The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-06-11
ICELAND.
Its Scenery and Its People The Home Of
Desc n atiOn.


country, which is becoming interesting
to Americans through the immigration
of considerable number of its inhabl-
tants to our more kindly cline.
Iceland i most easily described by |
negatives. There are no trees, though |
apparently there were plenty in the
tenth century, when we hear of men
hiding among them and being hanged
from them. No toru is grown, nor any |
other crop, except few turnips 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 tie rem |
deer-the hitter introduced about cen
tury ago, and still uncommon, ranging |
over the desert mountains. There Is no |
town except the capital city OF 500
people, no other place deserving to be !
called even village, unless 1t bo the
hamlet of Akureyri, on the shore OF the
Arctic ocean, with some fifty houses
no inn (savo one in that village whose
resources consist of two beds, a single
Jug and basin, and q billiard. table,; no
hens, ducks or geese except Wild geese,
no pigs, no donkevs, no roads, no car
riages, no shops, no manufactures, no
dissenters from the established Luther
anism, no army, navy, volunteers, or
other guardians of public order except
one policeman i'll ReykIavikl no rrlml-
nails, only two lawyers and finally no
snakes "What, then, is there 2
Snow mountains, glaciers, hot springs,
volcanoes, earthquakes, northern lights,
ravens, morasses, and above all, deserts
Or rathel- tlcfe is the desert For
Iceland d-and this is n point which none
of the books of travel bring out-lce-
land is really one va desert fringcd by
belt of pasture land which lies along
the note level parts of the coast, and
here and there runs up the valleys "
the great rivers into the interior And
desert in Iceland does not mean mere
ly land waste and solitary, such as
| large parts of Scotland and Ireland
have become tespecaIlY since deer Tor
ests grew so prOiltablel, but IHud that
has always Teen and will always be
dcsolatc bare and drear, treelcss,
shrubless, grassless, where not sheep
or pony can browse, and where by con
scuuence man can never plant his dwell
ing. Of this great central space part
is occupied by glacicrs and snow ields'
One tremendous mass, out OF which the
hircst penks Cf the island rise, covers
an area of some four thDnNnnd square
miles, has never Decn crossed, and
never will be. The mountains are
not very high; but then the level
of the perpetual snow ~ only some
| 1000 feet above TIE son, and the larger
/ glaciers desclrd nlm"st 70 the sHn-l'7eI.
| Other parts are filled by volcanic iioun-
tains surrounded by fields Of rugged
lava, sometimes like the great Odaoa
Hraun, spreading over hundreds OF
miles, and not only ha"ren "nt water
less. The rest is i'm unduIating waste
of black volcanic sands and pebbles, or
perhaps what is most dismal OF all, an
r,nonse of bare earth strewed with
loose blocks of stone, from among which
no herb Strings, over which The nimble
pony can hardly pick its way. On the
lava fields one may have Mt least shrub
let's of dwarf birch and ~il'ow. nest
ling, with few tiny ferns, IN the chlnkS
and hollows of the mouldering rock, but
ON these stony wastes all is desolatlon
not n flower, not m insect, not bird,
cxcept the sotnbre raven, Odin's com
pauion, least of all 8 sign OF human
presence. A far leas imaginative people
than the Tcelanders might easily have
peopled such wilderness with trolls
and demOn'.
In Iceland the contrast between the
man and tho house he lives in is the
strongest possible, and oversets in de-
lighfful manner all ones English no
fiou, If fitness He is poor, to be sure,
moor in the sense OF ha2ihg very little
ready money-thcre is less money IN all
iceland thar in many an English coun
try town. But be is a person OF some
substance aud respectabllity. lie Is II
no danger of want; is the owner o
| horses, SheeH ard oxen, very likely o
A broad lands which his family has hell
for centuries. His pedigree not improh
e ably goes back further than that OF al
! but three families in England. He con
siders himself altogether your equal
$ behaves as such (thOugh he nov no Ion
: ger hesitates to receive some remunerH
+ ton for his hospitality, and such, Il
fact, he is. Along with certain wan
:. of finish in some of his personal habits
8 he has complete ease and independ
n ence of manner, and n simple courtesy
, which, ag it flows from this ease, ls III III
danger of being mistaken for seryllilty
. He 10 moreover. an educated man, who
u if n priest, speaks a little Latln, any
G how. perhaps n little Danish, ha
Il learnt pretty much all that the ISLAM
I has to teach him, and is certain to b
I familiar with the masterpieces OF hi
! own ancient literature. ltis the know
i edge of the Sagas that has more tina
ANYTHING else given measure OF eleVs
: ton as we'll MS culture to his mind.
> has stimulated his imagination, and nc
+ ded to his people and country sort {
e historical dignity which their poslt.l'o,
l. in the modern world could never entltl
!. them to. II has also cultivated h
g taste, given him turn for reading gen
i erally, made him capable OF taking
l. ideas. Few are the houses in lcelan
which do not contain library an
twice in spots of rather exceptions
i wretchedness, I found exceptional
GOOD ones-one chiefly of legal and III
i torical neatness. the other an excellei
u u collection of Sagas and poetry, in
u u lonely and mis iserable hovel at the fo
- of Hekla. II is a remarkable evident
!. o of the power of an old literature VINO
~ has struck deep root in the MINDS al
!e n affection of the people that, ever stint
! the golden days when that iterattll
~ ~ sprang up, there have not been wantin
70 except for about century and ma
10 10 before the reformation, poets as well
prose writers of substantial merit. III
r. last fifty years have produced sever
III ;lI ,oiua1 aud sn far "a the stro