The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

THE PRESS, AUGUST 15,1857,

intersected by patches of what was neither land nor water,
and last—the sullen sea, while above our heads a wind,
saturated with the damps of the Atlantic, went moaning
over the landscape. Yet this was Bessestad, the ancient
home of Snorro Sturleson I . .

On dismounting from our horses and entering the
house things began to look more cheery ; a dear old lady,
to whom we were successively presented by the rector,
received us with the air of a princess, ushered us into
her best room, made us sit down on the sofa—the place of
honour—and, assisted by her niece, a pale lily•like
maiden, named after Jul Hakon's Thora, proceeded to
serve us with hot coffee, rusks, and sweetmeats. At first
it used to give me a very disagreeable feeling to be waited
upon by the womankind of the household, and I was
always starting up and attempting to take the dishes out of
their hands, to their infinite surprise ; but now I have
succeeded in learning to accept their ministrations with the
same unembarrassed dignity as my neighbours. In the
end, indeed, I have rather got to like it, especially when
they are as pretty as Miss Thora.

• • •
•
Of the rooms and the interior arrangement of the
house [ do not know that I have anything particular to
tell you; they seemed to me like those of a good old.
fashioned farmhouse, the walls wainscoted with deal, and
the doors and staircase of the same material. A few
prints, a photograph, some book•shelves, one or two little
pictures, decorated the parlour, and a neat iron stove, and
massive chests of drawers, served to furnish it very com-
pletely. But you must not, I fear, take the drawing room
of Bessestad as an average specimen of the comfort of an
Icelandic inlericur. The greater proportion of the inhabi-
tants of the island live much more rudely. The walls of
only the more substantial farmsteads are wainscoted with
deal, or even partially screened with drift-wood. In most
houses the bare blozks of lava, pointed with moss, are left
in all their natural ruggedness. Instead of wood, the
rafters are made of the ribs of whales. The same room
but too often serves as the dining, sitting, and sleeping
place for the whole family ; a hole in the roof is the only
chimney, and a horse's skull the most luxurious/a/dealt
into which it is possible for them to induct a stranger.
The parquet is that originally laid down by Nature—the
beds are merely boxes filled with feathers cr seaweed—and
by all accounts the nightly packing is pretty close, and very
indiscriminate.

The threw chief " lions " of Iceland are
Hecla, the Geysers, and the plain of Thing-
valla ; Skapta Jokul, another volcano, would
take rank with them, but he is unapproach-
able even by dumpy levellers and theodolites.
lhe country, once tolerably prosperous, fertile,
and well cultivated, has never survived the
disasters which occurred in it during the last
century, having at its commencement lost
16,000 persons by smallpox, then 10,000 by
famine, and in 1783 9,000, besides 156,000
cattle, by the eruption of the last-named
mountain. On this occasion, thousands of
acres of pasturage were overwhelmed by sand
and lava to the depth of one hundred feet, the
grass withered on the plains, the fish perished
in the sea, and the island was enveloped for a
whole year in a thick canopy of cinder laden
cloud.

Lord Dufferin's description of the Geysers,
though vivid and picturesque, adds nothing to
the ideas derived from previous sources ; but
his account of the extraordinary tract of
Thingvalla is probably the best that has ap-
peared. It is too long for extract, and would
not bear condensation. But an idea may be
formed of it by imagining a broad flat volcanic,
crater—something like those in the moon—
seamed with deep perpendicular cracks like a
glacier, filled with clear green water expand-
ing at one part into a lake, and surrounded,
just within the cliffs which circumscribe its
area, by a continuous dyke or natural-sunk
wall, which interposes a chasm one hundred
feet in depth between the interior plain and
the higher tracts beyond. Lord Dufferin's
sketches, which are excellent throughout, will,
with his minute description, enable a reader
clearly to comprehend what is probably one
of the most unique localities in the world.

The traveller, though he had intended to
explore the whole island, accepted an offer
which Prince Napoleon made to take him in
tow to Jan Mayen. Unfortunately, however,
the Prince was obliged to return in conse-
quence of 1113 coal-tender having met with an
accident, and Lord Dufferirt proceeded alone
in search of that almost inaccessible island.
After two days of solid fog and ice•encum•
bered sea—
At last, about four in the morning, I fancied some
change was going to take place; the heavy wreaths of
vapour seemed to be imperceptibly separating, and in a
few minutes more the solid roof of grey suddenly split
asunder, and I beheld through the gap—thousands of feet
overhead, as if suspended in the crystal sky—a cone of
illuminated snow.

You can imagine my delight. It was really that of
an anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven.