IN THE SURTSHELLIR CAVES NEAR THE ENTRANCE, SHOWING THE WATER-WORN LINES.
Jón and I were accompanied by the farmer from Kalmanstunga, a man acquainted with the caves, who had come with us in the capacity of guide. We scrambled down to the entrance and then lighted our candles. When once inside, there could be no doubt as to one of the causes of their existence or enlargement, for there along the sides of the caves, indicating the different levels of the old river, were numerous water-worn lines. The photograph shows this very clearly; it also shows the lava fragment bestrewn floor, and the roof from which the fragments have fallen. We followed our guide into the main channel, but he soon turned to the left into a branch known as the Bone Cave, because of the number of animal remains (bones) that bestrew the floor. It is said that some twenty to thirty outlaws at one time occupied the cave, and that the bones are the remains of the sheep and oxen which the outlaws stole from the flocks and herds in the neighbourhood, and which they consumed for food. That may have been so, or it may not, but it would account for the presence of the bones; except for some such tale it would be difficult to do so, for the animals could hardly have strayed so far from daylight, to say nothing of the difference of level between the floor of the main channel and that of the Bone Cave. This branch cave was soon explored, for in about two hundred yards the roof gradually converged to meet the floor, and we found it necessary to crawl on hands and knees—a painful thing to do over the rough angular lava blocks. Retracing our steps we descended to the old river-bed again and scrambled over rough boulders for a considerable distance, to emerge after awhile by a long rising snow slope into the open air. The snow remains in the caves all the year round; it drifts in through the opening during the winter, and the warmth of the whole summer's sun does not suffice to melt it—it was then the end of July.
The opening has been caused by the falling in of the roof, but there is no way out—the edges overhang quite beyond reach. On again we went, down another snow slope to the second section of the caves, where the "going" was indescribable. Our way lay over the roughest and sharpest-edged blocks of lava that it is possible to imagine, where nothing but the strongest of boots would have withstood the wear and tear; it was one continuous scramble on hands and feet. I found it most difficult, for in addition to the candle in my hands, a camera was slung from my shoulders, and the wretched thing would continually work round in front and get mixed up with arms or legs at critical moments when my body was contorted in scrambling up, down, or over, a particularly awkward series of sharp-edged boulders. At last we reached another long snow slope, at the top of which there was another opening to the caves—the second entrance already mentioned. The snow-drifts are not very deep in places, for I went through twice, though I was able to scramble out again without assistance.
The last section of the caves is most remarkable. After descending into it by another snow-drift, we found ourselves in a region of frost and ice. Water trickled everywhere from the roof, crystallising into long icicles, and the drops that fell upon the floor were converted into smooth ice, or gradually built up ice stalagmites. For several hundred yards the whole floor was coated with ice; there were myriads of icicles pendent from the roof, and on the floor stood ice stalagmites, pillars and columns innumerable. One of the first features to notice was a fine group of clear ice columns, while we came upon the most beautiful thing in the caves a little farther on, after descending an ice slope that was most difficult to negotiate without alpenstock and ice nails in boots. However, by the exercise of great care we got down without tumbles, and were rewarded by the sight of a very beautiful snow-white cascade of ice; the scene was very pretty and fairy-like, illumined as it was by the light shed upon the surroundings by our candles. It was after passing the cascade that the real difficulty of the journey began. For several hundred yards we had to make our way over countless lava boulders, but no longer were they sharp and angular, and rough to the touch; no, they were far otherwise, for they were coated with ice and were as smooth as glass, and oh, so cold! and as slippery as the proverbial glass, only more so, for no glass could be so slippery. Up and down we went at the slowest possible rate of progression, climbing over huge blocks of ice-coated lava, hanging on with hands to some of the ice stalagmites that, fortunately for our safety, were in hundreds—nay, thousands, and feeling cautiously with feet for projecting pieces of ice on which to rest them and get a sort of foothold; but our slips were many in the pitchy darkness that was but faintly relieved by the dull light from the candles we carried, which we clasped convulsively in our hands as we clutched at the icy stalagmites, and slid and slipped and blundered along. At last we emerged from the ice-bound region to find ourselves on scoriaceous lava, coated in places with a thin layer of a loamy deposit. Over this we crunched for a few hundred yards till we came to a cairn built in the middle of the cave. In a recess of the cairn there was a tin box, which the guide soon brought to our notice. It contained a number of visiting cards that had been left from time to time by tourists wishing to immortalise themselves, for this is one of the least visited of the "lions" of Iceland. On the top of the cairn, which stood nearly shoulder high, there was a wooden board, having on it a number of coins, ancient as well as modern, for one of them, a Danish coin, bears the date 1743. It is a time-honoured custom for visitors to leave a coin there; but as water drops from the roof upon the board containing the coins, they speedily decompose; indeed, many of them were already unrecognisable from decay. The end of the cave was but a short distance beyond, perhaps a hundred yards, and there two staves, about three feet long, with hollow ends, rested in an upright position on the floor at a spot where the roof and floor rapidly converged; they were kept in place by the sloping roof, which meets the floor a few yards beyond. In the hollows of the staves there were several old coins, one of them being a Danish piece about the size of an English crown. To get out of the caves we had to retrace our steps over the ice-covered boulders and through the Icicle Cave to the second entrance. The photograph shows the view looking towards the entrance just before ascending the snow slope; we had already passed most of the icicles, but on the floor, which is of ice, a few of the very small stalagmites are shown.
SURTSHELLIR—THE ICICLE CAVE.
In the Icicle Cave we met Miss Hastie and Hannes, who had come over from Gilsbakki because the day was so fine and summer-like—it was one of the few days that really felt summery. After lunch beside the Northingafljot we started for Gilsbakki, proceeding down the lava in the Northingafljot valley. We crossed the river at a convenient ford not far away, and rode along on the right side of the valley. We passed by the liparite mountain, Tunga, this time on the western side of it; the lower slopes were covered with birch, though it did not grow so far up as on the eastern side. The colouring of the bare exposed rock was brown, yellow, purple, etc.—just the same as that at the hot springs at Kerlingarfjöll, and it looked as if several places were the sites of hot springs, then extinct. I had no time to examine the mountain, but I should doubtless have found the matter quite hard, whereas that by the hot springs at Kerlingarfjöll was of the consistency of soft clay. Beyond Tunga, the Northingafljot lava joins that coming from the other side of the mountain in the Hvitá valley, and thence they continue as one flow down the Hvitá valley to just beyond Gilsbakki. We travelled for several miles beside the river Thorvaldsdalsá, and could not help noticing that it decreased in volume as we descended, although several streams flowed into it from the mountain-sides; its waters drain underground, and doubtless contribute to the falls on the right bank of the Hvitá, a few miles distant at Barnafoss.