The next feature of importance was the Lángahlíð, a stepped and buttressed block of trap like Esja, the Akrafjall, and the Skarðsheiði. A tolerably regular triangle to the south-west, it acts bastion to the great lava-plateau which extends from the Thingvallavatn, and our morrow’s ride will subtend its southern flank. Immediately below the western slopes, which are regular, lies the Kleifavatn (cliff-water),[88] a lake of intensely gloomy shore. The dark waters, ending south in a swamp, were lashed by the wind into mimic waves, and the shores were grisly masses, standing and fallen, of dark Palagonite, a conglomerate of small and large breccia, easily washed into gaps and clefts, arches and caverns. I could not but remember the Lake of Hums so similar, and yet so different, under the glowing Syrian sky; the picturesque contrasts of cultivation and desert contrasting with the lava-bound water, and the memory-haunted stream which once found a mouth at Rome—
“In Tiberim defluxit Orontes.”
Cutting across a hill-brow we sighted a tall, white plume whose fibrils, causing many a cough, suggested the end of this day’s march. The Icelandic traveller who has not read “The Great Sulphur Cure” of Dr Robert Pairman, often lands with the idea that inhaling sulphur-vapour is unwholesome, as the sulphuric acid and the sulphuretted hydrogen are decidedly unpleasant: he soon corrects the impression, finding the people of the two great brimstone centres exceptionally healthy. The Krísuvík diggings are upon a line of volcanic hills, running from north-north-east to south-south-west, and their irregular and tormented flanks contrast sharply with the monotonous Lángahlíð wall, rising opposite them. The “Ketill” (caldron) of Krísuvík, a huge “corrie,” whence the puffs come, lies high up: the four “Brennisteins Námur” are low upon the eastern flank, with the little blue pond, Grænavatn, farther to the south. The scene is that of solfataras generally, a distempered land of disordered cuticle, bright red, brass-yellow, slate-grey, pink, purple, pale green, brown-black, and leprous white; the water is milky and slimy, and even the dwarf willow and juniper cease to grow. “Exhalations of sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, steam, and sulphur, burst in wild disorder from the hot ground.”[89] Martednn looked at Ríkarður, and vice versâ; both had expected not a single block, a mere patch, but a sulphur region to be measured by many square miles.
We passed two huts, one of iron, the other of wood, with ore-heaps lying around them, and, scrambling through a bog, we rode up to the Krísuvík chapel and the three-gabled farm-house of a little widow, Mrs Ingveldr Hannesdóttir. The district is tolerably populous; on the flanks of the various rises we counted five farms, fringed with haystacks, under sticks and turf, and white ponies dotted the long, swampy expanse, between the Krísuvíkfell, a lump north of the chapel, the Arnarfjall to the south-east, capped by a spitz or bec, and the long slope leading to the Krísuvíkurberg, the precipice some 200 feet tall which boldly faces the Deucaledonian main. Unhappily Henderson’s fine port is utterly absent; on the other hand, it is said that an easy line of tramway has been traced from the head of the Kleifavatn to Hafnafjörð.
The day’s work surprised us, we had not yet realised the shortness of the distances travelled over. This mild march also has been called a “maniac ride”—“one of the wildest in the world.” It is, however, only fair to own that we took the lake road, which is not laid down in the map, and that a few yards on either side of the way would offer as many difficulties as the horseman, however ambitious, could desire.
The steepleless chapel, which was not worse than that of Blúdán, had lost its key, and when the latter was found, the cabin proved a store and a lumber-room: clothes hung to the seats, milk stood to cream, and salt barrels cumbered the floor. A coffin, unfurnished, also stood on a beam: the idea underlying this premature precaution is that it prolongs the owner’s life. Here the chapel is the “mountain-stove” of Norway, the Indian traveller’s bungalow, and the Sind mosque in which Kafirs ate pork and drank wine. We pitched the tent near the byres, where broken bottles showed the habits of civilisation, and slept despite the normal evil, cold feet caused by riding in a hard head-wind. The frequent weary halts to adjust pack-saddles should be utilised for restoring circulation. “Les picotements sont plus incommodes que le froid lui-même,” justly remarks M. Gaimard’s expedition; and the French doctor advises the feet to be gradually warmed, or they will swell and cause demangeaisons, which prevent rest. Above all things avoid the Brazilian wrinkle, so valuable against damp in tropical climates—a glassful of spirits poured into the riding-boots. We must not leave the sulphur-field without some notice of the supply.
From Captain, now Commodore, Commerell’s Reports, dated Leith, July 9, 1857, we learn that “the mines of Krisuvik were worked from 1723 to 1730, with considerable profit; during that year, all the sulphur consumed in Denmark and Norway and the Duchies was obtained from there, but one of the owners, who had also been the director in Iceland, dying, the mines were abandoned in consequence.
“In 1833, a merchant of Copenhagen, a Mr Kenidzen, obtained one large cargo of sulphur from Krisuvik; the affair was managed through an agent or factor, whose mismanagement was the principal cause of failure, since then only a few tons having been taken by the peasants for home use.
“The actual extent of the sulphur beds it is quite impossible to calculate; but from Krisuvik to Hengill (the mountain mass south-west of the Thingvallavatn) forty-seven have been discovered, the distance of the latter (former?) place to Havnefiord (Hafnafjörð) is from fourteen to fifteen miles, but the road is much more hilly. The deposit of sulphur I personally saw at Krisuvik must amount to many thousand tons; hitherto the sulphur taken away has been reproduced in two or three years, all the mines, or nearly all, being in a living state. Sulphur in a pure state, I have little doubt, could be supplied at Havnefiord for £1 per ton.”
We are also told that “Dr Hjaltalín, an Icelander and mineralogist, who was ordered by the Danish Government to report on the sulphur beds, informed Captain Commerell that those at Krisuvik could be worked very easily, producing a large amount of sulphur, and as a speculation would pay very well indeed.”