The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-12-28
Iceland.

Remote and barren as it is, Iceland
has one rare merit-that of coinciding
TO some extent at least, with ones pre-.
conceived impressions of it.; for as a
rule, travelling, like history, may be lie.
fined as the science which measures the
extent to which two men can differ
from each other, and both from the
truth. TO most men, the name of Chi.
ma conjures up phantasmagoria of tea,
chopsticks, pigtails, ivory carvings,
wholesale behcadings, and q diet alter.
mating between bird d's-ncst and fricasscet
dog. That of India suggests a dim Wis
ion of gorgeous cities, all palaces and
pagodas, through which glittering pro-
ccssions-consisting chiefly ofwhitc ele-
plants mounted by rajahs pcppcred
with diamonds-pass and repass all day
long. That of Russia brings with il a
confused tumble of snow, forests.
wolves, boundlcss stcppes, log-huts,
shecpskin frocks, flogging to death, an
omniscicnt police, constant trotting
OIL OF innocent men to Siberia, and a
passionate but abnormal love of eating
candies; while that of Orkney, Shet-
land, or Farce, conveys only vague
outline of "black crags and lashino
waves,t' in the foreground ofwhich an,
pears fantastically-attircd man, in
dulging in an apparently aimless Sec
saw at the end of rope, midway down
prccipice of six hundred feet, with
one eagle staring vacantly in his face in
front, and another picking the buttons
off his coat behind.
But our first sight of Iceland. loom
ing spectrally through shroud of ris-
ing mist, fully bears out the impression
of grim and lonely dcsolation which its
name seems instinctively to call mn.
Not till three in the afternoon do thc
dark pyramids of the mountains begin
to define themselves through the break
ing clouds, and tine whole panorama ar
rays itself before us in all its rugged
grandeur. But here, instead of the
huge, rounded bluffs of Faroe, are
sharp, ,serrated ridges, following each
other all along the horizon like lashinp
waves, and upon their broad slopes the
snow lies deep and wide, and the sea
breaks at their feet in unresting spray !:
the clouds roll off them like the smoke
OF battle, and the leaden sky stoops
sullenly over them from above-a pic
ture of unmatched desolation.
And as we approach the mouth of
BerniJord (our first halting-place. Reyk-
javik itself being the second) the uni
versal dreariness of the landscape in
creases hundred-iold. In the calmest
and brightest weather there is always
something hard and stern about the far
North; but when seen, as now, beneath
the rolling clouds of stormy evening.
its grimneSs becomes overwhelming.
Not n tree, not shrub 10 soften the
bare, bleak sides of innumerablc noun
tains, heaving up their rocky slopes
against the cold, gray sky; moi sheep
nor cow on the few patches of grass
that lingcr in the clefts of this great
sepulchrc of Nature. The only living
things in the dreary panorama are the
seals which trail themselves heavily
over the low, black reefs which guard
the entrance of the ford. Gray sky
above, gray sea below; vast, colorlcss
desolation; an immense, crushing 81
lence; sense of remotcness from the
living world-of being shut i'm by re-
gion where man comes only as an in
trudcr, venturing rashly under the de-
stroying might of Natures tremendous
inaction. Amid such surroundings.
WRicG proMmpted dfffcrrSEi ffe ancient Norscmcn. semen.
whose whole life was one battle with
the destructive forces of the iron region
in which they lived, to choose as the
symbols of their creed the flaming
sword of Surtur and the rock-rendinS
hammer of Thor david Kcr, in APP
pleton's journal for January.