Having crossed the ferry, my attention was arrested by a small crater orgjà (chasm), as the natives called it, which had opened in the plain about two miles to the west; it was an ancient vent, named Hrossaberg, and many similar to it occur in the plain of the Mývatns Örœfí. The fissures which had erupted in the spring were of a like nature, and the heated lava from them we could just perceive farther to the west, looking like a black bank, while from it little clouds of steam were occasionally rising, and a thinnish, darker vapour overshadowed it; and even at the distance we stood from it pungent exhalations were perceptible. We continued on our way towards Herðubreið in a southerly direction, over a desert of sand and lava streams which had intersected and flowed over one another, but my foot still greatly inconvenienced me, though I had given it entire rest during my stay at Grímstaðir. At five A.M. we stopped for half-an-hour to let the horses refresh themselves at a patch of wild oats which here grew rather abundantly in patches, generally in shape and size rather resembling ordinary haycocks, so that in the distance they often made the plain appear as if it were covered with hay in cocks all ready for carting. The peculiarity of their form is doubtless due to the roots that protect the sand in which they grow, while the sand on the surface of the surrounding plain is being constantly swept away by the wind.
We were now in a line west of the hills of Grímsfjall, which are not marked upon Olsen’s map. We pursued our journey with the morning sun, and it is surprising what an effect the sunlight has upon one, to refresh, cheer, and revive one’s strength. I have often remarked (and others have told me they have done the same) that, when travelling all night, the sensation of weakness and weariness is most felt between the hours of one and three o’clock in the morning, but as soon as the sun appears there is a consciousness of refreshment almost as though one had slept.
We perceived a small quantity of steam, perhaps from a hot spring or a fissure in the lava, about seven miles to our west, but I could not spare time to inspect it.
We next reached the Grafalandá, which is a small river taking its rise north-west of Herðubreið, and flows north-east into the Jökulsá. This water no doubt comes from patches of snow upon the Dyngjufjöll, the Trölladýngjur mountains and Herðubreið, and as is generally the case around these mountains, loses itself in the sand and lava at their base to reappear as a stream when it can no longer find a subterranean passage. The banks of this stream were covered with dwarf birch and salix, but the larger wood was dead, and this would seem to show that the woods were more extensive and of a stronger growth in bygone years than at the present time. I have observed this in other parts of Iceland. There was also here an abundance of grass, making it an excellent halting place for anyone desirous of exploring the adjacent mountains. It was in this vicinity, tradition tells us, that the last of the Icelandic outlaws found a shelter, and, as late as a hundred years ago, one man, named Eyvindr, lived here for a considerable time, and a cave in the north of Herðubreið hill memorialises his handy-work, in the shape of a horse carved upon its roof or walls. He appears, however, to have been by no means of terrible character, and was in great favour with the country people.
We next moved on to the river Lindá, about four miles in advance, and three miles north-east of Herðubreið. Here there was good grass for the horses, and angelica grew abundantly, and the stems and roots of it were very acceptable and refreshing in a region so void of vegetable life as this. I wonder the inhabitants do not more cultivate it in their gardens, for I believe it would be quite possible for them to acquire a national fondness for it as a staple article of vegetable diet.
A short trudge over the lava brought us level with Herðubreið, and here we soon began to observe signs of the volcano in the Dyngjufjöll in the shape of the peculiar vitreous pumice I have before mentioned.
Weary, weary work for sore feet this pumice-deluged country. Many masses were four or five feet in circumference, but the majority varied from the size of a man’s hand to that of a wine cork. In many places it had drifted into huge beds, which was bad enough for us to travel over, but it was still worse for the poor horses, who seemed much fatigued with their journey. In ascending and descending these large cinder heaps, great quantities would often suddenly shift, leaving us deeper than our knees in dust and pumice. We were steering west of the course we had taken from the Vatna Jökull, and the pumice was thicker than we had yet found it; while occasionally we met with round white masses of lava glazed over upon the outside, but when broken they disclosed a highly vesicular nature in their interior. This stony shower must have been appalling, especially when accompanied by darkness, floods of scalding water, and mephitic vapours.
The dust occasioned by our progress was excessively trying to the eyes, and even penetrated our clothes. In many places floods of water had evidently flowed from the direction of the volcano. The pumice was rapidly decomposing under the action of the atmosphere, especially where it was wet, and a great deal of it appeared to have been ejected in a wet state, and had since absorbed a kind of wet earthy matter, which seemed materially to assist its decomposition. These floods of water from volcanoes which are neither glacial nor snow-capped mountains, can only be explained in two ways, either by supposing the water to have accumulated as a subterranean lake in the chimney of the volcano, or that it was previously entangled in the very elements of the matter ejected. We were now leaving the Vaðalda hills to the east, and we could see by what a tortuous course we had travelled by keeping so close to the river Jökulsá on our journey to Grímstaðir. At two A.M. we rested and gave the horses some hay, for they were very tired, and most of my men had scarcely recovered from their long march. After an hour’s rest, we again moved on; the men were suffering much from thirst, for Icelanders drink more water when on a walking expedition than any people I ever met with, which I suppose is because they are accustomed to consume a great quantity of milk when at home.
The pumice became finer and less deep as we advanced, and remembering it had fallen in the winter, I dug through it to reach the snow, which greatly relieved our thirst. We were now between the Vaðalda and the Dyngjufjöll mountains, and from the top of a lava field, almost buried beneath the pumice, we beheld the broad sand plain we had crossed upon our journey from the Vatna. I here noticed some rounded masses of lava, which were just the reverse of the bombs I had seen before, being harder and more compact in the centre than upon the exterior. The pumice now grew less and less, and a gentle slope brought us to the sand plain; so, having deposited our loads about one mile south-east of the Askja, and two west of the southern extremity of the Vaðalda, I despatched two men with the horses to seek the remainder of the belongings we had left a week before upon the sand, about four miles away to the S.S.E.
We then pitched by the side of three or four large shallow pools of water, formed by several small streams which here run from the Dyngjufjöll and lose themselves in the sand, re-appearing, as I have before described, as the Svartá, a few miles to the S.S.E.