The Portland daily press., 1874-07-07
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM IN ADVANCE
ICELAND is MOST EASILY DESCRIBED BY

ICELAND is MOST EASILY DESCRIBED BY
NEGATIvEs.-TEere are no trees, though ap-
parenlly there were plenty in the tenth cen
Jury, when we hear OF men hiding among
them and being hanged from them No corn
is grown, nor any other crop, except few
turnlps and potatoes which taste only half
ripe. The only wild quadrupeds are the
blue fox (who has probably come as the
white bear now and then does, on ice foes
from Greenland) and the Ieindeer-the latter
introduced about a century ago, an stil un-
common, ranging over the desert mountains.
There is no town except the capital, city of
lSOO people, no other place deserving 10 be
called even village, unless it be the hamlet
of Akureyri, on the sho.e OF the Arctic
ocean, with some fifty houses; no inns (saye
one in that village, whose resources consist
OF two beds, a single jug and basin. and
billiard tabc); no hens. ducks or geese lex
cept wild geese). no pigs. no doukeys, no
roads, no carriages, no shops, no manuiact-
ures, no dissenters from the established
Lutheranism, no army. navy, volunteers, or
other guardians OF public order (except one
policeman in Reykjavik), no criminals, only
two lawyers, and, finally, no snakes.
'What, then, is there?'' Snow mountains,
glaciers, hot springs volcanoes, earthquakes,
northern lights, ravnes, morasses, and,
above all, deserts. Or rather-there is the
which none of the books of travel bring out
Iceland is really one vast desert fringrd by
belt of pasture land which lies along the
more leve. parts OF the coast, and here and
there runs up the valleys of the great rivers
nto the interior. And desert in Ieelanl
does not mean merely land waste and sol
itary, such as large parts OF Scotland and
LELAND have become, but land thar has
always been and will always be desolate-
la md hara at,1 a u
less, where not sheep or pony can browse,
and where by consequence man can never
plant his dwelling. OF this great central
space part is occupied by glaciers and snow
fields. One tremendous mass, out of which
the highest peaks of the island rise, covers an
area OF some four thousand square miles, has
never been crossed, and never will be- The
mountains are rot very high; but then the
level of perpetual snow is only some 5000
feet above u fe sea, and the larger glaciers de-
scend almost to the sea-level. Other parts
are filled by volcanic mountains surrounded
by fields OF rugged lava, sometimes, like the
great Odaoa HIaun, spreading over hundreds
OF miles, and not only barren but waterless.
The rest IS an undulating waste of black vol
canlc sand and pebbles, or perhaps, what is
most dismal OF all, an eXpanse OF bare earth
strewed with loose bl.cks OF stone, from
amohg which no herb springs over which
The nimble pony can hardly PICK its way.
On tue lava fields one may have at least
shrublets of dwarf birch and willow, nesting
with few tiny ferns, in the chinks and hol-
lows of the mouldering rock, but on these
stony wastes all is desoalion-not flower,
not an insect. not bird, except the somber
raven, Odin's companion, least of all sign
Of human presence. A far less imaginative
people than the Icelanders might easily have
peopled such wilderness with trolls and
demons,-COrnhiU Mqgdziae.