R. F. B. delt.
SNÆFELLSJÖKULL FROM THE NORTH.
and houses, each with seven gables or more, ranged in line, not massed together, fronts the faint-green land, and prospects the glaucous northern seas. After a couple of hours, which covered two Danish miles, we steamed down a deep and sheltered sinus, facing the north-west, with double entrance: here a red buoy made us independent of pilot; the tides inflow by the south and race round and out to the north.
The scenery of Hafnafjörð, which Scotchmen compare with that of Scalloway, is peculiar and somewhat grotesque. Like all the south-western parts of Thule, the formation is a hopeless lava-field, bristling with shrublets and patched with green: the outline of frontage consists of points divided by bays of dark-grey sand, and the habitations are perched between the knobs and turrets of the several Hrauns, old and new. The land is comparatively level, backed by a veritable Sierra—the dorsal spine of this part of Iceland—jagged, notched, and vertebral, extending from north-east to south-west. Four brigantines and a lugger were anchored in the clear water, off the five pierlets, the usual planks and caissons, that denote the corresponding comptoirs, one patch of building to the north, another to the south, and a third at the bottom of the bay, whilst an extensive farm-house rose from a dorsum of green, the Hval-eyri or whale strand.
Whilst the steamer discharged her salt and iron pans, we hailed an old, blunt-snouted punt, and paid for the service two marks: the latter process evoked a stare of surprise and a vigorous shake of the hand. I note this proceeding because it is not unusual on the coast of Iceland; it certainly distinguishes the boatman from his hateful brotherhood in more genial lands; especially on the “Hesperian strand.” We landed at Flensburg, about the bottom of the bay, the establishment of Hr Johnsen, and walked round to the buildings on the north. All are timber, coloured grey or black, with white windows and slate roofs; each flies its flag, Danish or Norwegian. The latter belongs to the Bergen Company, which has lately taken the place of the Scotch house at Reykjavik, with branch agencies here and at Stykkishólm and Seyðisfjörð. At a little bridged stream women and boys were busy with the corpses of cods, cutting gills, tearing out gullets, splitting bellies to their ventral fins, extracting livers and sounds, and tossing the trimmed carcases into heaps—they were jolly as Italian peasants at the Vendemmia. Some of the lads were fishing with sinkers of stone, floats of driftwood, and bait of cod. Beyond the stream a new road to Reykjavik was being made, by blasting the lava—as will be seen, it is much wanted. On the north of the bay we inspected the remains of Hr Sivertsen’s dry dock, which looks like a line of groins to keep the shore in situ. A couple of eaglets were shown for sale; they had lately been taken from a crag in the lava-run to the south-east: the chickens, hardly six weeks old, were about the size of Cochin fowls; their skins showed bare through the growing plume of grey and dark-grey, contrasting with the bright yellow cere, and they opened threatening gapes at the stranger. The price had lately risen to £3, whilst ten shillings a head were asked for the fierce little graveolent foxes.
As usual we had time for a walk inland to the Varða, or landmark, bearing magnetic east of the ship, and distant about thirty minutes: I was anxious to see the behaviour of the lava. Travellers in Iceland everywhere speak of vast outpours which, instead of showing any decided point of origin, appear to have sweated from the soil. They especially quote the lands about Mý-vatn and Krafla, where the contrary is the case: the same has been observed in other volcanic countries, e.g., by Mr Porter in Syria; by Messrs Tyrwhitt-Drake and Palmer in Moab; and by those who have studied the Quito platform. Here, however, we distinctly traced three craters, and it became evident that the mouth which discharged the oldest torrents may have been obliterated by subsequent eruptions. The principal lava-bed[57]
From a Photo. M^c.Farlane & Erskine, Lithrs., Edin^r.