Our work done, we made tracks for Hvitarvatn, the lake beside which we were to camp that night. To the river Svartá we traversed moraine matter; beyond the river, however, which we crossed, there was no moraine—nothing but the recent lava from Strytur, which quite covered the intervening country to the Falakvisl, a river that has carved its way along the other edge of the lava; on the far side there are great moraine hills. The Falakvisl is a deep, swift river, flowing between banks that are very high in places; it drains the valley between the ice of Lang Jökull and the outlying range north of the mountain Hrutafell, round which it flows, collecting the streams that run down from it and from the other mountains and hills south of the divide of Kjalhraun, the lava ridge by Strytur. This river discharges its waters into Lake Hvitarvatn, and we followed its course to within a mile or so of the point of discharge.
We found the camp beside the lake, about a mile from the water; there was no convenient camping-ground any nearer to it, for the intervening land was a mere swamp. We were in the midst of wonderful and magnificent surroundings. The lake was covered with innumerable icebergs—great lumps broken off from the edges of two great glaciers that flow from Lang Jökull to the water's edge on the far side of the lake. It was interesting to note the fact that the farther away the icebergs were from the glaciers the smaller they were, until on the margin of the lake where the water was not so cold they disappeared altogether. Facing us was a great basaltic mountain, Skrutharfell, set in between the two fine glaciers mentioned. To the left was the great solid mass of Bláfell (pronounced Blou-fettle, the á like ou in blouse), a mountain that had much snow covering its sides; to the right, Hrutafell reared its icy head high into the air; behind, there was the mountain range of Kerlingarfjöll. All this was affected by the gorgeousness of the sunset effects; the sun was descending behind the ice-flow, and lighting up ice and snow with the most wonderful colouring; it was a thing to be seen and remembered—to describe it in adequate terms is impossible.
The lake was the resort of many swans, which disturbed the slumbers of at least one member of the party, for they called and squawked in the most persistent manner through the small hours—I will not say of the night, for we were having twenty-four hours of daylight just then.
I was moving early next morning, for I intended to get to work at the plane-table, but the Fates were against me once more, this time in the shape of clouds which overhung the tops of Kerlingarfjöll and Hrutafell, completely hiding two of the points of those mountains that I required to sight in order to fix my position. I set up the plane-table, however, in the hope that the clouds would clear later on, and then took a boiling-point observation. After breakfast I waited in vain for an hour or two for the clouds to rise and the peaks to clear, for otherwise it was impossible to fix the position. The peaks were gradually clearing, but time was passing; we had a long day's journey before us, and a deep and dangerous river to ford on the way, so a guide could not well be spared to wait an hour or two until proper observations were possible. I had to make the best of it, so took sights on a separate sheet of paper to a number of points, hoping that eventually I should be able to complete. The peaks did clear at the last moment, and I took sights to them; but as there was not time to fix the position on the map itself and to take the other sights again, I did all that was possible under the circumstances, hoping that what had been done would fit in properly. On returning to England, I found the observations agreed very well with my previous work.
My work, so far as the map was concerned, was at an end. I cannot say that it was completed, for the time spent there was too short to permit of the whole of the country lying between Lang Jökull and Hoff Jökull being mapped. I had hoped to complete a map extending from Dufufell and Hveravellir in the north to the mountains of Kerlingarfjöll and the lake of Hvitarvatn to the south; but several things conspired to prevent my doing it full justice, the chief of which were that we were two days late in arriving at Hveravellir, and that the weather was not quite so good as it might have been.
It was about mid-day, if I remember rightly, when we got under way and proceeded along near the shore of the lake; we crossed the Svartá close by where it enters the lake, and at a point just below where the river falls over a ledge of hard rock ten to twelve feet high. We passed over great accumulations of moraine matter towards Bláfell, gradually rising until an excellent view of Hvitarvatn and the myriads of icebergs floating on its surface was obtained. So we proceeded until we came to the river Hvitá. This was one of our big rivers, and its crossing was a dangerous undertaking. The pack, as usual, showed the way and made a successful crossing. We stayed behind, for the purpose of photographing the pack when in mid-stream. The photograph that I took shows the pack-train right in the middle of the river. We followed, and crossed without any untoward incident occurring; the water was rather deep, and when in mid-stream it came up to our knees. At this river we saw a number of sheep swimming across, which is quite a common thing for them to do.
