“Reaching, on July 16, 1872, Thingvellir (Dingwall or Thingwall), after a Cockney tour to Hekla and the Geysir, I met a young Englishman who was returning from a sketching expedition round the now rarely visited south coast. From Hekla I might easily have made Thórsmörk in a day, but the depôt of bones was then unknown to me. Mr W—— had travelled from the Eyvindarholt farm, west-south-west of the site of the find, in some six hours of fast work, and complained much of the road. There are only two guides, and the half-dozen influents of the Markarfljót were judged dangerous. It is only fair, however, to state that he had read the ‘Oxonian in Iceland,’ and he was prepared to ford the terrible torrents, nearly three feet deep! in boots and ‘buff.’ After passing the sites of many fine farms, now destroyed by the ever-increasing ice, he entered the valley from Eyvindarholt by a rugged entrance, leaving the bone-heap about half-way, and to the right of his track. The remains lie under a cliff, where much rocky matter has fallen; above it is the ice-snout projected by the great glaciers and névés, Merk-Jökull and Godaland’s Jökull, which rise to the north-east and south-west, whilst the rest of the valley, where eternal winter has not overwhelmed the woods, is the usual Icelandic green, vivid and metallic.

“The heaps evidently consist of

“‘The bones of men
In some forgotten battle slain,
Bleached by the drifting wind and rain.’

Social traditions assign them to the troublous times of ‘Burnt Njál.’ This must be expected in these parts of Iceland; several of the remains, however, are described as those of infants.

“From Bjarni Finnbogason, who, as a ‘youth of extreme usefulness,’ had accompanied Mr Shepherd, and who, developed to a prodigious rascal, had undertaken Mr W——, I took the cranial fragments marked A and B. Arrived at Reykjavik, he agreed for 27 rixdollars (say £3) to ride back and bring me as many skulls as could be found or dug up. After attempting in vain—he had taken earnest money—to throw me over in favour of another party of travellers, he set out on Saturday, July 20th. He was not to return till the next Friday evening, but, wishing to secure other victims, he came back on Thursday, too soon for any good results. Moreover, he charged me for doing nothing 32 instead of 27 rixdollars, which extortionate demand was satisfied rather than run the risk of men saying that an Englishman had shirked payment. I have the pleasure, despite sundry certificates obtained from various innocents, his dupes, to give him the very worst of characters, and strongly to warn future travellers in Iceland against him. He was familiar as the lower order of Hebrew; he would listen to every conversation; he haunted his master like a Syrian dragoman; he intrigued and abused all other guides; and as for his English, he understood ‘a whip with a thong ten feet long’ to mean ‘a pony ten years old.’ The guides at Reykjavik are not worse than the generality of their craft, pace Baring-Gould; some are better; but Mister Bjarni—he is generally called by his English employers Blarney and Barney—is a bad lot, who knows well how to pelare la quaglia senza farla gridare.

“The following are the principal items herewith forwarded:

“The bones, of which there is an interesting collection in the young museum of Reykjavik, are interesting. The old world Icelanders, as Uno Von Troil, as may be seen in the Rigsthulu, informs us, ever held it a ‘noble art to understand well how to sharpen the instruments of death.’

“Richard F. Burton.”