There is a tolerable beer misnamed Baiersk (Baerisch), and imported from the Continent—I do not know where Metcalfe learned that barley brew is made at Reykjavik. The Schoppe costs threepence, whereas the Rödvin, or Vin-de-pays, much like vinegar, and by courtesy called claret, fetches five marks or nearly a rixdollar per bottle. The people avoid the ancestral ale because it is supposed to give neuralgia, and prefer “Brazilian wine;” here Brennivín, korn-schnapps, or rye brandy which is always drunk raw. English travellers declare that they cannot enjoy it on account of the harmless, or rather the beneficial, aniseed with which it is flavoured: so Sir Charles Napier, the sailor, ordered casks of Syrian Raki to be started overboard because it must be poisonous, as it whitened the water—simply the effect of the condiment. The sensible traveller will prefer this unadulterated spirit to the vile potato brandy from Canada, coloured with burnt sugar and perhaps flavoured with an infinitesimal quantity of mother-liquor, the impostor which now passes itself off to the world as Cognac.
The tavern and table d’hôte have now passed under the rule of Jón Zoega, No. 7 High Street, and his pretty wife works hard to secure a clean house and good cookery. The stranger on landing should at once ask for the “head guide,” Geir Zoega, who can always find bed and board at his brothers or his sisters. Other lodgings are by no means so comfortable, especially those fronting the ditch, by courtesy called a canal.
The day at Reykjavik is simple. Sleep is sound as appetite is hearty, and assimilation of food expeditious. When the infantry overhead opens its eyes, you proceed to the “chhotí házirí” (little breakfast), and you pass the time in reading and writing till the real affair about noon breaks the neck of the day’s work. A visit or two and a long walk land you at the dinner hour—there is no better plan for the student-traveller than to make himself thoroughly familiar with a single section of the country which he is learning, so that during his field-work he may confine himself to the observation of differences. After dinner—at five or six P.M. if possible—another and a shorter walk, weather permitting, prepares for a few hours’ reading before bed-time. The monotony may be varied by picnics and excursions, gun or fishing-rod in hand, more, however, for the sake of doing something than in view of sport. Were I a Reykjaviker my rule would be to hybernate, to be “bedded in,” during the eight months of cold season:
“Me levant tard, me couchant tôt,
Dormant fort bien;”
and to be “potted out” with late spring, so as to pass as much as possible of the summer wide-awake and in the open air. Yet winter here is the “season,” the gay time, when balls last from six P.M. to six A.M.; and “society” at the capital apparently looks forward to the “disease of the year.”
CHAPTER IV.
SUNDAY AT REYKJAVIK—DRINKING IN ICELAND.
Sunday, June 9.
The Iceland Sunday begins at six P.M. on Saturday, and ends at following six P.M.; this precession is the case with the days in general; thus Sunday night here is the Saturday night of Europe. Apparently Scandinavia is the only part of the Western World which preserves a chronometry directly imported from the East. We find it everywhere amongst Jews and Moslems; and Genesis (i. 5) tells us that Arab or Gharb (evening) and Bakar (morning) formed the first day or period before the sun came into being. The old Germans and Gauls computed, we know, by nights, and not by days; and the Teutons probably borrowed it from the Celts: it survives amongst ourselves in such terms as sen’night and fortnight. At Reykjavik we distinguish the “Sabbath” by the amount of flying bunting; every store has its flagstaff, and the merchants as well as the consuls claim a right, as in the Brazil and Zanzibar, to sport their colours, which are, however, always Danish. The “church-going bell” begins to ring, and the doors to open, about 11.15 A.M.: the people much prefer the lively measure of their own summons to the monotonous system of England, whilst the chimes of the Royal Exchange, a national disgrace, provoke their contempt. Service does not commence till near noon, the usual time in the island where many of the congregation have long and rough rides.
The Dómkirkja (cathedral) in the Austurvöllr has often been described externally and internally; the “Napoleon book” and others, however, make it all of stone instead of being partly brick. The older basaltic building may be seen in Mackenzie, and the last additions bear date A.D. 1847. Its outside is shabby as the People’s Palace at Sydenham; the unclean yellow plaster has fallen from the distempered walls, the result of mixing salt sea-sand with the mortar; and the same is the case with the College and the College Library. “Rispettate la Casa di Dio” should be writ large upon every corner of this nondescript. A clerestory, with double windows, partly stained, those on the ground floor being single; a low-tiled ridge for the chancel; a higher pent roof for the nave and aisles; and a tall wooden tower, revetted with boiler-plate, compose what the polite call Gothic, the uncivil “Bastard Nothing.” Utility is consulted by a weather-cock and a clock, serviceable to regulate time where no gun, even for saluting purposes, must be fired, lest H.H. the eider-duck take fright. The front, which is turned west, with a highly orthodox regard for orientation, shows the three windows of Roman Catholic architecture; and the Lich-gate,[376] never wanting in Iceland, is the normal house-hall: it is flanked to the right and left by flights of steps leading aloft. And the roof is now water-tight.