chair was all that the priest could furnish. The salary of this ecclesiastical pastor was only six rix dollars (or twentyfour shillings) a quarter, besides the fees for marriages and burials. He had, moreover, sonte glebe on which he kept live cows and some sheep. The female part of his family were chiefly occupied in knitting, in making butter and sour whey, which constitute almost their sole food, except in winter, when the severity of the weather and the want of hay oblige them to kill some of their cows, and sheep. This is almost the sole occasion on which they taste animal food.

The lake of Thingevalle is reckoned fifteen miles long, and from five to twelve miles wide.' The margin is 'every where flat and the water extremely shallow for a considerable way into the lake, but in some places the na tives cannot fathom the depth.' At the north-western extremity of the lake is the pass of Almannegiaa, a pro digious -chasm, which occupies a distinguished place amongst the curiosities of Iceland. This part of the country contains numerous fissures or holes, which continually oppose the progress of the traveller and render the way hazardous. Some of these fissures have snow and ice at the bottom.

Others contain the purest water that can possibly be conceived, but so deep, that in many places no bottom is to be found, yet so clear, that on throwing in a stone, its descent may be traced by the eye for a considerable length of time.'

These fissures appear to have some invisible communication with the lake of Thingevalle. A little herbage covers the intervals between the fissures. Cattle are sometimes sent to graze on these spots, but not without the oc casional loss of several of the animals. When our author was at a place called Middalr, the priest came out to offer any thing that his house would afford. The author re quested the use of some fire for culinary purposes. After our traveller's attendant had been for a considerable time absent cooking the dinner, he began to be rather impatient, and begged to be shown into the kitchen to see if any thing had happened.

I was conducted thither," says he, by a female who took hold of my hand, and led me through a dark passage and a bed room, where there was but a small portion of light admitted from an aperture in the roof, into the cooking room, whence so much smoke was rushing out through the sleeping room, as the only vent, that I hesitated about proceeding, till I found myself dragged in. I with difficulty discovered two or three filthy females sitting on the ground, or on some broken chests, and in

the middle of them Jacob upon the bare earth. A fire was also on the ground between his legs, over which he held some fish cut in slices, in the fryingpan, an article which caused considerable astonishment among the women. Close by him sat a pretty Icelandie girl, who had won Jacob's regards so much, that he every now and then, with his knife, turned out a slice of the fish for ber; while she, in return for every piece thus offered, rose from the ground, hugged him about the neck and kissed him? This innocent custom, in use both among the male and female Icelanders, upon the most trivial occasions, was here exemplified in a very strong and ludicrous manner, and so occupied the attention of Jacob (who, probably, mistook for a mark of affection, what, was in reality nothing more than an expression of gratitude), that I was obliged to tap the honest fellow on the shoulder, and remind him, that I had not yet had my dinner, and that I wished to have some of the fish saved for me. Before going out of the house, I was anxious to make some trifling present to the mistress of it, a little, dirty, ugly, old woman, by no means free from cutaneous diseases. I presented to her a snuffbox: but her modesty would at first only allow her to suppose that I meant the contents of it for her. As soon, however, as she was made to understand that the box, also, was to be included in the gift, I had the mortification to find myself, before I was aware of it, in the embraces of this grateful old lady, from which I extricated myself with all possible haste, and performed. a most copious ablution at the nearest stream.'

The priest of Middalr was obliged to add to his sacred calling that of a blacksmith, in order to eke out a miserable subsistence. The state of penury in which he lived may be conceived from the circumstance that some of his family eagerly picked up from the ground the heads and entrails of the fish which our author's servant threw away.

1

On the 18th of July, our author obtained the first view? of the mountain called Laugerfell, from which the Geysers spring. The lower part of Laugerfell

was formed into a number of mounds, composed of what appeared to be clay or coarse bolus, of various sizes: some of them were yellowish white, but the greater number of the colour of dulf red brick. Interspersed with them, here and there, lay pieces of rock, which had rolled, or been washed down by the rains, from the higher parts of the mountain. On these mounds, at irregu lar distances, and on all sides of me, were the apertures of boiling springs, from some of which were issuing spouts of water, from one to four feet in height; while in others, the water rose Hto higher than the top of the basin, or gently flowed over the margin. The orifices were of various dimensions, and either *covered on their sides and edge with a brownish siliceous crust, of the water only boiled through a hole in the mound, and be

came turbid by admixture with the soil, which coloured it either with red, dirty yellow, or grey. Upon the heated ground, in many places, were some extremely beautiful, though small, specimens of sulphuric efflorescence, the friability of which was such, that, in spite of the utmost care, I was not capable of preserving any in a good state."

Our author hastened to the loftiest column of steam, which is more particularly distinguished by the name of the Geyser. This rose from a circular mound of greater height than that which surrounded the other spring. On reaching the top of this mound, says the author,

I looked into the perfectly circular basin, which gradually shelved down' to the mouth of the pipe or crater in the centre, whence the water issued. This mouth lay about four or five feet below the edge of the basin, and proved, on my afterwards measuring it, to be as nearly as possible seventeen feet distant from it on every side; the greatest difference in the distance not being more than a foot. The inside was not rugged, like the outside; but apparently even, although rough to the touch, like a coarse file: it wholly wanted the little hillocks and the efflorescence of the exterior, and was merely covered with innumerable small tubercles, which, of themselves, were in many places polished smooth by the falling of the water upon them. It was not possible now to enter the basin, for it was filled nearly to the edge with water the most pellucid I ever beleid, in the centre of which was observable a slight ebullition, and a large, but not dense, body of steam, which, however, increased both in quantity and density from time to time, as often as the ebulli. tion was more violent. At nine o'clock I heard a hollow subterraneous noise, which was thrice repeated in the course of a few moments; the two last reports following each other more quickly than the first and second had done. It exactly resembled the distant firing of cannon, and was accompanied each time with a perceptible, though very slight, shaking of the earth; almost immediately after which, the boiling of the water increased together with the steam, and the whole was violently agitated. At first, the water only rolled without much noise over the edge of the basin, but this was almost instantly followed by a jet, which did not rise above ten or twelve feet, and merely forced up the water in the centre of the basin, but was attended with a loud roaring explosion: this jet fell as soon as it had reached its greatest height, and then the water flowed over the margin still more than before, and in less than half a minute a second jet was thrown up in a similar manner to the former, Another overflowing of the water succeeded, after which it immediately rushed down about three-fourths of the way into the basin.'

While our author was at this place, he prepared his dinner at one or other of the boiling springs. He found, that

it required twenty minutes to cook the quarter of an Icelandic sheep, not weighing more than six pounds, and extremely lean. His tent had been fixed near a pipe, or crater of considerable dimensions, in which he, for some time, observed nothing extraordinary. But he was informed, that the eruptions of this spring were sometimes more remarkable than those of the Geyser. Our author had the happiness to witness one or two of these aqueous explosions, which appear to have formed a most striking and interesting spectacle. For the space of an hour and half,

'an uninterrupted column of water was continually spouted out to the elevation of one hundred and fifty feet, with but little' variation, and in a body of seventeen feet in its widest diameter; and this was thrown up with such force and rapidity, that the column continued to nearly the very summit as compact in body and as regular in width and shape, as when it first issued from the pipe; a few feet only of the upper part breaking into spray, which was forced by a light wind on one side, so as to fall upon the ground at the distance of some paces from the aperture. The breeze, also, at times, carried the immense volumes of steam that accompanied the eruption to one side of the column of water, which was thus left open to full view, and we could clearly see its base partly surrounded by foam, caused by the column's striking against a projecting piece of rock, near the mouth of the crater; but thence to the upper part, nothing broke the regularly perpendicular line of the sides of the waterspout, and the sun shining upon it rendered it in some points of view of a dazzling brightness. Standing with our backs to the sup, and looking into the mouth of the pipe, we enjoyed the sight of a most brilliant assemblage of all the colours of the rainbow, caused by the decomposition of the solar rays passing through the shower of drops that was falling between us and the crater. After the water had risen to the vast height above described, I ventured to stand in the midst of the thickest of the shower of spray; where I remained till my clothes were all wetted through, but still scarcely felt that the water was warmer than my own temperature. On the other side of the spout, the column was so undivided, that, though upon the very brink of the crater, within a few inches of the water, I was neither wetted nor had 1 a fear of being scalded by any falling drops. Stones of the largest size that I could find, and great masses of the siliceous rock, which we threw into the crater, were instantly ejected by the force of the water, and though the latter were of so solid a nature as to require very hard blows from a large hammer, when I wanted to procure specimens, they were, nevertheless, by the violence of the explosion, shivered into small pieces, and carried up with amazing rapidity to the full height of, and fre... ·

quently higher than, the summit of the spout. One piece of light porous stone was cast at least twice as high as the water, and falling in the direction of the column, was met by it, and a second time forced up to a great height in the air.'

From the Geysers, Mr. Hooker proceeded towards Hecla. On the 17th of July, he discerned in the south-east this mountain rearing its head in the distance covered with snow more than half way down from the summit.'

6

"We had scarcely pitched our tents, when a handsome young widow of the name of Joneson, richly dressed in the Icelandic fashion, came down and invited us to her house, where she set before us some Ren, or rye pottage, in a turenne, and a basin of› cream and sugar. It was one of the best Icelandic houses I had ever entered, and was moreover in every part remarkable for its extreme cleanliness, in which respect our hostess was no less conspicuous. The rooms were wainscotted, and painted with 'The farm belonging to this house was reckoned a considerable one, and had several buildings appropriated to the use of cattle, but of these, the floors are never, covered with any sort of litter, so that the poor animals must have but a sorry bed on the bare rock.'

blue and red.'

At Scalhalt, Mr. Hooker beheld a deplorable case of elephantiasis in a poor woman, who was dreadfully cor roded by the disease, whilst her legs and hands were enor-, mously swollen. The latter were covered with a thick skin, lying in great wrinkles and almost white. From the hospitable mansion of Madame Joneson, Mr. Hooker was preparing to set out for Hecla, when the people, whom he had sent for as his guides, declared, that owing to the state of the morasses and of the weather, they would not undertake to conduct him to that spot. He found it vain' to contend with the apprehensions of these people, and therefore was compelled, against his inclination, to desist from this enterprize, and return to Reikevig.

After his return to Reikevig, our author visited the sulphureous springs at Kreisevig, of which he has given a minute and interesting description. Mr. Hooker next visited the Tatsroed, or chief magistrate of Iceland at Inderholme, the district of Borgafiord. He stopped at the end of his first day's journey at the foot of the mountain Skoula-fiel. Here he noticed the first and single exception to. the uniform hospitality which in all his excursions he had hitherto experienced. He had been liberally furnished with milk, fuel, or whatever the house contained, with the greatest cheerfulness and with the strongest marks of welcome.' And

* even,' says the author, if I remained for some days in one