After an hour’s slow ride, we turned off the road to the right, where Goðahóll, we were told, shows a temple of Thór. At the southern slope of a hillock known as Selhóll, lay a few loose stones; farther down was the place where the Dóm-hring was held, and northwards a black influent of the Skarðsá formed the Blót-keldar. All was mean and barbarous in the extreme.
We now entered upon what is called the “best road in Iceland.” To the left or west lay Sandfell and Geldíngafell; the crests were sharp as rabbits’ teeth, and for a similar reason. After about two hours we crossed the Skarðsá, an ugly, dark torrent, the cesspool of the hills, and, following a ledge, we passed through the defile of the same name, Vegaskarð: the formation was of basalt and Palagonite, the pure and the puddingstone. This col debouched upon a Viðidalr, of course nude of withies and willows; the poor and barren slope, cut by black waters, was girt on either side by gloomy hillocks spotted with snow. We halted for a time at the Sel which belongs to Möðrudalr, and the carpenter, a son of the Rev. Pètur Jónsson, kindly offered us a drink.
The “best road” began again, the only defects being rock and deep sand in patches. The ponies, offended by the pace, bit and kicked, shied and bumped their loads. Presently we reached the Biskupsháls, where the saintly men of Skálholt and Hólar once met: two cairns, the Biskupsvarðas, conspicuously placed on a height, divide the Eastern from the Northern Quadrant. During the rough descent, of basalt flaky and red as jasper, leading to the valley, we saw the Jökulsá called á fjöllum, “of the hills,” for the all-sufficient reason that it flows in a vale: the map terms this part of the bed í Axarfirði because it disembogues into the Axarfjörð. The milky water flows through a plain of green, thinly veiling the chocolate-coloured face of earth. Beyond it, half hid by gloomy mist, lay the Desert of Mý-vatn, and, farther still, rose the slaty-blue cones and ridges with which we were presently to become familiar.
Shortly before ten P.M. we rode up to the Grímstaðir establishment belonging to the farmer and ferryman, Guðmund Árnason: he was absent at the time, so his surly wife was duly kissed on the mouth by the temporary guide, a peasant from Möðrudalr. This place trades, especially in wool and mutton, with Vopnafjörð, distant a hard day’s ride; and by this line travellers from the eastern ports usually make the Mý-vatn. The sheep, mud marked on the rump, are good, and give rich milk, but both articles are inferior to those of the “model farm” which we last sighted. Grímr, the old Norwegian founder, chose a capital site; a grassy slope gently rising from the right bank of a stream, and protected by a ground-wave in front from the draughts and moving sands of the river-side. It is marked by the Hálskerling, alias the Grímstaða Kerling, a natural pyramid, conspicuous to those coming from the west: farther off rises the Haugr cone, snowy always. To the north of the establishment is the workshop; and here I saw for the first time horns of the reindeer, which had been shot about Herðubreið: they are common in the neighbouring establishments. The guest-room, entered by a small porch, had a wainscot painted to resemble maple; a gold beading and mahogany furniture; but it boasted neither stove nor fireplace, and, as usual, a whisper rang through the house. Then came the family parlour, with eight windows, each single-paned, facing south: the rest of the building consisted of outliers, byres, the sheep-house, known by the normal central trough, and the usual artless windmill.
August 6.
This morning the owner, a rough, hard-faced and obliging man, in appearance much like our typical “Lowlander,” lectured me in the geography of the Útgarð, or outer regions; and an hour before noon we cantered over the three or four miles to the river. This Jökulsá is about 200 yards across, with a sand-bank hard by the left shore. The sides are of crumbling basaltic sand, red and yellow Palagonite, and water-rolled stones; on the right lay a little strip of equisetum, and opposite it were clumps of wild oats, which promised well for a ride to the south. The turbid, slaty-white stream flows at the rate of at least three knots an hour: there is a tradition of its being swum by a horse-stealer, but the cold would deter most men unless riding for dear life. Now low in the bed, it must rise at least five feet, as appears from the driftwood, ground to little bits, which forms the high-water mark. The rule of Andine travellers is to cross such rivers about dawn, when the nightly frost has bound the snows which feed them. The map places its chief sources in the northern border of the Vatnajökull, but the details cannot be relied upon. The length must be at least 120 miles; and as the fall from Grímstaðír to the sea is about 1200 feet, there can be no navigation except in the several reaches, and we can hardly be surprised that it forms the Dettifoss, the small Niagara of little Iceland. The ferry was shaped like a spoon amputated at the handle; it was always half full; and four trips were made necessary by the extent of our belongings. We sat amongst the Eyrarós, the islet roses, representing the oleanders of Syria, and watched the nags swimming across, with their heads as usual well up-stream—apparently the custom of towing them from the boat is obsolete in Iceland, at least I never saw it.
Shortly after noon we attacked the Mý-vatn Öræfi, the wilderness of Mý-vatn, which is very perfunctorily laid down in the map. It is not wholly barren. The surface is composed of ropy and cavernous lava, with bursten bubbles and extinguished fumaroles, growing thin grass, the usual flowers, dwarf birch, ground-juniper, and two species of willows, the grey always in the neighbourhood of forage; these stripes overlie and alternate with barren volcanic sand and stones, bad retainers of water. The larger arteries of fire-stone, as usual in Iceland, are called Hraun-fljót (run-floods), and the smaller veins Hraun-arða. The sheep of Reykjahlíð and other farms are driven to the green parts during the fine season; it is a pays brûlé, but we shall presently see something far worse. Here, again, game was almost wholly wanting. Plovers sat upon the stone-heaps, and the stringy curlew (Spói), which, our ancestors loved to “unioynt” (carve), cried over our heads; possibly they knew that their insipidity and toughness would save them from any but steel-tipped teeth. A few ptarmigan ran almost from under our horses’ hoofs, ejaculating Reu! reu! reu! They are excellent eating, but it is a shame for any but starving men to shoot them at this season, when the grey-brown poults, little balls of fluff, are still unable to fly. The bird may be stupid, but it is an excellent mother, praise which can by no means be accorded to all clever animals; it appears wholly to forget self when aiding in the escape of its progeny. At this season ptarmigan come down from the barren uplands to seek flowers and berries in more genial climes; yet a few days and they will retire with the young family to safer homes.
The remarkable mound on our left, a refuge to “lifters” in olden times, is known as Hrossaborg, the Horse-fort. From afar it appears a mere shell of stratified mud; a nearer approach shows a worn and degraded Herðubreið, with regular couches of Palagonite clay falling steep on all sides but one. The huge semicircus opens to the east, where its drainage sheds to the Hrossaborglindá, the stream of the Horse-fort spring, flowing from the south, and much affected by sheep. I found no sign of lava, but an abundance of sand around it; if it ever erupted, the discharge must have been like that of Hverfjall, which we shall presently visit. Beyond it the sand is lively as that of Sind: on my return I saw a dozen columns careering at the same time over the plain although rain had fallen during three days. Our caravan was struck by one of these “Hvirfilsbíld-ör” (whirlwind bolts), which arose close by; unlike the Shaytan of the Arabian wild, which is adjured with “Iron, O Devil!” it did not even remove our hats. The pillars, which spread out at the top like a stone-pine in Italy, may have been 200 feet high: some travellers, imitating the licence of Abyssinian Bruce, swell the altitude to 2000 yards.
As the gear wore out, so the loads fell with unpleasant persistency, making us plod slowly over good riding ground. In front rose a semicircular ridge, extending from north, viâ east, to south of the lake, and thickly studded with hills and cones. The map calls it Mý-vatns Sveit, the Mý-vatn district; our student corrupted it to “Sveinn” (puer), opposed to Stúlka, a lass. The latter reminded us of the Joe Miller attributed to the British sailor who understood why women were called “Snorers” (Señoras) in Spain, but could not explain their being “Stokers” in Iceland. This mild joke had power to comfort us whilst all manner of topographical details concerning Jörundr, Hlíðarfell, Búrfell, Hvannfell, Sighvatr, and Bláfjall, were poured into our dull and dusty ears. We halted for a few minutes at the little farm Eystrasel, and then pushed forward to the solfatara. After threading the Námaskarð, where the air was not balsam, we sighted the lake, one of the ugliest features of its pretty kind; and at 8.30 P.M., preceding my companions, I rode in to our destination, Reykjahlið. The features here only named will be described at full length in the following chapter.