“Old, even in boyhood, faint and ill,
And sleepless on my couch of woe
I sip this beverage, which I owe
To Guper’s death and Hecla’s hill.”
In Iceland I never heard—as old travellers relate—of its being dried, put in bags, beaten, and worked into flour by stamping. Usually it is boiled, and eaten with barley like burghoo, or it is infused in milk, as cacao and maté sometimes are: it gives a light tinge of green, and a very pronounced mucilaginous flavour. The simple old days used it as coffee, but it could not stand its ground against the intruder which arrests the waste of tissue, as well as warms the blood. “Iceland grass,” however, is still valued at home as a jelly for poitrinaires; and the last time I saw it was on the Campo-grosso or Dolomite mountains of Italian Recoaro (Vicenza).
After a second hour we reached the north of the bluff. On our left hand was a red and cindery mound, the Stellir,[44] justly famed as a landmark for sailors: ahead, and to east, rose the detached Skessuhorn, which seemed to present no difficulties: it was not till our return that we heard it described as a local Matterhorn, often attacked, but attacked in vain, and still awaiting its vanquisher. Turning to the right, we worked up the quoin by a passage between stone walls of Nature’s make, and in another half-hour we climbed up the stiff slope of decayed trap. Our guide required some little management: he pointed in alarm to the mists rolling up from the north, with a cruel rush of cold air, and though the line was marked with stone-men, he ejaculated “Thoka!” (fog). “Lost in the mists” is often a conclusion to a “tale of Iceland’s Isle.”
The summit of Skarðsheiði, about 3000 feet above sea-level, resembled that of the Esja, and afforded a view quite as extensive, though not now so novel. To the north, under our feet, ran the winding Hvitá and its outlying waters, draining to the Borgarfjörð, here a grisly “spiegel,” dotted with black reefs. North-eastwards lay the bare sulphurous grounds of Reykholt (reeky hill), while far to the north-west, bounding the north of the Faxa Fjörð, the knuckles of Snæfell and the caldrons popularly known as Katlar, the kettles, formed the land horizon. Southward the view ranged clean over Reykjavik, and showed the easiest route to Skarðsheiði: this would be by boat to Saurbær, north-east of Akrafjall, whence a walk of five miles places the traveller at the Skarð farm.
The ascent and descent had occupied four hours: we then mounted our horses, and returned before night to Reynivellir.
A delightful morning (July 23), when the air was so fine, so clear, so bright that
“It seemed a sin to breathe it,”
a morning when one really would have been sorry to die, sent us to bathe at the Reynivellir brook, regardless of slugs and snails, moths and flies. The Reverend left, after a copious breakfast of mashed salmon, with a promise to meet us on the road. He had just lost a parishioner. Since July 11th there has not been a shower, and the sky was that of Italy for a whole fortnight. This abnormally fine weather is equally fatal to the very young and the very old: seven or eight deaths had just taken place at Reykjavik, a large proportion out of an annual average of sixty; and three successive days saw three funerals: the causes are “pituita,” malignant catarrh, and influenza.
We were threatened with a mal pas, and again found it remarkably good. From Reynivellir the path ran down the Laxá valley; and where we crossed the stream, it was clear as crystal, and abundant in trout. Here, again, turf has invaded lands once forested; and now we look in vain for a specimen of the sorb-tree, which named the parsonage. Chemin faisant, the Reverend lectured us upon the botany of his native vale. The Dutch or white clover (Smári)[45] flourishes: that red-headed cannibal the Lambagras, moss-campion or dwarf catch-fly (Silene acaulis), which rises upwards of 11,000 feet on the Swiss Alps, here prefers the drier soils. The lower lands are covered with the Gúnga-gras (“bag grass,” Bursa pastoris), everywhere common, with the meadow-sweet (Mjaðurt = οἰνομέλι, Spiræa ulmeria), which yields a yellow dye, and a grateful perfume in hot weather. The pride of the plain is the thrift or sea-gilly-flower (Statice armeria), with downy stalk and pale pink heads, which the people call Geldingahnappar, “gelding,” that is to say, wether, “button.” The richer and damper grounds are grown with the marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), the Solia or Solveia of the Færoes, here called Lækja-sóley or hóf-sóley, from its hoof-shaped leaf; cattle will not eat it, save as a pis-aller; the small green flower-buds when pickled resemble capers, and the inflorescence lasts from early May to the end of summer. It is a congener of the carnivorous Caltha dionæafolia. There is an abundance of the Engja-rós, eyre or meadow rose (Epilobium augustifolium), forming a pink carpet—there are many rosaceæ in Iceland, but roses are deficient, as in the southern hemisphere, only one having been found;[46] and the traveller must not expect to find the beautiful little “Ward” of the Libanus. Another common growth is the leguminous Um-feðmingsgras, “holding grass,” the tufted or creeping vetch (Vicia cracca), whose cirri fasten upon neighbours; hence the Færoese call it Krogyogras, from Kroya, to cling. The solitary Andromeda hypnoides, a small creeper, with heather-like white flowers, acts lily of the valley. We are again reminded of Syria by the chamomile-like Baldursbrá (Anthemis cotula), whose snowy petals suggest the White God,[47] Baldur the Beautiful, and whose circular yellow centre assimilates it to the solar orb—it is too bad to call it “stinking camomile.” The common sorrel (Rumex acetosa, locally known as Valla, or Korn-súra) is a social plant that prefers the neighbourhood of farms, and flourishes in newly-manured túns: the other species are the kidney-shaped mountain sorrel (Oxyria reniformis) and the sheep’s sorrel (R. acetosella). In the more southern islands, where the root gives a red dye, the leaf is said to grow a foot and a half long; it is used to flavour bird soup, and is eaten with meat. An anti-scorbutic, pleasant withal, it should here be used every day, as tomatoes are in the southern United States; but if you advise the Icelander to correct his blood with sorrel, he will probably reply that it is food for cows.
After an hour’s ride, including the inevitable short cut of wrong path and turning back, we reached the Miðfell farm, which faces cosily west, and is backed by its little range of trap so degraded that it seems to be forming humus. Fronting it is the Miðfellsvatn lakelet, which drains the north-eastern Esja: it swarms with the Sílungur trout, but there was no boat for the convenience of fishermen. Whilst the Reverend went to his funeral, we sat upon the grassy warts, and enjoyed the view of Snæfell, bluish-white in the flickering air. The thermometer stood at 86° (F.) in the sun; and the ghost of a mist tempered, like the glazing of a master-hand, the raw colours and rough forms of the scene. The prospect suggested Tempe, not the grisly defile of reality, but the picture painted by poets—Greek Greece and Syrian Syria contrast wonderfully with the features which naturally form themselves in the northern mind. We argued that a couple of pleasant summer months might be spent at Miðfell, but that such æstivation would involve building a fishing-box and stocking it with friends.