We then strolled up country, beginning with the bare Melbakki, so common along the shores of these northern Fjörðs, a low dorsum of earth and stone, from which the snow has only just melted; too steep for turf, and kept bare by the furious winds. Often, as in this case, it is the bank of an old torrent-bed. To the north-west the land again seemed to offer a fair walk: “old Experience” had taught us that we shall have to bog-trot from tussock to tussock, to paddle through ankle-deep waters, and to cross turf-fens, which look solid and yet admit you to the calf. The drainage of these hills would supply a little river, but, as usual, it sinks, or rather lies. The turbaries, so deadly to the growth of trees, were judged by the French expedition the only safe stations for observations of magnetism; elsewhere the cellular dolerite, containing oxydulated titaniferous iron, deflected the needle 1° to 1° 30´. Upon the slope we found what appeared to be a Lögberg (law-mount), artificially raised above the swamp; partly revetted on the top with turf, which had been stripped off for use, and encircled by a remnant of similar vallum. Ice appeared at the foot of the basaltic rises.
The summit, denoted by the usual “Varðas,” commanded the nearer Heiði, a desolate land, a scatter of moor-ponds and bogs, everywhere alternating with heaps and swathes of stone, and with dark mounds wearing cravats of névé. To the south-south-east was a grand view of amphitheatral snow mountains; the western flank rose in a shallow dome of purest white: we judged it to be the Eyriksjökull, whose romantic and, of course, murderous tale has often been told; while to the east Balljökull (hard Jökull?), a lower elevation, showed dark-blue rocks, which had worn their winter garb to strips. These outliers were backed by a radiant semicircle of peaks, which, in the slanting sun, assumed splendid rainbow hues.
July 2.
The “Jón” made a long halt at Borðeyri; she found only two shore-boats for discharging goods, and these were dingies towed by a rope: it was past two P.M. before we steamed out into the great Húnaflói. “Skyey influences” appear to be peculiarly capricious on the shores of the Cronian Sea. Morning; cloudy, with southerly wind, and clear with north-easter, suggesting a “lady’s passage.” Noon; thermometer in sun 81° (F.), in shade 60°, although snow is upon the shore; with the sea, as at Granton, in alternate stripes of deep-blue and silvery azure. Afternoon; a Mediterranean, plus the normal long roll, and a biting breath from the north; and, later still, the sea-fog and a return of warmth under the protection of Skagafjörð. At five P.M. we had turned the point Vatnsnes,[84] a long low projection from a high talus of stepped rock: hence we sighted the southern Jökulls towering above the lowlands and inlets of the shore—mighty masses of solid cloud, with true cloud floating above and around them. To the north-west, over the teeth and pyramids which jagged the shore of the Húnaflói, rose the Dránga Jökull, apparently supporting the firmament, Atlas-like, upon its vaulted head.
We then doubled at a respectful distance the long peninsula of Húnavatn, which, hilly and broken at the root, thins out into a cliffy point, and projects near Rifsnes the dangerous reefs of Skalli (the scald or bald head). Two French schooners from Dunquerque sailed leisurely by, with their rigging a mass of drying fish: after safe return these cod-fishers will pilgrimage to Nôtre Dame des Dunes. The behaviour of the ice-fog gave us some concern, we were now in N. lat. 66° 10´, and this was the only night that would offer a chance of enjoying the midnight sun. The mist came up in a white transparent line raised by the abnormal heat, and at times a low, solid bank, precisely imitating floe-ice in all points except being stationary, threatened, as is its wont when the light of day lies low, to invade the land.
As time neared the noon of night, the burnished circle, utterly shorn of its beams, seemed almost to stand still: when suspended about a diameter and a half above the ocean, it changed to a long oval, to a mushroom with distinct columella, to half a sovereign, and finally to a fragment of golden egg, which seemed to indent the blue horizon. In the latter phase it held its own till the bell struck, when the light of night began to rise once more. The spectacle was a lecture upon such Eddaic and Skáldic phrases and periphrases for the precious metal, as the Eld Særar, “ocean or water flame;” the “sea’s bright beams,” or “lowe of the waves;” the “swanbath’s rays;” the “ore of the Rhine” (any river); and the “resplendent radiance of the flood.”
This was our farthest northern point—
“Sistimus hic tandem, nobis ubi defuit orbis.”
We failed to sight inhospitable little Grímsey, which employs its spare hours in adorning porridge-pots with the Runic knot or snake.