In due time the “Queen” arrived, and I bade Iceland and Icelandic friends farewell, feeling satisfied with my summer’s work, and consoling myself with the thought that I had accomplished the little piece of “utter folly” I had thrice undertaken. I resignedly committed myself to the evils of sea-sickness, from which I had scarcely recovered when we arrived at Edinburgh, two days before the Diana, which had sailed from Reykjavík a day before the Queen. Here I accepted the hospitality of Mr. Slimond, of Leith, and greatly enjoyed British fare and a relapse into civilization.
“Ah!” my reader may say with a smile, “after all the toil and trouble undertaken the wonders seen could not have been worth the toil and privation.” My readers, like myself, must by this time have grown somewhat weary of the eternal repetition of lava, pumice, &c., &c., and therefore we will mutually congratulate ourselves upon being able to vary the subject with reference to scenes and subjects more lively and civilized; but I must most respectfully demur to that conclusion, for if the general aspect of nature throughout Iceland be dreary and wild, there is also plenty to reward a man of scientific and athletic inclinations. Indeed the same tiresome pumice and lava and sand, when placed beneath the power of the microscope, is found to possess such wonders and exquisite beauty of form, that the beholder is struck with admiration and astonishment to find so much perfection treasured up in such rough settings, giving material for many an hour of patient study and enjoyment which has alone fully compensated for the hardships of the journey across the Vatna Jökull.
APPENDIX.
It may now be as well to take a retrospective view of Iceland to determine the opinion we have formed of the Icelanders themselves, and sum up the leading physical features and characteristics of the country. Iceland, apart from its historical and literary fame, which it is not our purpose to consider, is of especial interest to the geologist and the physical geographer. It lies almost at the northern extremity of the great volcanic line which skirts the extreme west of the Old World, extending from the island of Jan-Mayen in the Arctic Ocean, through Iceland, the Faroe Isles, Great Britain, the Madeiras, the Azores, the Canaries, along the west coast of Africa, right away down to the Antarctic island of Tristan d’Acunha; and its equal as a centre of volcanic activity can alone be found amongst the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The peculiar manner in which we here find ice and snow mixed up with the igneous productions of its volcanoes imparts a grim beauty to its scenery, that I can well imagine we might travel the whole world over without seeing surpassed. A very short sojourn amongst the weird rocks of Iceland arouses that latent superstition which will lurk in the minds of even the most materialistic, and while we laugh at the mythological credulity of the ancient Icelanders, we cannot help acknowledging that a more fitting place to create an implicit belief in wraiths and demons could not possibly be found, all the way from the elf and pixy dancing amongst the timid flowers, whose bright eyes peep from sheltered rocks in ancient lava streams, to the hobgoblin and the ghoul, moaning and shrieking and performing their nameless deeds upon blasted peaks and barren mountain-tops, where fire strives with frost.
This remarkable little island was colonized 1002 years ago by Norwegians, though its earliest settlement is involved in some obscurity. It afterwards became subject to Denmark, until the year before last, when it received its legislative freedom. The Icelanders are upon the whole a harmless, struggling race, and like most other nations that have been unable to draw upon the arteries of other countries for renewed vitality, are encumbered with that contentment which, however conducive it may be to domestic ease, is fatal to advancement. The last twelve months, however, have introduced the element of enterprise which before was only conspicuous by its absence. This may result from their newly-acquired liberties or the reflective influence of emigration; at any rate it augurs well for Iceland, whose emigrants have already shown that the Icelander contains a good deal of the right sort of stuff in his composition, and the determined pluck of those who accompanied me across the Vatna Jökull shows us that the spirit of their Viking forefathers, who visited both Greenland and America long before the birth of Columbus, is not yet extinct. Pre-eminently perhaps in the Icelanders’ character stands love for his country. It is a remarkable fact that the more barren and unfruitful a country is, the stronger seems to be the attachment and love of the sons of its soil. This trait appears very strongly in the Icelanders’ national song, the first stanza of which runs thus—
“World old Iceland, beloved fosterland,
As long as the ocean girds our shores,