pie, rose from its own reflection. There were other islets, and boats, and eider-ducks temporarily separated a mensâ et thoro, screaming “crees,” peewits, plovers, and the usual accidents of a firth-view in Iceland.
At the foot of the descent we struck the Fossá farm, and rode along the northern counterslope of the Reynivallaháls. The path ran over swamp and rock; it was the malus passus of the whole line, but by no means dangerous as described by Geir Zoega. Fortunately the tide was out, and we easily forded the mouths of the Brynjudalr and Botnsdalr; on our return we exchanged the bad line for two long detours rounding the forked head of the firth. We then ascended to a farm situated under the Thyrill, or egg-kipper, the stick for whipping eggs, milk, or porridge. This remarkable feature forms the westernmost head of the Síldarmannafjall, and resembles nothing so much as two towers flanking the gateway of a giant’s castle, built after the fashion of Normandy; the superstructure is basalt, and time seems to have tilted it a little awry, as if the proprietor had long been an absentee. This Thyrill takes its name from the mountain gusts which hurl men from their horses, threaten caravans with destruction by frightful whirlwinds, and raise sheets of sea-water high in the air, tearing them to pieces like snow. To look at the peaceful innocent scene we could hardly imagine that it ever lets angry passions rise, or that it had been led to the excesses and atrocities described by Ólafsson and Von Waltershausen.[40]
The farm-people leaned against the walls, sunning themselves like Slavs under similar circumstances; there was no want of church-goers riding to and fro, and generally the travellers were more civil than upon the beaten paths. Iceland mostly reverses the rule of the world, the country folk being less amiable to the stranger than the town folk. From the Thyrill to the Ferstikla farm, a distance of an hour and a half, there are two paths. The short cut lies along the shore of heavy dark sand and rocky points of black basalt studded with white shells; the porous material is in parts full of almonds of lime, hence the white coating which we here observe, as in the Wadys of the Haurán. The inner line is the usual mixture of warty surface, swamp, stone, and shaking bog. At Ferstikla, where a path strikes north for Reykholt, we found some grass and rested the ponies.
A couple of hours finished the ride. We turned left, over a shallow divide, the Ferstikluháls, whose northern counterslope is wooded with birches fully two feet tall, yet hardly equal to the task of pulling us from our saddles. We then fell into another Svínadalr (swine-dale), with three lakes disposed north-east to south-west, along the southern base of Skarðsheiði, and drained by another Laxá. There was no lack of farm-houses, a sight which cheered the nags whilst floundering through the deep mud-bog. A guide whom we had engaged pro tem., pointed to the cone of the Blákoll, a comparatively low formation to the right; but the vaunted mountain with its stepped bluffs is everywhere easy, and “climbing for climb” always suggests to me the African’s “drinkee for drunk.” After a pleasant but very slow ride of seven hours, we made, at 7.30 P.M., the Skarð farmlet. After the muggy morning with a “rain-sun,” followed by a chilly evening which threatened a down-pour, we were not sorry to be lodged in the cow-house of a “Sel”[41] and to sleep upon sweet-smelling hay, far preferable to the animal heat of the foul cubicula.
This day we have passed over the Iceland terminus proposed by the Danish telegraph line. Despite the fearful whirlwinds, described as capable of breaking “tegulas imbricesque,” and the rocky bottom of the Whale Firth, it is perhaps the best; it is absolutely free from icebergs (Fjall jakar), floes, and field-ice (Hellu-ís): Arctic ice appears in the Faxa Fjörð and about Reykjavik only about once a century, the last time being 1763. Here the bay-ice is reduced to a little brash-ice and shore-ice, which are of scanty importance. It is a lee-land defended by the south-western projection and by the north-western digitations from the berg-bearing currents; and the bottom, until the Hvalfjörð is reached, appears to be sand and mud. As Forbes remarks, there is no “eligible spot” for a station between Portland (Dyrhólaey) and Reykjanes; whilst the submarine volcanic line of rocks, the passage of steamers, and the shallows of Reykjavik, render that port impossible. The Vestmannaeyjar again are too far from the capital, and the east coast is simply not to be thought of.
The project is part of the “north-about line” of Atlantic telegraph, as opposed to the “south-about,” viâ the Cap de Verds, St Paul’s Rock, and Brazilian Cape St Roque. Many of us remember hearing it ably advocated some dozen years ago by Colonel T. P. Shaffner of Louisville,[42] Kentucky, who took it up in 1853; travelled to Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland; advertised, expended time and capital, canvassed, obtained concessions from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and published and lectured before the Royal Geographical Society, in order to raise a fund of £400,000. The time was propitious. The first attempt of 1857-58 had broken down after sending some 400 messages: in 1860 the longest sub-aqueous circuit was 750 miles. No. 2 cable (1863), carried by the “Great Eastern,” had also failed; and Mr Faraday objected his “retardation” and “return currents,” even to an air-line of a thousand miles. The bankruptcy of Transatlantic telegraphy was therefore confidently predicted; nor was it believed that any section of 2000 miles could possibly be made to last. Presently, by way of a practical jest upon scientific hobbies and croakings, the third cable (1866) succeeded: then came the Valentia-Newfoundland in the same year; and lastly, in 1868, the Brest and New York, or French line. Now (1872) a fourth is talked of, and the next half-a-dozen years may see another half-dozen.
Colonel Shaffner, who is well remembered in eastern Iceland, proposed to cross the Atlantic by four stations, none exceeding 700 miles—namely, Scotland to Færoes (225-250), to Iceland (240), to Greenland (600-700), and to the coast of Labrador (510); a maximum total of 1700, afterwards reduced to 1645 miles. The project, however, contained two elements of unsuccess. Firstly, it proposed an air-line from Djúpivogr (east coast) to the capital: I do not know what my friend Dr Rae, who was sent to inspect the route, reported; but the universal opinion of Icelanders is that no telegraphic communication of the kind could resist a single winter-storm, not to speak of earthquakes and eruptions. “How repair the damage?” they ask: “how even carry the posts?” The second objection, the state of the ice about the Greenland coast, was perhaps even more fatal. Thus the scheme gradually fell into oblivion, not, however, before it had done right good service in exploring Newfoundland—a very paradise for anglers, where trout weigh 6 lbs. and where salmon sells at 4 cents. The persevering Danes still cleave to a connection with Iceland, and that is why we saw the gun-boat “Fylla” on her surveying cruise.
On the next morning, as the peasantry rose at three A.M. to ted their hay, we began preparations for ascending Skarðsheiði (scarf-gap-heath) by observing the aneroids.[43] Rain evidently threatened, as at A.M. 7.15 we attacked the slope of débris, green only where two trickling streamlets played hide-and-seek under moss and stones. After an hour’s walk we reached the first ridge, and found in front of us a broken plateau about 2000 feet high, with five lakes and ponds distributed at different altitudes: the waters are all sweet, percolation taking the place of drainage. On our right rose a tall precipitous wall of receding steps, which at a distance resemble string courses and stories. The precipice is streaked with couloirs, very well disposed for falls and cannonades of rocks: high up there are two broad Palagonite bands in the trap, which may sometimes be seen from Reykjavik. Our guide the farmer did the honours of the echo.
We now circled to the north, winding round the grim wall, up and down ridge after ridge of moraine-like débris, and over moss-clad boulders, among which we occasionally sank up to the knees. Here the most conspicuous growths were reindeer moss and Fjall-grös (“mountain grass”), the Lichen Islandicus, of which Felligrath sings: