation. It would be a problem worth solving to see how far a shaft or excavation in the vicinity of those springs could be carried in a perpendicular direction, before finding water or earth that should be so hot as to stop the progress of the works. Hot springs are scattered all over Iceland, to the number of thousands, and at nearly every step you see lava, volcanoes, or extinct craters. Seeing the constant proofs of subterranean heat, as developed in the hot springs, it cannot be doubted that heat, if not actual fire, would be found at a short distance below the surface, in most any part of the country. A truce to speculation. I hope the day is not far distant, when experiments and investigations of a scientific character shall be made by men of learning, in different parts of this extraordinary country.
There are two or three farm-houses in the vicinity, and near one of them, in a hot spring, I saw a large iron kettle placed, and in it were clothes boiling. Indeed, if these hot springs were movable property, would they not be worth something attached to a large hotel or bathing establishment? I boiled a piece of meat for my dinner in one of the springs, and while the culinary operation was going on, I went to a pool in the brook that flows from the Great Geyser, and had a most delicious warm bath. ’Twas all gratis—no charge for heating the water. The brooks that flow from the Geysers all retain their heat more or less for several hundred yards, until they are swallowed up in the icy cold river into which they empty. Some travelers have spoken of a sulphury taste to meat boiled in the Geysers, but I did not observe it. A good many birds were all day flying about the Geysers. They were the tern or sea-swallow, a bird very common in Iceland, both on the seashore and inland. The Icelanders call them the cree. This bird is common in England, but I never remember to have seen them in America. What light, elegant, and graceful creatures they are on the wing! Their flight is as light and easy as that of the butterfly; in motion, as swift as a swallow, and as graceful as a seagull. They are about the size of the pigeon, with very long wings and a forked tail, like the barn swallow. They are nearly white, with a slight blue shade, like the clear sky; just like that delicate cerulean tinge that the ladies like to give their white handkerchiefs. They kept up a constant cry or scream that was not unpleasant, and often flew so near us that I could see their eyes. I climbed to the top of the hill that is just west of the Geysers, and found it higher than I had anticipated. It looks low in comparison with the high mountain, the Bjarnarfell, that is back of it. It is composed of lava, slags, scoriæ, volcanic sand, &c. The back side of it is very precipitous; about perpendicular. This hill is called Laugarfjall (pronounced La-gar-fe-at-l), or hot spring mountain. Between this and the Bjarnarfell is a small river flowing through green meadows. I should have been glad to have ascended the larger mountain, but had not time without running the risk of missing an eruption of the Great Geyser. I gathered some fine specimens of the petrifactions formed by the water, by breaking them up from the bottom of the brook a short distance from the basin. In appearance they much resemble the heads of cauliflower; in color, nearly white. The incrustations are far more beautiful a little way from the fountain head than in the basin itself, as the silicious deposit is made principally as the water cools. I noticed that grass grew over a portion of the ground among the numerous hot springs; but near the sources of them there is evidently too much heat, there being nothing but bare earth around them. There are no springs of cold water in the vicinity.
But night has arrived, and I must depart. Though I had seen all of these remarkable fountains in active play, I was reluctant to leave them. I turned my steps towards the humble cottage of the peasant of Haukadalr, for another night’s rest before starting south to see Mount Hekla.
CHAPTER IX
—— It is no dream;—
The wild horse swims the wilder stream.
Mazeppa.
OUR pleasant stay at the Geysers was finished, the last look taken; the last piece of bacon that we had boiled in Dame Nature’s cauldron, had disappeared; the farmer of Haukadalr had given us his good benediction and a hearty grip of the hand, while he pocketed the dollars that we gave him; and, our ponies being ready, we prepared to leave. The old raven, too,—for here in Iceland “the raven croaks him on the chimney top,” as he did when and where Richard the III. was born,—the old raven had croaked out his farewell. There is no blinking the matter; we have to face it. Mount Hekla is in the distance, and visit it we must. It was two days journey there, and several terrible rivers lay in the route; but hospitable Icelanders lived on the way, and the soft plank floors of orthodox church “hotels” invite the traveler to spread down his blanket and repose. Reader, just glance at a map of Iceland, such a one as Mr. GUNNLAUGSONN’S—but you haven’t got one; then put one “in your mind’s eye,” or imagine yourself in a balloon about “these parts,” and see what a tract of country we have to travel through.
To the north, just about the center of Iceland, the ranges of the Lang Jokull and Hofs Jokull lift their heads and show their crowns of perpetual snow; to the east lies Skaptar Jokull, once terrible, in an eruption the most devastating that ever occurred, but now hushed in grim repose, and covered with a snow-white blanket. Far to the south is Mount Hekla, with a slight bit of snow near the top, and rearing its burning summit near six thousand feet above the level of the sea. Encircled by these mountains is a valley, the most extensive tract of fertile land in Iceland, and drained by its largest rivers. Behind us lay the Bruará, and next was the Arbrandsá; but the Hvitá (Wheet-ow), the Laxá, and the Thjorsá, are far the largest, the last more than 150 miles in length, and draining the extensive glaciers of the Hofs and Skaptar Jokulls. These rivers flow in a southwestern direction, emptying into the Atlantic between the Westmann Islands and Cape Reykjanes. We dashed into the Arbrandsá, and were through it in a hurry, our ponies making light of the three feet of water and a swift current. Don’t ask us how we fared. The rain over head, and the rivers, lakes, and hot springs, had made us amphibious before this, about as effectually as if we had been born otters or sea-gulls. What a splendid meadow we pass through, here in the beautiful valley of the Hvitá! Here the “mower whets his scythe;” and such a scythe!—about two feet long and an inch wide, hung on a straight snath. But don’t he cut the grass clean to the turf? He shaves it down as close as some men reap their chins—those that shave at all, I mean—“let the galled jade wince,” our beard is uncut. But we were speaking of an Iceland meadow. How can grass grow in Iceland? you ask. Why, right out of the ground; for the soil, though shallow, is quite fertile. An Iceland meadow looks very much like a good pasture when nothing has been in it for some six weeks: grass thick, green, and soft; but very little of it running up to seed. The grass looks like our “red top.” White clover would do well, undoubtedly, if they would sow it. Almost every Icelander unites the occupations of farmer and fisherman. In June he goes to sea “to fish for cod,” and in July and August cuts and secures his hay. This is a very important operation with the Icelander, for without hay his animals would die in the winter. The hay is fed to the sheep and cattle; the horses have to do without. How a race of animals like the horse manage to live without a particle of attention, shelter, or food, for a long Iceland winter, except just what they can get out of doors, is more than we can divine. Guess they’re used to it! They eat the dead grass, often having to paw away the snow to get it; they go on the mountains, gather moss, browse the stunted shrubbery; and when driven from the fields and the mountains, they go down on the sea-shore and pick up sea-weed. When badly pushed with hunger, they will eat fish bones, offal, scraps of leather, wood, heath, and shrubbery, and almost every thing but earth and stones. Still, they very seldom die. They seem hardened by the climate, and fitted to endure the changing seasons as they roll. In winter they get reduced to skeletons, mere skin and bones; but towards the last of May, when the grass begins to grow, it is surprising how quick they get fat. Every horse in our troop is literally fat, and no oats did they ever eat; neither have they swallowed the barrel, for you can’t see the hoops on their sides! Were you to offer any grain to an Iceland horse, he would not know what you meant, and undoubtedly would think you joking.
Tell John Gossin, if Tom Spring had been an Iceland pony, Deaf Burke never would have kicked him “where he put his oats.” Of course the horses in the towns that are worked, are fed in the winter. The hay being cut and dried is tied up in large bundles and “toted” off on men’s backs to the stack-yard. If the distance is long, they sling large bundles each side of a pony’s back, and he carries it off. And big loads they will carry; a pony thus loaded looks like a moving hay-stack. The farmer makes a square yard, walls of stone, and turf, and this he fills with long, low stacks, which he covers with long strips of turf cut up from the surface of a tough bog grass-field; and when the stack remains over a second summer, this turf grows, and an Iceland settlement presents the curious appearance of houses, stone walls, and hay-stacks covered with green grass like the meadows and pastures on every side.