Iceland has recently been granted Home Rule, but at the time of our visit the Althing consisted of two Houses—the Upper and the Lower. The Upper House was composed of twelve members, all of whom were Icelanders—six of these were appointed by the King of Denmark, the other six being elected by the people. The Lower House consisted of twenty-four members, all Icelanders, and all elected by the people. Each House had a President, who was elected by the members. The President had no vote, so in the Upper House the Icelanders always tried to elect a President from the members appointed by the King of Denmark in order to give the people's representatives a majority of six votes to five. The Governor, an Icelander appointed by the King, to whom he was answerable, had the right to sit in each House; he occupied a seat beside the presidential chair. The members of each House were elected for three sessions; but as the Houses met in every alternate year only, there was an election but once in six years. A Prime Minister was appointed by the King of Denmark, but he did not sit in either House; in fact, the Minister of two years ago had never been in Iceland. He was a Dane, residing in Copenhagen and knowing nothing of Iceland or its requirements except from report. The Prime Minister resembled our Colonial Secretary in his relations with our Colonies, though there was a difference in that he was nominally answerable to the Icelandic Althing as well as to the King of Denmark. Bills were presented in either House by the whole House, by a section of the House, or by an individual member. The Bills were read three times, and the House might go into Committee on a Bill at any time. The Committee might consist of three, five, or seven members in the Upper House—it was more often three and five—and of three, five, seven, or nine in the Lower House. Either House might reject a Bill passed by the other House. The King of Denmark, acting on the advice of the Icelandic Prime Minister, used to approve a Bill passed by both Houses, when it became law.
In the Althing there are no parties as we know them, for all the members are united on high politics, are republican in their feeling, and most anxious to retain their independence of action. The members often have differences of opinion about a particular Bill, of course. The session used to last for eight weeks only, and during that period the Houses sat daily (Sunday excepted), often having two sittings a day. The members assembled at mid-day, and if the business was not got through by four, they adjourned and met again at five. As the Althing met but once in two years, and the session was so short, there was a gap of a year and ten months when legislation was at a standstill. During that period, however, the members were often in communication one with another, and any Bills that it was desirable should be presented to the Althing at the next session were discussed in that way. The press was also the medium for the discussion of desirable legislation. As some of the members contributed to and wrote for the newspapers, the pros and cons of a particular Bill were often pretty well thrashed out before being presented to the Althing. Local affairs were managed by Sysselmen, or sheriffs, who had great powers vested in them.
When our party broke up, as it did the next day, I went on board the Bothnia to see off those who were leaving Iceland. The whole party had pulled so well together, and had been so successful, that we separated with feelings of regret that all could not proceed on further travels in the west of the island.
The day after the departure of those leaving Iceland, Miss Hastie and I visited Engey Island, one of the homes of the eider duck. On landing from a rowing-boat that had been hired to convey us from Reykjavik, a distance of two to three miles, we were delayed for a while by a heavy shower of rain. When it had abated we could find no one at the wharf able to speak English, so we made our way to the house of the owner of the island, for we had been informed at Reykjavik that we should find some one at Engey to point out the resorts of the ducks. We found there a young girl who could speak English very well. On learning our desires she at once offered to conduct us to the ducks, and led the way, accompanied by a sister, over a series of slippery stones and rough hummocks, to the ducks' nesting-ground. The season was almost over, so we did not see many birds in the nests. Most of the eggs had been hatched, and the parents had departed with their young, or else were swimming about in the waters around the island. Nevertheless a few birds still remained in their nests, and we found them comparatively tame; they were not quite undisturbed by our presence, though, for they moved away a few yards in an agitated state, leaving their young to blunder and stumble about all around. In vain we tried to keep the ducklings from wandering, but they would struggle out of the nest time after time, the mother walking round us the while with a watchful eye upon her brood. It is said that the down which the old birds pluck from their breasts to line the nests may be removed two or three times before they abandon them. Some of the nests, which were in the hollows between the hummocks, had bad eggs in them; so that, unless care was taken in moving from one hummock to another, a bad odour might make us aware that we had taken a false step. On returning to the house, the girls who had accompanied us showed the process of cleaning the eider-down. It is taken in handfuls and rubbed over a wire grating: the down clings to the wires, while the dirt falls through; the grating is reversed from time to time, and the down removed from the wires and rubbed repeatedly until properly cleaned and freed from dirt and foreign substances.
CHAPTER XI
IN THE WEST—TO REYKHOLT
We spent two days at Reykjavik before renewing our journeyings. We were a much reduced party, for instead of eleven persons in all, we only mustered five when, on the third day from our arrival at the capital, we set out once more. Miss Hastie and myself were all that remained of the old party, but we were joined by a young Icelandic medical student, Jón Rosenkranz, while we were accompanied by our old conductor as "guide, philosopher, and friend," and Hannes as guide. Jón we soon found to be of a sportive nature, and he never seemed happier than when something was not going right. When any of the pack strayed, he seemed to be quite in his element, for he would settle into his saddle with a bump and go helter-skelter over the country after the straying ones. Hannes was his especial butt, and though Hannes himself was a mine of dry humour, yet he at times took things very seriously, and it was then that Jón was in good form; his eyes would sparkle, and he would slyly endeavour to "take a rise" out of Hannes, though Hannes, as a rule, was quite equal to the occasion.