Next day we started betimes in the cool east wind, which presently chopped round to the south, and gave us a taste of Sind and the Panjáb—all the sand of the Arabian desert seemed to be in the air, and it was the sharpest of its kind. We enjoyed a headlong gallop not unworthy of the Argentine Pampas, halted a few minutes at the Möðrudalr oasis, and pressed on to Vetur-hús: here we parted as I wished to examine the lake region, and to inspect the Brú of the Jökulsá.
On the next morning, which, after the stillness of dawn, also obliged me with a dust-storm, I set out at eight, rounded the swamps and black bogs, and, after crossing a marshy divide, entered the valley between the Eiríkr and Thríhyrning hills. The land is poor, but it manages to support two little Sels. At last we came upon the Thverárvatn, the southernmost of the tarns, and following the right bank of its drain, the Thverá,[172] we reached the Brú after an hour and a half’s hard riding. It still preserves the traditional name although the natural arch of rock fell in 1750: in Henderson’s day it was succeeded by a wooden bridge, and now there is only a cradle. Horses are forded about a mile up stream, where the break becomes a broad, split by holms and sand-banks. The seedy little chapel of Brú wants cross and steeple: it is built of turf, like that of Mý-vatn.
We left the river at 10.30 A.M., and resolved to inspect the Aðalbólsvegr, the southernmost road across the Heiði. It begins by crossing a divide, after which, rounding the Vaðbrekka, or ford-ledge hill, it ascends the dusty valley of the Hrafnkelsá. Two farmlets, Vaðbrekka and Aðalból,[173] the latter with four gables of wood and turf, and backed by Laugs of warm water, hug the left bank. After fording the stream thrice we walked up another divide, where the path was cobwebbed and all in holes—these “dead roads” are by no means pleasant travelling. The upper plateau was, like the northern line, the usual scene of standing waters and flowing waters, especially the Höllná and the Heiðará; all these soppy black beds are named, but none appear in the map. The list of this day’s birds comprised a few snippets, three ravens, and a couple of whoopers (C. ferus or C. Bewickii?) which travellers often mistake for sheep. It was not my fate in Iceland ever to hear the sweet song of the swan, which borrows an additional charm on dark wintry nights from the popular belief that it promises a thaw; the poetical fancy of its being a death-lay seems here unknown. The descent to the Fljótsdalr occupied half-an-hour, and after seven hours forty-five minutes of rough riding from the Brú I reached Valthiófstaðir, where they did not expect me before nightfall.
There was revelling at the parsonage, and though I missed the howling of hymns and hollaing of anthems, the splendid “upholstering” of the girls, and the starry veil which takes the place of orange-flowers, I was in time for the feast. The daughter of the house, a notably good manager, was the bride; the bridegroom was a well-to-do widower of eighteen months’ standing. Hr Nikólás Jónsson had learnt joinery at Copenhagen, and found his handicraft pay well at Seyðisfjörð. Ponies, with all manner of gear, including the “handsome brass woman’s saddle” of a certain English traveller, filled the stables, or browsed about the tún, showing a goodly gathering of relatives and friends; even Seyðisfjörð sent forth its contingent. Those who had dined were chatting and “touching pipes” on the green: despite my garb being the reverse of a wedding garment, I was hospitably pressed to join the second detachment. After we had satisfied hyperborean appetites, the speeches began, prefaced by loud cries of “Silentium!” As many of the orators were priests and students training for the priesthood, few could plead “unaccustomed to public speaking,” and most of them acquitted themselves remarkably well. Mr Pow, after delivering his sentiments in English, sprang out of the window to prepare for a wild ride; I aired my Latin, concluding with an effective sentence, “Deus sit propitius his potatoribus”—of course ignoring Walter de Mapes. Having talked ourselves “dry,” we installed a “magister bibendi,” and fell to with a will; we were loud in our mirth “as the Ritur (tarrock-gull) on the rocks,” and the bottles of Cognac and rye-brandy required repeated replenishing, till the small hours sent us to bed. The newly-married couple slept at home, and next morning, after coming to breakfast, they took horse and went their ways.
At Valthiófstaðir I was fortunate enough to meet Prófastr Sigurður Gunnarson of Hallormstaðir, whose name has already been mentioned. A portly, good-looking man of sixty, hardly showing fifty, he is a good Latinist, and his genial manners make him a general favourite. He first accompanied Professor Gunnlaugsson in 1832 to the Vatnajökullsvegr, and since that time he has made three trips to the northern edge. He gave me the position of the volcano (N. lat. 64° 20´, and W. long. G. 30° 20´), which appears upon the map. When told that Herðubreið was a mass of Palagonite, he declared that he had seen Mó-berg at Lomagnúpr and other hills of Sera and Floskeldar; moreover, that he suspected it to be the constituent of the Kistufell and the Kverk, which he had passed in the dark. He assured me that he had found the Western Jökulsá easily fordable after its fork, where it is called Kreppa, or the Squeezer.[174] Among other places which
are shown by the map, he mentioned the Lindákeilir (fountain-pyramid) with its two springs, the northern cold, the southern hot; the Hvannalindir, rich, as the name shows, in Angelica; and the Kringilsá, or encircling water.
The morning after the feast was spent in breakfasting, in chess-playing, and at cards, with coffee-beans for counters: on this occasion the men ate first, and after them the women, somewhat after the fashion of the Druses: the parson’s wife also waited, like an “Oriental,” upon her younger brothers. The friends mounted their stout nags, and disappeared after the normal salutations: amongst them was the Prófastr, with coarse woollen stockings sensibly drawn over his shoes. The kith and kin waited till two P.M. on the next day, and, when the heartiest and smackingest of busses had been duly planted upon projecting lips, all rode off, escorting the bride and bridegroom, and escorted by the family honoris causâ as far as the next farm. Mr Pow had agreed to join me in attempting the Vatnajökull; but, whilst I remained to collect provaunt and to avoid the heavy weather which threatened, he resolved upon a preliminary trip, with the prime object of shooting a reindeer. He hired for $2 an old round-ball Enfield from the farmer-ferryman of Bessastaðir, who, apparently convinced of the Enskimaður’s insanity, snatched it three times out of his hands, till he received a watch in pledge. The solitary march was hardly to be recommended. About the Vatnajökull fog or snow may cover the world at any moment, even in July, the best month; and dozens of sheep are often killed by a single violent storm. Mr Pow set out early on the 15th, missed the road, and returned at eleven A.M. on the next day, thoroughly dazed, and apparently unable to give any account of his march—Jón Pètursson’s eyes filled with tears at the sight. That trial proved sufficient for my intended companion, who, as soon as his two nags could move, set out for Seyðisfjörð.