It must be observed, of this table, that no account is kept of the quantity reserved for home consumption, which is doubtless large—the daily bread of some 70,000 souls. The general belief, however, is that the greater proportion of the catch is exported. Mr Consul Crowe thus calculates, according to the prices current during their respective years, the value of the average year’s export.
| S. Amt. | W. Amt. | N. & E. Amt. | Whole Island. | ||
| Value Rds. | Value Rds. | Value Rds. | Quantities | Value in Rds. | |
| Salt-fish, | 215,229 | 87,171 | 609 | 5,078,898 1bs. | 303,009 |
| Dried do. | 12,120 | 5,370 | 720 | 213,664 ” | 18,210 |
| Salt-roe, | 5,910 | 30 | ... | 1,188 brls. | 5,940 |
| Liver oil, | 33,352 | 65,890 | 101,068 | 9,105 ” | 200,310 |
| Total, | 266,611 | 158,461 | 102,397 | ... | Rds. 527,469 |
The following figures show the export of cod from the beginning of the seventeenth century when the system of monopolies was introduced.
| In A.D. | 1624 | it was of lbs. | 2,273,440 |
| ” | 1743 | ” | 2,057,680 |
| ” | 1772 | ” | 3,091,200 |
| ” | 1784 | ” | 2,845,920 |
| In A.D. | 1806 | it was of lbs. | 1,440,400 |
| ” | 1840 | ” | 5,375,040 |
| ” | 1855 | ” | 7,705,280 |
| ” | 1868 | ” | 4,202,240 |
The peculiarity of this table is the immense irregularity of the figures.
A few model establishments, like the Newfoundland, scattered round the island would teach the best and cheapest way of curing fish—now a barbarous process of turning, scraping, splitting, and housing, without “stages,” “platforms,” or other necessaries. The substitution of improved decked and half-decked smacks for the open row-boats actually in use, would save the time and toil at present wilfully wasted: improvement of the fishing lines is also urgently wanted. But the initiative must come from Denmark or, at least, from abroad; Iceland has remained so hopelessly in the background that she has not the means, even if she has the will, to help herself.
Piscator in Iceland will do somewhat better than Venator: he will find the lakes, lakelets, and rivers which do not issue directly from snow-mountains, rich in fish. The salmon ascends the streams as far as their cataracts; it is finer for the table than that supplied by our home market. The trout, speckled and white-fleshed, is not worth eating: the Forelle,[237] or red char (Salmo Alpinus), called “sea-trout” in the Scoto-Scandinavian islands, and elsewhere “salmon-trout,” is coarse and rank—too trouty, as the red mullet of the Levant is too mullety. Some travellers limit the weight to four pounds; others increase it to ten and even fifteen. At the outlet of the Thingvalla Lake the maximum of twenty-five, brought to bank in a few hours, was seven pounds, and only two were under six pounds; but the char does not give such good sport as the white-fleshed. Fishing may be had within a few hours of Reykjavik, and a day shadowed with dense clouds after a burst of sun will soon fill the basket. But the sport is uncivilised like the land. The fish either rush at the bait, “snapping at flies,” as Icelanders say, and swallowing the food before it touches water, or they lie sulking and will not be persuaded to rise. Some travellers curiously assert that in a region full of gnats and midges, the fish, and especially the trout, are “unaccustomed to flies.” The contrary is the case, but the preference greatly varies; some find the only rule that darker colours are usually bit at most greedily; while others declare the fish fondest of artificial minnows, spoon-bait, or flies with any kind of tinsel, when not to be tempted by the ordinary loch fly. The author’s friends tried in turns the black midge; the grilse; the black hackle, with silver wing; the Hofland’s fancy, red body and partridge wing; the common cow-dung; the marsh brown; the red fly, with jay’s wing; and the woodcock wing, with body banded red and orange. The fisherman should bring out the ordinary trout-hook and salmon-bait which he uses at home, always remembering that the spring in Iceland is a month to six weeks later than that of Scotland. He must not neglect to provide himself with gloves and face-veil to keep out the “midges” which, under that humble name, sting as severely as the mosquitoes of the tropics.
§ 5. Industry.
The principal occupation of the women is spinning yarn during the summer, and knitting and weaving in winter. A rude loom fixed and upstanding, not a little like that of ancient Egypt and of modern Central Africa, and worked, as in negro-land, by both sexes, stands in every farm.[238] A good hand can weave three yards a day. The Vaðmál[239] is the Danish Vadmel, and the Wadmaal, Wadmal, or Shetland Claith of the Scoto-Scandinavian archipelago; it much resembles the tweeled cloth or frieze worn by the Leith fishermen and the Media-lana of Northern Italy.