very adequately represents his sentiments and his career: it reads as if it had been inspired by the Destroying Angel. The sooner this style of literature, which deals in every manner of—— cide from parricide to vulpecide, becomes obsolete in Iceland the better. Imagine a decent, respectable Protestant paterfamilias, by way of whiling away the long winter evenings, reading out these revolting and remorseless horrors to his wife and daughters: I should feel as if treated to the Curse of Ernulphus.
The next feature was Hofsós, a scattered settlement, with its chapel, first a pagan temple and then a Catholic church; it is marked by a hill rising bluff above the Unadalr (“Wone” or dwell vale), a little stream which accounts for the term “oyce.” A mile or so farther south lies Grafarós, and here we anchored, after a pleasant cruise of fourteen hours from Borðeyri. This comptoir, chosen by Mr Henderson of Glasgow, is very badly placed: the norther raises a surf which can make landing impossible for a fortnight, and, as we could see, the south wind at once breaks the Skagafjörð into dangerous waves. Surely safe ground could be found under the lee of the grand Thórðar-head.
July 3.
Apparently the rule in Iceland is, that a fine day brings foul weather, and July 3 was no exception. As we rose, a solid bank of rain stood high in the north, and presently the Storm-King rode forth, beating down the white heads of the angry billows. It was Ahriman waging eternal war with Hormuzd; the battle of Osiris and Typhon; the war of Baldur and Loki. In the course of the day, the gale forged round almost to the south, and the alternations of mist, drizzle, and bright sunshine formed an Ossianic framing highly appropriate to the picture: like the Scottish Highlands, it would have looked ridiculously out of place under an Italian sky.
The Skagafjörð is held to be one of the most picturesque, as well as fertile and populous, districts in Iceland, wanting only the “hair of the earth animal”—wood. The firth, a riverine sea-arm, ten miles broad, is the embouchure of that formidable stream the Jökulsá Vestri (western), which, like the Blandá or Blandwater, drains the central Hofsjökull—the southern face, Arnarfellsjökull, discharging the much more important Thjórsá. Flowing from south to north, before feeding the bay, it bifurcates, forming a delta known as Hegranes (Hern-naze) Island, and famed for beauty. On both sides, rugged and precipitous shores are divided by ravines and valleys which, after an hour’s rain, pour turbid yellow streams into the dull-green receptacle. The southern part of the western bank is subtended by the Tindastóll (peak-host), a well-known name: older travellers talk of “precious stones, probably opals,” being found in abundance among its ravines, of onyx, zeolite, and chalcedony, and of “caves containing curious crystals.” To the north and south, the wall-coping is broken and jagged; the middle length shows straight and regular lines, with numerous strata symmetrically piled.
The eastern shore of Skagafjörð, near the anchorage-ground, is of black sand and shingle, with columnar basalt in places, and capped by a long bare “Melbakki” some seventy feet high: its background rises in detached hills and lines of bluff, counter-parts of the Tindastóll in miniature, and copiously streaked with snow. The regular steps and stratified lines here dip to the north.
The bottom of the firth disclosed a grand landscape of sky. Now a glint of sunshine settled upon snowy top and glaucous slope, then a white mist robed and capped the shadowy mountains, catching the reflection of Bifrost, the bridge of the gods, a fragment of gaudy rainbow. Anon a span of pale-blue firmament contrasted with the mackerels’ backs and mares’ tales to windward; whilst to leeward the dark curtain of purple cloud, hanging in rugged edges over the red and black hills, made the distances dim, dimmer, and dimmest. The inevitable accompaniments of this feature were the ghostly forms of pale birds fighting with the wind; the âmes perdues which attract the voyager’s eye on the beautiful Bosphorus.
We landed to inspect the “one-horse” settlement of Grafarós, which consists of a small temporary landing-place, a tarred store, sundry stone-and-peat huts, and a double-storied red house flying a flag; a few farms are scattered about inland, as well as on the shore. A single schooner lay at anchor. North of the comptoir, and forming a bay in the bare raised bank, is the “ostium” of the Deildardalr (dole-dale)[86] river, a tenth-class Icelandic stream, which, despite its low degree, can look first-rate in violence. There is a ford near the settlement, but elsewhere the water courses over a succession of steps and ledges, which would deter anything but that wild horse who is known to swim the wilder flood. By this time we had seen enough of “Hofs,” and we contented ourselves with strolling up the warm and genial valley, a bed of violets.
Grafarós was formerly, and is still at times, frequented by English smacks in search of whale and seal oil. These cockle-shells, manned by four and five men, the “little friggits” of our ancestors, not larger than the Icelandic “sharker,” work their course by dead reckoning and often come to grief. It is the terminus of our voyage, and we could only regret that the “Jón” had not orders to make a circuit of the island—regrets tempered, however, by the thought that we had seen by far the fiercer and the more interesting half. No better or easier way than this to form a general idea of the formation; it requires only supplementing by a few cross-cuts through the interior.