A Visit to Iceland [37]
It was to see a hot and slightly sulphurous spring, which falls into a river of cold water. By this lucky meeting of extremes, water can be obtained at any temperature, from the boiling almost to the freezing point. The townspeople take advantage of this good opportunity in two ways, for bathing and for washing clothes. The latter is undoubtedly the more important purpose of application, and a hut has been erected, in order to shield the poor people from wind and rain while they are at work. Formerly this hut was furnished with a good door and with glazed windows, and the key was kept at an appointed place in the town, whence any one might fetch it. But the servants and peasant girls were soon too lazy to go for the key; they burst open the lock, and smashed the windows, so that now the hut has a very ruinous appearance, and affords but little protection against the weather. How much alike mankind are every where, and how seldom they do right, except when it gives them no trouble, and then, unfortunately, there is not much merit to be ascribed to them, as their doing right is merely the result of a lucky chance! Many people also bring fish and potatoes, which they have only to lay in the hot water, and in a short time both are completely cooked.
This spring is but little used for the purpose of bathing; at most perhaps by a few children and peasants. Its medicinal virtues, if it possesses any, are completely unknown.
THE SULPHUR-SPRINGS AND SULPHUR-MOUNTAINS OF KRISUVIK.
The 4th of June was fixed for my departure. I had only to pack up some bread and cheese, sugar and coffee, then the horses were saddled, and at seven o'clock the journey was happily commenced. I was alone with my guide, who, like the rest of his class, could not be considered as a very favourable specimen of humanity. He was very lazy, exceedingly self-interested, and singularly loath to devote any part of his attention either to me or to the horses, preferring to concentrate it upon brandy, an article which can unfortunately be procured throughout the whole country.
I had already seen the district between Reikjavik and Havenfiord at my first arrival in Iceland. At the present advanced season of the year it wore a less gloomy aspect: strawberry-plants and violets,-- the former, however, without blossoms, and the latter inodorous,-- were springing up between the blocks of lava, together with beautiful ferns eight or ten inches high. In spite of the trifling distance, I noticed, as a rule, that vegetation was here more luxuriant than at Reikjavik; for at the latter place I had found no strawberry-plants, and the violets were not yet in blossom. This difference in the vegetation is, I think, to be ascribed to the high walls of lava existing in great abundance round Havenfiord; they protect the tender plants and ferns from the piercing winds. I noticed that both the grass and the plants before mentioned throve capitally in the little hollows formed by masses of lava.
A couple of miles beyond Havenfiord I saw the first birch-trees, which, however, did not exceed two or three feet in height, also some bilberry-plants. A number of little butterflies, all of one colour, and, as it seemed to me, of the same species, fluttered among the shrubs and plants.
The manifold forms and varied outline of the lava-fields present a remarkable and really a marvellous appearance. Short as this journey is--for ten hours are amply sufficient for the trip to Krisuvik,--it presents innumerable features for contemplation. I could only gaze and wonder. I forgot every thing around me, felt neither cold nor storm, and let my horse pick his way as slowly as he chose, so that I had once almost become separated from my guide.
One of the most considerable of the streams of lava lay in a spacious broad valley. The lava-stream itself, about two miles long, and of a considerable breadth, traversing the whole of the plain, seemed to have been called into existence by magic, as there was no mountain to be seen in the neighbourhood from which it could
This spring is but little used for the purpose of bathing; at most perhaps by a few children and peasants. Its medicinal virtues, if it possesses any, are completely unknown.
THE SULPHUR-SPRINGS AND SULPHUR-MOUNTAINS OF KRISUVIK.
The 4th of June was fixed for my departure. I had only to pack up some bread and cheese, sugar and coffee, then the horses were saddled, and at seven o'clock the journey was happily commenced. I was alone with my guide, who, like the rest of his class, could not be considered as a very favourable specimen of humanity. He was very lazy, exceedingly self-interested, and singularly loath to devote any part of his attention either to me or to the horses, preferring to concentrate it upon brandy, an article which can unfortunately be procured throughout the whole country.
I had already seen the district between Reikjavik and Havenfiord at my first arrival in Iceland. At the present advanced season of the year it wore a less gloomy aspect: strawberry-plants and violets,-- the former, however, without blossoms, and the latter inodorous,-- were springing up between the blocks of lava, together with beautiful ferns eight or ten inches high. In spite of the trifling distance, I noticed, as a rule, that vegetation was here more luxuriant than at Reikjavik; for at the latter place I had found no strawberry-plants, and the violets were not yet in blossom. This difference in the vegetation is, I think, to be ascribed to the high walls of lava existing in great abundance round Havenfiord; they protect the tender plants and ferns from the piercing winds. I noticed that both the grass and the plants before mentioned throve capitally in the little hollows formed by masses of lava.
A couple of miles beyond Havenfiord I saw the first birch-trees, which, however, did not exceed two or three feet in height, also some bilberry-plants. A number of little butterflies, all of one colour, and, as it seemed to me, of the same species, fluttered among the shrubs and plants.
The manifold forms and varied outline of the lava-fields present a remarkable and really a marvellous appearance. Short as this journey is--for ten hours are amply sufficient for the trip to Krisuvik,--it presents innumerable features for contemplation. I could only gaze and wonder. I forgot every thing around me, felt neither cold nor storm, and let my horse pick his way as slowly as he chose, so that I had once almost become separated from my guide.
One of the most considerable of the streams of lava lay in a spacious broad valley. The lava-stream itself, about two miles long, and of a considerable breadth, traversing the whole of the plain, seemed to have been called into existence by magic, as there was no mountain to be seen in the neighbourhood from which it could