Respecting cultivation on the Iceland farms, the term is scarcely applicable. The meadow lands are rough by nature, and they make it still more so by the way they put manure on it, leaving it in heaps. I am told that the Icelanders imagine that more grass will grow on any given number of acres if the surface is uneven, from the fact that there is more area. They forget that the grass grows perpendicularly, and that no more blades can stand on an uneven than on an even surface. Then, too, it is so very uneven, that the turf is broken in many places, and, of course, produces less than as if there were a level, unbroken turf. Better counsels, however, are beginning to prevail; and many farmers are leveling down their meadows, and improving their farms; and they find on trial that level land produces more than that which is covered with hillocks.
Here, at Hraungerthi, I saw considerable timber, and asking how it was conveyed here, was told that it was brought on the backs of ponies, just as every thing else is carried. Not very large timber, some that is four inches square, and twelve to eighteen feet long, is carried long distances. One or more pieces are lashed to each side of a horse, and with one end dragging, they will go from fifteen to twenty miles in a day. They cannot carry timber that is quite as ponderous as the staff of Satan, described by Milton—a Norway pine, or “mast of some tall admiral,” being but “a wand” to it. I asked about their heavy articles of furniture, and was told that their sofa, bureau, and some other articles, were made there.
The church of Hraungerthi was the best I had seen out of Reykjavik, large enough, I should think, to hold two hundred people. Many of the Iceland churches in the interior of the country, are not more than twelve feet by eighteen, inside measurement.
I was so well entertained at Hraungerthi, and got so much information about the country, that I did not leave till one o’clock the day after my arrival. A fine breakfast was served at nine, coffee having been sent me in my room as soon as I was up. I know not when I shall ever return any of the numerous acts of hospitality and kindness extended to me by the Icelanders; and I greatly fear the opportunity never will come, unless Icelanders oftener go to America than they ever have. In fact, since old Eric and his friend sailed to the American continent, near a thousand years ago, I believe it would be difficult to find an account of a single Icelander that has ever been in Brother Jonathan’s land. If ever one does go to America, may I be there to meet him! and if the neck of at least one champagne bottle doesn’t get wrung off, then—then—then I’ll see what.
If the Danish government will open the trade of Iceland to the world—an event not improbable—we might expect some commerce between that country and this; and then the inhabitants of VINLAND, in their own cities, could greet the followers and descendants of Eric and Heriulf.
CHAPTER XVI
A heart that, like the Geyser spring
Amidst its bosom’d snows,
May shrink, not rest,—but with its blood
Boils even in repose.