It seems to me that the life of a sea-fowl must be a continued romance. I would like to fly and swim as they do, if I could. But some of them have floated, and swam, and fished their lives away; for their skeletons lie about on the beach. How black the whole line of coast is along here! How different from the chalky cliffs of old England, or the clear-white sand on the shores of America! Here it is all lava and volcanic sand, and quite black. From Vogsósar we continued our journey west to Krisuvik, a very small town near the coast, but it has no harbor. Never were the striking features of a volcanic country shown more palpably than where we traveled to-day. We rode on the plain, with the mountains on our right and the sea to the left. Earthquakes, many of them very violent, happen here every few years. Then large fragments of rocks and lava are rolled down from the mountain tops far out into the plain. These were very numerous and of all sizes, some that would weigh fifteen or twenty tons having rolled from one to two miles. Here the old lava, particularly that which had rolled down from the mountains, had a different appearance from any I had before seen in Iceland. Much of this looks like the conglomerate or “plum-pudding stone” found on the coast of Scotland, in our New England States, in California, and in various parts of the world. It looks just as if in the volcanic times, when there was a general melting, that a quantity of sea-worn pebbles and very hard round stones of various sizes would not melt, but became incorporated or rolled up in the dough-like mass, and here they remain like enormous plum-puddings at Christmas time.
Many of the hills and mountains are very abrupt and precipitous, like those near Reykir, and farther east, near Hraungerthi.
CHAPTER XVIII
My hour is almost come,
When I, to sulphurous and tormenting flames,
Must render up myself.
GHOST of old MR. HAMLET.
KRISUVIK is not a very flourishing city. It contains a church and one farm-house, the latter comprised in several edifices, as the farmers’ houses here usually are, and all covered with green grass. Sir George Mackenzie’s book, which I have with me, gives a picture of this place; and every building and object now, even to the garden wall, are an exact facsimile of the Krisuvik of forty-two years ago. Two and three miles to the north are the sulphur mountains, and at this distance show plainly the yellow sulphur, the variegated clays, and the smoke arising from the springs, “and the mountains dimly burning.” The people at Krisuvik, looked very poor and wretched, more so than any I had seen in a long time. They let us have some excellent milk, for which I paid them, and made them several presents of trifling articles, with all of which they seemed greatly pleased.
We sat on an old grass-covered wall made of turf and lava, and dispatched our dinner; and then, mounting our horses, rode to the north towards the sulphur mountains. If there is an interesting development of volcanic heat in all Iceland, it is in this most remarkable place. The sulphur mountains are a great curiosity. The name in Icelandic—Brennisteinnamur—looks a little “brimstony.” In about two miles, we came to a beautiful lake of green water,—another “Grænavatn”—like the one near Hekla. Near this, in order to examine the mountains in all their glory and fire, and see the sulphur mines, I had to leave my horse and climb for it. Sir George Mackenzie gives a very interesting, but rather terrible, account of this mountain-pass and the dangers he and the companions went through in exploring it. The guide, with the horses, kept the plain, and I turned to the left; agreeing after I had explored the mountains to come down one or two miles ahead and meet him near some hot springs, the smoke of which we could see. As the guide with our little cavalcade rode off, Nero followed me towards the mountains. As the distance widened between the guide and me, the dog would stop and cast a wistful look across the plain towards his master. As all our separations had been temporary, he felt himself safe, and with a little encouragement followed me. Still he would now and then give a lingering look towards his master, and it required more and more urging to get him to follow. The distance grew wider and wider; and now we were near a mile and a half apart, when Nero, with one glance at me, started upon the run. He flew like a deer, and taking a bee-line across the plain, was very soon with his good master and the ponies. Some sharp climbing up the mountain, nearly a thousand feet, brought me to the sulphur mines—a scene I shall never forget, a literal pool of fire and brimstone.
Had Milton ever visited the sulphur mountains of Iceland, I could have forgiven him his description of the infernal regions. Here was a little hollow scooped out of the side of the mountain; and all over and through it, yellow sulphur, burning hillocks of stone and clay, and stifling sulphurous smoke. The surface, too, was semi-liquid; in fact as near a literal lake of fire and brimstone as this world probably shows.