Resuming our road, we presently began the ascent which had been pointed out to us in the afternoon; crossed a snow-wreath and a snow-patched divide, unusually hard work, and frequently felt the horses sinking fetlock deep in the loose sand. We then descended the misty sides into Heljadalr, and shivered in “Hellsdale.” A broad and open way crosses this “Barahút,” whose unpleasant title is derived from the tremendous torrents of spring-tide, the deep snows of winter, and the furious dust-storms of the dry season. Leaving the Heljadalsfjall, we entered the cold plain of Geitirssandr; the surface was of water-rolled stones and pebbles, the base of black sand, whilst light-yellow Palagonite appeared in the courses of the dry fiumaras. In places there were crater-like heaps of dust from ten to a hundred feet high, the smaller features perfectly conical, and set off by bars and patches of white sand, lime, potash, and other produce of the sea. Evidently the formation is subaqueous, as well as volcanic,[156] and I subsequently found reason to believe that the ancient sea-beach begins west, and upon the parallel, of the Jökulsá bridge, and runs up to the north-western base of Snæfell, the mountain, not the Jökull. The whole tract reminds one of what is said anent the Barony of Bunen: it has neither wood, water, nor earth sufficient to hang, to drown, or to bury a man.
Walking our fagged horses down the yielding slopes, we presently found the ground improve. A stream flowed to our left; a lakelet lay on the right, and thin grass, well covered with sheep, made the scene an oasis. We again put on steam, and shortly after three A.M. we made the Möðrudalr farm. The church was shut, but the buxom housekeeper took compassion upon our weary plight; basins were brought to relieve eyes red with flinty dust, and skins painful with prickly heat; bowls of hot coffee comforted the inner man, and once more we revelled in the luxury of sheeted beds.
August 5.
The farm of Galiums (etymologically “Madder”), girt by its desert of sand and stone in all directions but the west, where the Western Jökulsá flows at a distance of six indirect miles, is one of the best, if not the best, in Iceland. It is not known in the Landnámabók,[157] which tells us that this quadrant was the last occupied. The white-headed owner, Sigurður Jónsson, has often been offered his own price for it, but to no purpose. He brings out the map and enlightens us upon the features of the wilderness on the other side of the river. He denies the existence of the mountain “Dýngjufjöll hin nyðr Trölladýngjur,” immediately south of Bláfjall; and I afterwards found that he was right. Speaking of Baring-Gould’s project to attack the Sprengisandur from Möðrudalr, he said that a traveller would be taking the wrong road; the usual line is from Bárðardalr on the Skjálfjandifljót to the Thjórsá headwaters: moreover, that this Sahara is never passed till early July. He denied that the snows on Bláfjall give any rule for crossing the cap of the Iceland dome, of which one stage is a jornada of twenty-four hours, waterless and grainless. He confirmed my idea that the Ódáða Hraun is bounded east as well as west by the sandy region; and he shrugged his shoulders when I consulted him about ascending the local sundial, Herðubreið,[158] distant some sixteen miles. The “Broad-shouldered” stood before us in all his majesty, cabochon-shaped, or, as the Syrians say, a “Khatím” (seal-ring), girt by perpendicular walls, and projecting a tall point between the double glacier, here of frosted, there of polished silver, as the surface caught the rays of the noontide sun. It is not my fault if the sketch be very unlike Henderson’s “Herdubreid, seen from Mödrudal.”
THE BROAD-SHOULDERED.
The wife was absent, but the buxom housekeeper let us want for nothing except a sight of the Beauty of Möðrudalr, one of the daughters, who is spoken of by every traveller. The comfortable homestead with three gables showed me amongst other things a map of Palestine; but why did Mr James Nisbet write “Treconitus?” The mill was a turbine, so quaint in construction that the water could not be turned off. En revanche, the mutton was admirable: the sheep easily fatten in this dry and delicate air, and like their congeners of Somaliland, they put on flesh with the slenderest rations. Not expecting to see it again, we devoured the fresh meat as if devouring were a duty.
Mr Lock, sen., found the heat oppressive, and we waited till after noon before we set out. A few minutes’ riding over grass led into loose, deep sand, evidently a subaqueous formation; and here amongst the hillocks grows the Melr, or wild oat, with pale glaucous and striped leaf, long, tough root, large ear, and grain too small for making bread.[159] We saw none during the night; as on the Sprengisandur, the land was too high to hold water, and the cereal prefers hollows where it can enjoy a modicum of damp. It will extend in scatters and patches as far as Mý-vatn; our horses enjoy it, but the sheep apparently refuse the coarse growth, like the “pasto fuerte” of the Argentine Republic. I looked in vain for “birdies” amongst these tufts, probably they find the sands too hot and too cold.