Across Iceland

by W. Bisiker

Towards morning a gale of wind struck us, and threatened to blow our tents into the lake. Fortunately the tents and their cords were sound, and the pegs driven well into the ground, so we escaped the discomfort of a sudden exposure to wind and weather.

Next day we reverted to the usual habit of starting late; but on this occasion it was excusable, for our dinner, or supper, or whatever name may be applied to our third meal, was not finished till past 1 a.m., so a start at 1 p.m. was not so late as it appeared. As it was difficult to draw a line between day and night, an hour or two one way or the other did not matter very much.

Some of our party had hurts which they nursed tenderly: the "nautical adviser" had a knee, Thomas a side, and so on; and great was the consumption of "Elliman's" and "Homocea," advantage being taken of the halts to rub in one or other of these remedies for ills of all kinds; but the "nautical adviser" and Thomas did not seem to take much heed of their hurts when they were in the saddle, for they rode hard enough over the rough moraines that we crossed. At first our course lay over soft peaty ground, but afterwards we were obliged to pick our way over expanses of great boulders. We had to ascend for a while, but suddenly, from the ridge at the highest point in our ascent, there was opened to us a fine panoramic view of two of Iceland's great ice-fields, Hoff Jökull and Lang Jökull. A number of prominent peaks stood out boldly, chief among them being Hrutafell, Skeljafiall, Kjalfell, and those of Kerlingarfjöll.

Our next experience was in crossing a wind-blown sand desert, where the wind blew the sand in clouds across our path and we had ocular demonstration of the work performed in such regions by the wind, where great clouds of sand sweep onward day after day, encroaching upon the land and continually altering the surface features. Although this is a genuine sandr it is not so marked on the maps. We covered several miles before we got clear of this sandblown desert and entered a region of ordinary moraine matter.

After lunching beside a small brook we continued over the moraine to the river Strangákvisl. The pack had gone on ahead while we were at lunch, but one guide was left behind to pilot us across the river, which is noted for the number of quicksands in its bed. There is a considerable spice of danger in crossing these quicksand rivers, for a pony sometimes gets into the soft treacherous bottom, and the rider runs the risk of a ducking, even if nothing more serious happens. The guides have a wholesome dread of the rivers where quicksands are known to exist, and not without due cause. No definite and fixed course can be taken—the quicksands are always changing their positions. The guide went first, as usual, and we were preparing to follow, when suddenly we saw his pony falter and then plunge wildly as he sank into soft sand. The guide was about to jump into the water in order to relieve the pony, and to distribute the weight over a greater area—this is always done as soon as the nature of the bottom is ascertained—when the pony struggled upon a hard bottom and righted himself. Another course was then chosen, and we all got over without finding any quicksand.

A succession of moraines brought us to the banks of a broad river, the Blandá, having several channels and a reputation for quicksands. By this time we had caught up the pack-train, but we waited while it crossed the river, one guide staying behind to pilot us after the pack had safely accomplished the crossing. The guide marked with big stones the point of entrance and then watched intently—as did we all—the passage of the river by the pack. It was forded, however, without misadventure, so we followed carefully in the track pursued by the train. The conductor's pony slipped in the middle of the river and nearly threw his rider into the water, but a quick recovery by the pony prevented a disagreeable wetting and an uncomfortable ride. We had a third river to cross before the day's fording was over. A quantity of moraine and hummocky land intervened, but that was traversed without incident worth recording. The third river is a second Blandá, a branch of the other Blandá; it is really the main river whose proper name is the Beljandi, but the people do not recognise that name, or so speak of it. Although not a quicksand river, most members of the party narrowly escaped coming to grief. It was very deep at the start, and there were some deeper holes not far from the bank; it had to be entered at a very sharp angle, and with a bit of a drop close to the steep bank. Miss Hastie was the first nearly to come to grief: her pony suddenly dived into one of the deep holes, and she herself was taking a header when her pony made a wonderful recovery from its plunge into the hole, and set her straight again; she, however, was unfortunate in straining her side, but she afterwards pluckily kept on the way; all the others following, with one exception, got into one or another of the deep holes; but they all escaped complete submersion, though wetted about legs and feet. I was the exception, for I was riding last—a position that enabled me to profit by the misfortunes of the others and avoid all the holes. I had a way frequently of bringing up the rear, because of stoppages made to take passing shots with camera at things of interest. This camera was always strapped to one of the rings of my saddle, where, on a comfortable pad on the off-side, it rode in safety—except when I happened to bring my whip down heavily upon it instead of upon the pony. The result of these stoppages was, that there was sometimes a delay in the crossing of a river, or a wait at an awkward spot, or at a point of divergence. It often happened that in coming up with the main party, I found my companions shivering from the effects of inaction in a cold wind—the wind is cold when it blows from one of the ice-fields—and in a frame of mind that must have been affected by the wind, judging from the freezingly cold manner in which I was received.

After crossing the river, we continued along near to its banks for several miles. In a pool just below some small rapids, the only rapids we had seen, there were several swans. Our course lay, as usual, over moraine matter and hummocky land, but there was a big patch of black sand composed of fine lava particles that we had to cross. Thus we proceeded until reaching Hveravellir, our next camping-ground, where we found a complete change in the appearance of the country.

We seemed to have got clear of hummocks and boulders, and to have reached the margin of fairyland, for we found ourselves, with grass around, looking at a series of hot springs, fumaroles, and sinter terraces, down which azure blue water trickled, lodging in a number of basins in the terraces, and adding by its colour to the beauty of the scene. Visions of the delights of a natural warm bath rose before me as I looked upon the terraces, recalling the luxury of bathing at the Pink Terraces in New Zealand, before their destruction by the eruption of Mount Tarawera. There are many pleasures in anticipation, for we did not enjoy warm bathing here; we had none; the water was too hot and the basins too small—though there was one small pothole in which the water was not very hot, where one could, with the aid of a big sponge, imagine better things, for the water did not look clean and sparkling and blue as in other basins.

Miss Hastie might have had an awkward experience at the spring where she elected to perform her ablutions, of whose periodical activity she was at the time unaware. During breakfast, one of the guides informed us that the small geyser Miss Hastie had been using as her hot-water tap had "gone off." Subsequent experience proved such pools untrustworthy for washing of any kind. A number of handkerchiefs left by themselves to soak were found an hour or two later making their way down an escape hole in the basin, and one that had been entirely absorbed by suction was not returned during a subsequent eruption by the dishonest geyser.

We erected our tents beside a blue warm-water stream facing the sinter terraces, and as the next day was Sunday, we camped there for two nights. We all took a number of photographs of the terraces and the hot springs, and tried to catch the small geysers when they erupted, as with a few exceptions they did at short intervals; it is true that the eruption was not very violent, and the water was not thrown to a great height, three feet, perhaps, being the maximum.