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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Footnote anchors are denoted by , and the two footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.

A superscript is denoted by ^x, for example Edw^d or C^o.

Basic fractions are displayed as 1/2 and 1/4 ; there are no other fractions in this book.

Icelandic names frequently have accented characters, and often have the 'eth' character which displays as ?.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

ACROSS THE VATNA J?KULL;

OR,

Scenes in Iceland;

BEING A DESCRIPTION OF HITHERTO UNKNOWN REGIONS.

WILLIAM LORD WATTS.

London: LONGMANS AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 1876.

LONDON: PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE AND WHITEFRIARS STREET.

THIS WORK

DEDICATED TO HIS ICELANDIC FRIENDS

W. L. WATTS.

PREFACE.

Having traversed several parts of Iceland concerning which nothing has hitherto been known, I have ventured to publish the few following pages, giving an account of my journey across the Vatna J?kull, and my visit to the volcanoes in the North of Iceland.

W. L. W.

No. 2. The ?skjugj? 88

Map of the Author's Routes from N?psta? to Reikjahl?? " 45

ERRATA.

ACROSS THE VATNA J?KULL.

Iceland again! Reykjav?k again! Here I am upon the same errand as in 1871 and 1874--foolhardiness and folly as it is denounced by some at home. I fancy I can see some of my worthy countrymen at ten o'clock in the morning, clad in dressing-gown and slippers, breakfast half finished, and a copy of some journal that has condescended to take notice of my little expedition in his hand. Umph! he says, 5,000 square miles of uninhabited country, a howling wilderness, nothing but volcanoes, ice, and snow--a man must be a fool to want to go there; no one ever has crossed this cold, desolate region, why, in the name of everything that is worth pounds, shillings, and pence, should any one be mad enough to want to do so now? It would be in vain to refer him to that element in the Anglo-Saxon, which especially longs to associate itself with the unknown; he scouts the idea of possible scientific results; no pulse would quicken in his frame because he stood where no mortal had planted his foot before. He sees it costs money, time, and labour. He thinks of the hard cash going out that might be advantageously invested ; he magnifies the risk a thousandfold, and stamps the whole concern as "utter folly." Well! well! let our worthy friend stop at home; it is his element. Only it would be as well if he did not go out of his way to anathematise an expedition which costs him not a farthing, which occupies not one moment of his time, and risks not a hair of his head. Everyone, it is said, is mad upon some point or another. Our worthy friend's mania may be, that he thinks he is specially called upon to spend his energies in breeding a superior race of poultry; mine may be to wander amongst unknown or unfrequented corners of the earth; but so long as I leave his chicken-house unmolested, I think he should leave off sneering at my wild peregrinations. But a truce to critical stay-at-homes, for we are again upon our travels.

We have endured the unstable liveliness of the old steam-ship "Diana," and have reached the little capital of Iceland again, to find most of our friends alive and well, and Paul Paulsen , who greets us with the cheering intelligence that our horses have been all provided, that our complement of men has been already hired, and that as soon as I have paid a few complimentary visits to my friends in Reykjav?k, he is ready to raise the shout of, "Forward to the snows of Vatna J?kull!"

Twelve hours are sufficient to effect my friendly purposes, and the evening after that upon which we landed a small boat full of boxes, saddles, and the necessary equipments for our long journey was lying alongside one of the little wooden landing-stages in front of the town. It was 8 P.M. before we made our appearance, escorted by a numerous party of Icelandic friends. As many as could do so, without inconvenience to the rowers, squeezed themselves into the little boat, and we departed amid the cheers of our friends and, I believe, the good wishes of all the inhabitants. Clear of the shore, we hoisted our sail and glided along at no inconsiderable pace towards the little farm of Laugarnes, at the east end of the bay, where our horses were awaiting us, while we enlivened our brief voyage by a Norse song or two, accompanied by an intermittent fantasia by friend Oddr G?slasson upon the French horn. We found our horses in as fair a condition as was possible for the time of year; but it saves an immense deal of trouble and some money if one knows of any person to be relied on, who can be entrusted with a commission to purchase horses previous to one's arrival, for we thus avoid not merely the harassing delay incidental to procuring these important necessaries for Icelandic travel, but the payment of a long price for the sorry animals which generally fall to the lot of the tourist, who must purchase a stud as soon as he has landed in the island. My horses had been procured from the south of Iceland; they cost from fifty to ninety dollars each, and were, upon the whole, I think, the finest set of horses I had ever seen in the country.

We next ascended the hills of Hengilsfjall. This volcano and its neighbours have given vent to numerous pre-historic eruptions, from which vast streams of lava have issued in various directions, not only having poured from the craters of the mountains themselves, but having welled up at various places in huge mamelonic forms. Near the summit of the mountains is a boiling spring, the medicinal properties of which are thought very highly of by the well-known Dr. Hjaltal?n, of Reykjav?k. In fine weather this part of the country must be very interesting, and even Loekjarbotn itself might not have looked so extra melancholy. In journeying through these centres of volcanic activity we cannot but be struck with the general lowness of the volcanoes in Iceland. This is doubtless owing to the number of vents which exist in close proximity to one another, so that the volcanic force, having piled up a certain amount of superincumbent matter, finds readier exit by bursting through the superficial overlying rocks in adjacent localities, which offered less resistance than the accumulated volcanic products which they themselves had previously erupted, or by availing themselves of some pre-existing point of disturbance which afforded them a readier escape. The evening found us at the small farm of Hraun, which impressed me more favourably than Loekjarbotn, although it was kept by a poor widow whose means were excessively limited.

Not having burdened myself with more provisions than I required for the Vatna J?kull alone, we were here again dependent upon the resources of the country, and although this is the worst time of year to travel without provisions in Iceland, still we fared not amiss, obtaining a sufficiency of rye cake, milk, and smoked mutton, which, without being very palatable, answered all the purpose of affording us a meal. Although we had employed a lad to watch our horses during the night, some of them were found astray in the morning. When travelling in this country, especially in the earlier part of the journey, it is by far the best to hire some one to watch the horses, rather than to hobble them while grazing, for, in the first place, even when hobbled, horses will stray a long way, and, very often, the only effect of hobbling is to prevent their picking out the best of the pasture, and one finds in the morning they have decamped just the same as if they had been turned out loose.

Having again got under weigh, we were soon upon the sandy shores of the ?lfus?. This river is formed by the confluent waters of the Hv?t? and the Sog, which unite, some twenty English miles from the point where they flow into the sea, forming a very large body of water. Here several seals were basking in the sun, and lying like pieces of rock within a hundred yards of our track, but upon our nearer approach they scrambled into the water with considerable agility. Eyrarbakki really means sandy bank; it is situated upon the east side of the ?lfus?, at the point where that river empties itself into the sea. Upon both sides of the ?lfus?, and on the west side in particular, are great stretches of black sand, while upon the west side these are grown over with wild oats, and the more one looks on the vast accumulation on the west of the river, the more one is struck with its magnitude. Its cause, however, is apparent.

At this point, huge lava streams, flowing down from the volcanoes upon the west side of the river, have obstructed the mud and sand brought down by the waters of that stream; where an immense bed of sand was formed, which diverted the course of the river, causing it to empty itself further to the east, leaving these huge accumulations of sand high and dry on the western side.

Having crossed the stream by means of a ferry, we found that the irons of all our pack-boxes required alteration, and we could not halt at a better place than Eyrarbakki to have them attended to. These irons, which attach the pack-box to the pack-saddle, are the nightmare of Icelandic travel; and travellers cannot be too particular in having them of the most careful construction, also of the best material possible; again, if anything be amiss with them, they should be always attended to at the earliest opportunity, or a breakdown is sure to occur in some inconvenient or outlandish place; and, but for the Icelanders' remarkable faculty for improvising ways and means, such occasions would cause a serious delay in a day's march. Eyrarbakki is one of the principal trading stations in the south of Iceland. It is situated upon a dreary sandbank, the view from which is most monotonous and depressing, while the wailing roar of the formidable breakers, which here extend a long distance out to sea, is melancholy in the extreme.

All along this portion of the shore, ancient lava streams have run out into the sea; but upon the land they are indiscernible, owing to the alluvium with which they are covered. The whole of the south coast, from Eyrarbakki to Pap?s, is rendered inaccessible to ships by shoals, sand-banks, and sunken rocks, and there is not an inlet during all that distance of some 200 miles which a ship could enter.

The weather cleared about 8 A.M. and we had a good view of Mount Hekla as we forded the West R?ng?. We stopped between the rivers East and West R?ng?, where we had to pay for one of the horses we were riding, for Paul had only brought it with him to Reykjav?k on sale or return. Here we took coffee, and next proceeded to Brei?a-b?lsta?r, where, as usual, we were received with great kindness and hospitality. After taking two hours' sleep, we pushed on to Holt, which we reached about 1 P.M. The day was half spent before we were again on our way; so we rode briskly to Sk?garfoss, one of the largest and most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland, where there is a very good farm, and the people are extremely thrifty. I suppose they had never been able to procure any of the legendary gold beneath the falls of Sk?garfoss, but they evidently manage to screw a tolerable amount out of travellers who come to admire its beauties.

On, on; past the ice cliffs of Eyjafjalla J?kull to Hei?i, where we were so kindly entertained last year. It was 10 P.M. when eight horses, which showed as though they wanted to graze, and two men, who looked as if they wanted to go to bed, drew up in front of this hospitable dwelling.

The farm is a poor one, though the good folks make the best of it. Their lives, like that of all the poorer Icelanders, must be one continuous struggle against poverty, inclement weather, and a fruitless soil. Yet they have a few sheep and cows upon the hillside; plenty of fish in the lake; and withal are contented. But their contentment is evidently of a very different kind to that which we noticed at Loekjarbotn; it manifestly results from a hope that their circumstances may be improved by domestic thrift, and good fortune with their flocks. Hopeful contentment differs from the contentment of despair in this respect, the one is cheerful and open to improvement, the other is sullen and so sunken in the slough of despondency as to have given up all hope of a change for the better, and thus to be incapable of availing itself of any propitious opportunity, if such should occur. One day's rest at Hei?i, and we mount again, directing our course eastward; riding swiftly over the arid waste of Myrdals Sandr, we reached the banks of the river Ku?a-flj?t. We find that this river, which we forded with considerable difficulty last year, could now only be crossed in boats. This shows how the unstable beds of Icelandic rivers shift and change about, transforming shallows into deep water, and creating sand-banks amid the deepest river channels.

We purchased of our ferryman some birds which were considered very good to eat. We stopped for the night at the farm of Kr?ki. The farmer, who had been previously hired to form one of my expedition across the Vatna J?kull, regaled us with swan's flesh, which much resembled tough beef; and, although eating it was rather hard work, it was certainly nutritious and palatable. The farmer, Olgi by name, had taken up shooting as his special hobby, and, in spite of his inefficient tools, a very profitable use he appeared to make of it, if we might judge from the numerous swan-skins which were drying outside his house, and the amount of swan's flesh that was being salted. The swans of Iceland are valuable on account of their down; the outer feathers are seldom of any good, for they are never pure white; the value of a swan skin is about one rix dollar, Danish. After a ramble amongst the lava which had flowed from the Skaptar J?kull during the remarkable eruption of 1783, we resumed our journey; the day was very hot--as much so as any July day in England. Passing the beautiful waterfall of Seljalandsfoss, which appeared in the bright sunlight like curtains of silvery foam upon the face of the dark basaltic cliffs, which here are about 200 feet in height, we arrived at the farm of H?rgsdalr. Here dwelt another of our "J?kull men" named Ey?lfur; he was one of the toughest, blithest-hearted, and most good-natured fellows I had ever come across.

The b?ndi was a relation of the farmer at N?psta?, whose farm, where I had received such kindly welcome in 1871 and 1874, was only half-a-day's journey eastward.

I found the farmer of H?rgsdalr, like his relative, extremely hospitable; taking a great interest in my expedition, and willing to give every assistance in his power.

The next day we ascended the Kaldbakkr, a mountain 2279 feet in height, in order to get a good look at the south side of the Vatna J?kull, which was directly to the north of it. Kaldbakkr is situated a few miles to the north of H?rgsdalr.

Accompanied by the farmer, we rode to the last patch of grass that was nearest the mountain, and, after a smart scramble, reached the summit. The J?kull looked decidedly whiter than I had ever seen it, but there was the same expanse of snow losing itself in the northern distance; pure, silent, dazzling, beautiful, and spotless, save where a few black peaks and uncouth masses of dark rock protruded through the frozen covering. These were scattered at long intervals across the unsullied snow-slopes, and clustered together in the south-west, where lies that portion of the Vatna known as the Skaptar J?kull. Harmless and guileless they looked in the morning sunshine; but they had vomited the lava which had desolated the plain below, and had given vent to the fiery force which from time to time had shaken Iceland to its very foundations! One peak to the north-west especially attracted my attention, on account of its height and its perfectly conical form, and my guide informed me that it had erupted on several occasions, and that the last outburst occurred about thirty years ago.

It was with no small satisfaction I arrived at the now familiar homestead of N?psta?, and received the usual glad welcome from the b?ndi Ay?lver, who had been expecting us. I again took up my quarters in the disused little church, which makes such a good storehouse for my friend Ay?lver, and such an excellent resting-place for chance travellers like myself. It seemed quite home-like as I tumbled into the little bed which had been improvised upon the boxes in the corner, and I experienced the comfortable feeling of being in my old place again as I ate my breakfast off and posted up my diary upon the antiquated communion table. Do not be shocked, good reader! all sanctity had long ago departed from this useful piece of furniture, and if we were to peep into the inside, we should find neither sacred utensils nor vestments; but simply the serviceable homespun garments of the b?ndi's wife.

The farm and the rocks behind it were but little altered since I first saw them four years ago. One year in N?psta? is much like its predecessor, and things go on, year after year, in just the same routine, except where the inevitable changes of life and death intervene. The people had altered the most, for of course they had grown older, and one or two faces were missing! Well, I have grown older, too--it is no good to stand dreaming. There is a bullock to be bought, butchered, and salted, preparatory to making it into "koefar," as the Icelanders call the kind of pemmican I make for my J?kull expeditions. Skin-bags and mocassins have to be procured; butter, bread, and stock-fish have to be sought after; in fact, the greater part of three weeks' provisions for six men must be collected from the neighbouring farms. We made the necessary arrangements, and settled that these various articles are to be ready for us in a week's time; we then deputed Paul's father to attend to the levying of our requisitions, and the payment for them. The ox was next slain, dissected, and salted, and we were again ready to start on our travels.

Some little difficulty was experienced in getting all into train, owing to the hurry all the farmers of this locality were in to get this year's wool to the store at Pap?s, which is situated four days' journey to the east; for tidings had been received that the ice of a portion of the Vatna J?kull, known as the Brei?amerkr had advanced to such an extent as to threaten the cutting off of all communication along the sea-shore, since the advance still continued. In consequence of this alarm every farmer was busy preparing the wool for market; steaming cauldrons were cleansing it from its grease, bands of sturdy Icelandic maidens were rinsing it in the clear water of the mountain streams--which are almost sure to be found in close proximity to the farms in this part of the country--patches of white wool were drying upon the ground, while the male part of the community were measuring it in quaint wooden baskets, packing it into sacks, and forming bundles of equal weight to balance on each side of the pack-horses. It would be a very serious thing, indeed, if the road to Pap?s were to be intercepted, as it would compel the dwellers in this district to journey to Eyrarbakki before they could exchange their produce for the necessaries they require. Leaving N?psta? behind us, we set out for the advancing glacier, and turned our faces towards the snowy slopes of ?roefa.

The S?la river, or N?psvatn, had to be crossed. It was deeper than I had before seen it, though its volume of water scarcely seemed to have increased. Its bed was changed to one of pebbles and quicksand. In 1871 it was of pebbles only, in 1874 it was black sand, in 1875 it is again pebbles and sand.

It was blowing hard from the east with heavy rain, but upon the west side of the mountain before us the sun was shining in the most tantalising manner, so that as we urged our horses along the heavy sands we were fain to fancy ourselves exploring those dazzling glaciers and snowy slopes which seemed to fascinate the sunshine and detain it from reaching us.

We were soon under the lee of the mountains before us. Sheltered from the wind and the storm, we could stop to admire the grand sweep from the ?roefa to the commencement of the Skei?ar? J?kull. Looking back at N?psta?, we saw it enwrapped in gloom, the clouds clustering round the L?magn?par, a mountain which seems to attract all the bad weather to N?psta? and the storm sat heavily upon the western portion of the plain of Skei?ar?r Sandr, which was exposed to the fury of the east winds.

Being thus fortified, we were taken to see a birch-tree upon the hill behind the farm. This tree might have been five-and-twenty feet in height, and it was considered the largest tree in this part of the island. There is, however, a considerable growth of bushy trees, principally birch, in the valley called N?psta?a-sk?gr down which the river S?la flows. It is by far the largest wood in the south of Iceland. N?psta?a-sk?gr is likewise remarkable for containing a breed of wild sheep, which belongs to our friend Ay?lver, who is the owner of the sk?gar, together with the valuable farm of N?psta?. There is also another patch of wood at the north-west base of ?roefa, which is of great use to Sv?nafell and the adjacent farms.

The hills behind Sv?nafell are basaltic; but as we proceeded further eastward, we soon found ourselves surrounded by the more recent products of the volcano ?roefa, which towered above us upon our left hand. Seeing a party of horsemen approaching, we whipped our little drove together, and met them upon the grass which was a few hundred yards off.

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