There is a spacious hotel, long kept by an eccentric Dane by the name of Jensen. It has recently changed hands. I have often heard it stated that he had no regular scale of prices but charged his guests according to his likes or dislikes. If the guest was winning, the genial Dane reduced the charge; but if the guest had been disagreeable, or in any way did not appeal to the fancy of the proprietor, then the price was raised. Whatever the truth of the report may be, one thing is certain, the host was genial, kept a good house, cared for his guests, and the prices, according to my experience, were reasonable. It is possible that his philosophy was correct, that the guest who makes unnecessary demands or is difficult to please should be the one to pay the extras, while the guest who takes what is provided, makes no special demands, considers the local conditions which obtain and demands no special service for himself at the expense of other guests, should be favored in the reckoning. I think Jensen’s method is correct. How he regarded us I do not know; suffice it to state that we had a good room with two beds and excellent food in a private dining room with the best of attention and that our bill for twenty-four hours was only the equivalent of two dollars for both of us.
There was one exception to our comfort at this hostelry, but this can not be charged to the eccentricity of the landlord. My bed seemed comfortable when I retired, but long before I went to sleep I found a hard bunch in the mattress that persisted in getting between my shoulders no matter how I twisted and turned. It was a narrow bed and afforded me no retreat from the offending bunch. I rose, stripped the bed, instituted a search and finally ripped open the mattress at the corner, worked that lump to the slit and pulled out a rooster’s head with the longest bill that was ever presented to me in Iceland. It had been pecking my shoulders persistently in spite of the fact that this rooster had fought his last fight many years since. If I had damaged the cover a little, I reasoned that I had avenged the sleeplessness of many a former occupant of this couch and was rendering a good service to future guests.
Akureyri is the home of the venerable poet, Matthias Jöckumsson, born in 1833, a lyric poet of the highest rank, who has also written excellent drama. It was our pleasure one day while fording the Heraðsvötn, District-Waters, to meet him. Riding off the little ferry he came to us with hat in hand and his white locks flowing in the wind. Holding out his right hand to us he said,—
“Welcome, strangers, to Iceland!”
At the far end of the city, in fact a continuation of the one street, is Oddeyri, Point of Land, under a different political jurisdiction from Akureyri. It is a busy place in the whaling and herring season and contains a large store operated by the Danish-Icelandic Trading Company. It has two banks and has recently become the center of the shipping interests by reason of its new wharf which enables steamers to discharge cargo without the use of lighters. The curing and rendering establishments in this town will repay a visit, unless one has strong olefactory objections. When the wind blows up the fiord there is no doubt as to the use to which the buildings on the extreme point of land north of the pier are put.
Leaving Akureyri we followed the west bank of the grand Eyjarfjörðr till we arrived at the Hörgá, Howe-River, whence we looked across the level meadows to the former location of the Agricultural College at Möðruvellir, Madder-Valley. The college is now located at Akureyri. It is sometimes a surprise to learn that there is such a college close to the Arctic Circle, but it has a good reason for its existence. There is need for training the farmers in methods of cattle, horse and sheep breeding, especially the latter, that they may win the best possible success in their struggle with adverse conditions. Jón Hjaltalin at one time was the head master of this school and he also did service in Edinburgh, Scotland, as a librarian.
The view across the valley is extensive and charming because the rugged and ragged features of the usual Icelandic landscape are softened by the river winding through the undulating meadows which roll upwards to the distance-softened ridges, while yet beyond, the crumbling cinder cones melt into the whiteness of the lofty Vindheima Jökull, Wind-Home-Glacier, and flashing in the sun,—
“A thousand rills
Come leaping from the mountain, each a fay,
Sweet singing then;