CHAPTER XII
BARNAFOSS AND THE SURTSHELLIR CAVES
The sun had crossed the meridian next day before we left Reykholt. We had coffee with the minister and his wife, from whom we parted on the best possible terms; they and their children waved their adieux to us as we proceeded on our way up Reykholtsdal. We struck across towards the Hvitá, and soon came in sight of that river, a swift-flowing stream whose milky-white colour denoted that its source must be up in the snow-and ice-fields of the Jökulls. Along the Hvitá (white river) valley there were many evidences that the river had at one time been far wider, for up the valley sides several terraces marked levels at which alluvium had formerly been deposited. We lunched at Stori Ás, in view of the conical peaked mountain, Strutr, and Eyriks Jökull. We were then not far from the bridge that spans the Hvitá and affords communication between opposite sides of the river, so Miss Hastie and I walked on while Hannes and Jón were adjusting pack-saddles, etc. I came upon an interesting specimen of wind erosion at the top of a rise, where the sandy soil had been blown away from round a turf-covered mound. We passed through a small birch wood, but the trees were very diminutive, three to five feet being the average, with a few rather more; a photograph I took gives the impression of much greater height. On the opposite side of the river we could see recent lava, and on the hillside beyond, the farm-house of Gilsbakki. This lava had come from a considerable distance, for I traced its course from Gilsbakki, right away past the liparite mountain, Tunga, and beyond Strutr, where it divides and flows in two streams. This lava determines the courses of the principal rivers thereabouts, which flow along its edges.
A FOREST NEAR BARNAFOSS.
Just below the bridge a very remarkable sight is to be seen. For more than half a mile along the right bank of the river a series of cascades and waterfalls flow into it. The water issues from beneath the lava of which the steep bank is composed, and then flows down its side; it is a very striking proof of the great extent of some of the subterranean rivers. Just above the bridge there is a very fine fall in the Hvitá, known as Barnafoss; though fine, it cannot be compared with Gullfoss in grandeur, and the glory of this part of the river is the series of cascades on its right bank. The spot is supposed to have been named from the drowning of two children near the fall—Barnafoss, the children's waterfall; but the minister at Reykholt declared that the tale is not true, and that the name is more likely to have been corrupted from Bjarni, which is a man's name. It is worthy of note that the birch woods seem to flourish best in the decaying lava in the scoriaceous lava-fields; it also seems to do well in soil produced from liparite, for it grows high up on the east side of the liparite mountain, Tunga.
THE CASCADES AT BARNAFOSS.
At the Hvitá bridge the party split into two—Miss Hastie going on with Hannes to Gilsbakki, while Jón and I went along the left bank of the Hvitá past Husafell, thence onward across the river Kaldá, where we got among lava and birches. The birches were much of the same height as those in the Barnafoss wood, though I saw several that stood about seven to eight feet high. I took a photograph of one of them—one in which the wood had attained a thickness of some three or four inches; it was the finest specimen of a birch-tree that I saw in Iceland. There are bigger birches in the land, for I have seen a photograph of a clump of about a dozen that are over twenty feet in height, but they are in a particularly favoured spot on the eastern side of the island. I got Jón on his pony to stand while I photographed the wood through which we were passing, for it was a typical Icelandic forest. On crossing the next river, the Geitá, I found the lava much broken up and denuded, and there was spread over it a quantity of the alluvial pebbles that are brought down in times of heavy rains and melting ice by the rivers flowing from Lang Jökull—it is a sort of flood plain, in fact. This continued until we reached the Hvitá, but on the other side of it we once more found ourselves upon the unbroken rough lava. Close beside this river we came to a halt for the night at the farm-house of Kalmanstunga, which is situated in a very picturesque spot facing Lang Jökull, the glaciers and ice-fields of which are in full view; it has the liparite mountain, Tunga, and a portion of Eyriks Jökull on the right, and the extinct volcano, Strutr, on the left.