Next morning I got a very good picture of the haymakers at Hjartharholt just before we set out for Statharhraun. We proceeded down the valley of the Northrá, passing, on the way to Stafholt, a number of scarped ridges of lava—these escarpments were on both sides of the river, which flowed in the depression between two of them; in the background was the conical peak of Baula, and just to the left of it a peculiar pyramidal hill formation. There are two ways from Hjartharholt to Statharhraun—one via a valley known as Vestri-Skarthsheithi, and the other, less interesting, by way of Stafholt and across the low swampy level country lying between the headlands at the end of the mountain ranges and the open sea of Faxafloi. Through a misunderstanding we started along the wrong route, and before the mistake was discovered we were well on the journey over the swamps.
A peculiar feature, common in the stony and sandy regions, must be mentioned. The surface of the ground often appears as if it had been laid out in a sort of rough design, for large stones are to be seen arranged in lines, forming irregular figures with sandy and stony matter between. The sandy waste regions in which this feature is common is known by the name melr, a word originally meaning "a kind of wild oat, especially bent grass, arundo arenaria, growing in sandy soil"; hence the term became applied to expanses of sand, or any waste place where melr might grow. The explanation of these irregular figures seems to be that the earth becomes dry during the summer, and cracks under the influence of the sun's heat; when rain falls, the particles of sand and small stones are separated from the larger lumps and drain into the cracks, leaving a network of the large stones to mark their site.
Another peculiar feature was often met with, not only in desert regions, but elsewhere. I refer to the hard-looking surfaces—apparently gravelly areas with a few stones in them—that are really a kind of bog. A pony comes to a halt on the edge of one of them, and sniffs; its rider, a new-comer, unused to the country, urges his beast onward, but as a rule it will not go. If it does consent to move on a few paces it suddenly sinks in, and then makes a wild endeavour at recovery. After one or two experiences of this kind, the new-comer sometimes thinks it better to allow the pony to have its own way, for it seems that it knows more about the country and the nature of the ground than its rider does.
Our journey across the swamps was not devoid of incident, for the ponies were continually sinking into the boggy ground and performing violent gymnastics in their endeavours to reach something more solid. We had some compensation farther on, for after crossing the river Langá we had to round the headland locally named Mular, a word that means simply a jutting crag or headland, being equivalent to the Scottish Mull. Here there are some very fine bold scarps of basalt having a number of hard and soft weathered dykes running through them, the former sticking out in places like horns; there was a quantity of birch scrub growing on the scree slopes (the talus) at the foot of the scarps. Thence we went on over broken lava and through birch scrub, past the entrance to the valley of Vestri-Skarthsheithi and the headland of Svarfholsmuli into the lava-filled valley of the Grjotá (Grjotardalr), where at Statharhraun we came to a halt.
For the next day I planned a circular journey which the local people soberly informed me would take twenty-four hours to cover. I wanted to see Vestri-Skarthsheithi, the valley that we had missed by coming across the swamps to Hjartharholt, and having formed the opinion that nothing like that time should be required, I strongly suspected that an endeavour was being made to "choke me off" the journey, and therefore announced my intention of trying whether it could be done in less time. We set out with only a moderate food-supply, which seemed to imply that Hannes did not consider the journey would occupy such a long time as that first estimated. We proceeded for some distance along the track that we had traversed the previous day, and rounded Svarfholsmuli, where just at the entrance to Vestri-Skarthsheithi we pulled up at Hraundalur to consult with the farmer as to the route. I obtained a very good picture of Hannes and the farmer when in consultation.
HANNES AND THE FARMER IN CONSULTATION.