At Djúpivogr we found the usual species of fin. The white fish is caught by long lines laid at night, and hauled in next day. They carry 200 to 300 hooks, but they are miniatures of the giants used by English fishermen in the North Sea, which are measured by miles. The flounder, the halibut (Heilag-fiski, Helliflynder, Hippoglossus pinguis, or holy flounder), and the red-spotted plaice are favourites, despite want of flavour: the dried skate is the bread of this ichthyophagous race, and the fish has passed into a proverb for voracity—“he eats everything that comes in his way like a skate.” I heard reports of enormous squids, the skate-whaals of the Shetlands, which may easily have given rise to the “Kraken” tale. Specimens have been seen from Zanzibar to Newfoundland, where cuttle-fish (Architeuthis monachus and A. Dux. Steenstrŭp) have been found with bodies 15 feet long by 19 inches diameter, and “extensive arms of unknown extent.” The “Great Cuttle-fish” is the Dragon of Polynesian mythology (p. 209, The Emigration of Turi), and it pulled down canoes unless killed by the axe. The Calmar de Bouguer, so called from the officer commanding the aviso “Alecton,” was attacked in 1861, off north-eastern Tenerife, with bullets and harpoons; this piuvre is described as 18 feet long, and beaked like a giant parrot. Moreover, the lumps of rock rising suddenly from the smooths and lines of ripple, viewed through the evening fog, must have kept alive the haunting idea of the kraken. The Great Sea Serpent, or Soe-orm, alias Aale last (Serpens marinus magnus), appears in the pages of Bishop Pontoppidan as an impossible snake, with crescental coils disposed perpendicularly instead of horizontally. Although Professor Owen determined it to be an otary, the fact is not “proven;” and of late years it was revived as a gigantic saurian which has escaped the general destruction of his race. Similarly there is an immense mass of evidence in favour of the Lind-orm or great land serpent. We find him in Livy, Pliny, and Strabo; and Regulus saw him at Bagrada stretching 100 feet long. That most conscientious traveller, Dr de Lacerda, relates that when voyaging up the Brazilian Tiété, his slaves sat down upon a trunk, which proved to be a snake; and I brought home traditions of his having closed a path to travellers in Eastern Intertropical Africa.
Section III.—To Berufjörð: Up the Firth.
At Djúpivogr we met Hr Oddr V. Gíslason, a “Candidatus Theologiæ,” who had visited England, and had published an Icelandic primer (Leidvisír, Reyk., 1863), which he dedicated to a friend, the late Hermann Bicknell. At the capital where his wife remains, he acts as Lloyd’s agent, and in the east he collects ponies and sheep for Mr Askam. His local reputation as a shark-fisher and a viveur stands tolerably high, but he can work hard when he pleases. This worthy at once applied himself to buying bât-ponies, and to hiring a guide, whose perfect and well-known uselessness deserves notice.
Gísli Eyriksson is a good-looking man of thirty-five, with blue eyes, aquiline nose, and a full blond beard. Formerly a day labourer, he prefers to be an able-bodied pauper; the sturdy vagrant owns two nags, yet he has thrown his loafing self, his wife, and his three children upon the parish. His only merit is not drinking; and the women pity him because he is pretty. An Ebionite from the womb, a Lazarus with the tastes of Dives, the invertebrate creature is soft as a girl; he dawdles limp as a negro; he malingers, pleading a bad knee to attract compassion; he makes everybody do his duty; he is ever in the kitchen, never at work; he breaks everything he touches; it makes one’s fingers tingle to look at him. Presently he will strike for more pay. Meanwhile he is the picture of the Prodigal Son in Iceland garb: his stutt-buxur,[142] the pointed and buttoned overalls, said to have been imported from Scotland by King Magnús Berfætti, are in rags and tatters; his stirrups are knotted cords, and his bridle is a string. Inconsequent as a Somali, he drops his fragmentary Svipa (whip) every hour, and he manages even to lose his knife. We engaged him for 4 marks per diem; the “dog of an Icelander” swore after return that the wage was $1, 3m.; and when he received his $29 he mounted his nag and jogged leisurely home.
July 30.
We sent on our ponies, the first detachment, during the thick fog of morning, the warm moist sea-air showing 73° (F.), condensed by the black and white heights; and in mid-afternoon, we set out for Berufjörð in Captain Tvede’s whaleboat. It had a centre-board after approved fashion, but no sail to catch the fair wind from the Fjörð-mouth. The crew consisted of two Icelanders, who, accustomed to the silly narrow blade, the “mos majorum,” were unable to handle the broad oar; the two coopers, a Dane, and a German who disliked soldiering at home, did much better. As the mist lifted we enjoyed the views upon the firth, which our patriotic captain compared with the Organ Mountains, Rio de Janeiro. Yet there is abundant Icelandic physiognomy in the Fjörð viewed from above, especially when the sun is slightly veiled and the shadow of the mist falls upon the wild forms with a pale, unearthly glare. As a rule, too, there is a distinct circulation, an indrift of lower and an outdrift of upper cloud; the effect of the double winds, so common in maritime Iceland, and very striking to the nephelophile. The rival shores contrast sharply. The northern, especially about the Berunes chapel, has broader flats and more frequent farms, backed by the stepped copings and the buttresses of the Strandafjöll. The trend is to the north-west, where quaint and regular castellations, either rising sheer or based upon débris disposed at the natural angle, are divided by deep gaps and fosses. The eastern sky-line is broken into crags which appear a mass of ruins; in places the capping is a single stone, a needle, a column, a Grettis-tak (logan-stone), or an “old man;” here falls a sharp arête; there towers a pyramid, which viewed at another angle proves to be a headland. The general form is not unlike those dolomites which Sir Humphrey Davy mistook for granite. A remarkable band of green Palagonite, locally called “petrified clay,” dips waterwards at an angle of 37°; it crops out north at Breiðdalsvík, and it is said to be traceable southwards for a two days’ march.
The fronting shore begins with a fringe of rocks and skerries; the Fiskenakketange baylet is mistaken at night for Djúpivogr; and the inner and outer Gleðivík (gled-wich), the Indre and Ydre Glæding of old Danish charts, are especially rich in “rognons of rock.” The uplands are formed by masses of trap, with drops and slopes cut and chasmed, at right angles, by gashes and ravines bearing a thin vegetation. We are shown the Teigarhorn (paddock-horn) torrent, about a mile and a half from Djúpivogr; here fine zeolites are, or rather were, found, and Iceland spar is known to exist—unfortunately the farm is Church property. The only important feature is the Búlandstindr, whose north-eastern pyramid, laid down at 3388 feet (Danish), makes an excellent landmark for those coming from the south; the grim black wall bears snow on the northern exposure, and the easily breaking stone renders the ascent unpleasant. At five P.M. we passed the Gautavik (Gothwich) farm, about a century ago the only trading comptoir, dating from the days of Burnt Njál. Some forty-five minutes afterwards we touched at the excellent anchorage of Staulovik, to land Hr Gíslason and a very small boy carrying a very very large jar of rum. Shortly afterwards we opened on the right bank Fossárdalr, which bounds Búlandstindr on the north: here the strata rise waterwards at an angle of 28°. The vale, faintly green, is called Viðidalr in the upper part; it is the directest line viâ Keldadalr (well-vale) to Fljótsdalr, immediately east of Snæfell, but there is no bridle-path, and the compass must be the only guide.
The channel was not wholly desert, we met two boats; the sticks planted upon the islet-rocks, the Æðarsker, and the Æðarsteinn, showed it to be an eider-firth, where the intelligent seal well knows that he may not be shot, and where ravens flock in forlorn hopes of a duckling. “Faraóslið” is the folk or cavalry of Pharaoh, for that wicked but debatable king, so great is the might of myth, has colonised even Ultima Thule; and his lieges still become men and women, laying aside their furs, on the eve of St John. They give rise to a multitude of proverbs, e.g., “‘Too near the nose,’ as the seal said when hit in the eye.” Phoca here forms part of the parson’s flock. They are tame as porpoises. The cows are never killed, and the young are spared; when a battue of men-seals with gun and club takes place, it is during summer. These mammals are most numerous on the southern and eastern coasts; here in one spot we count fourteen pair of eyes quietly but persistently prospecting us. As the fine is three marks for firing a gun within a mile, and the flesh is the best possible shark-bait, we are consulted upon the subject of aircanes.[143] “Krummi” (crook-bill), the raven, whose size has been exaggerated by travellers, is everywhere in Iceland an unmitigated pest, and he shows the unbecoming familiarity of the “ghurab” in Somaliland. His impunity may be due to his cousin the corbie’s sentiment:
“Ho, ho, ho! said the old black crow,
For that nobody will eat him he very well doth know.”
Perhaps some survival of old paganism may preserve the “yellow footed bird in the inky cloak,” who became black by reason of his sins: Odin’s hawk, the “black cousin of the swan,” who appeared in the traditional oriflamme of the Norsk Vikings, and who still survives in the lines: