Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-01-09
Iceland.

Remote and barren as 1t is, lceland
has one rare merit-that OF colncidihg'
70 some extent at least, with ones pre-
conceived impressions of it; for, as d
rule, travelling, like history, may oe
defined as the science which measures
the extent to which two men can diner
from each other, and both from the
truth. To most men. the men OF emma
coniure I'D a phantasmagoria OF tea'
chopsticks, pigtails, ivory carvings
wholesale beheading, and a diet alter
mating between birds'-nest and frlcas-
seed dog. That of India suggests
dim vision of gorgeous cities, all palaces
and pagodas, through which glittering
processions-consist chiefly Of white
elephants mounted by rajahs peppered
with diamonds-pass and repass all day
long, That of Russia brings with IL
confused tumble of snow, forests, wolves
boundless steppes, log-huts, sheepskln
frocks, fiogging to death, an omnlsclent
police, constant trotting of of innocent
men to Siberia, and a passionate but
abnormal love of eating candles; while
that of Orkney, Shetland, or Faroe'
conveys only vague outline OF " black
crags and lashing waves" in the fore
ground of which appears fantastically
attired man, indulgiDg in an apparently
aimless seesaw at the end of rope,
midway down precipice of six hundred
feet, with one eagle staring vacantly
in his face in front, and another pick
ing the buttons off his coat behind.
Bnt our first sight of Iceland, looming
spectrally through a shroud Of rising
mist, fully bears out the impression OF
grim and lonely desolation which its
name seems instinctively TO call up.
Not till three in the afternoon do the
dark pyramids of the mountains begin
TO define themselves through the break
ing clouds, and the whole panorama
arrays itself before US in all its rugged
grandeur. But here, instead of the
huge, rounded bluffs of Farce, are sharp
serrated ridges, following each other
all along the horizon like lashing 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 a
battle, and the leaden sky stoops sullen-
ly over them from above-a picture of
unmatched desolatiOn.
As we approach the mouth of Beruf-
jord (0ur first haltlng place, Reykjavik
itself being the second) the universal
dreariness of the landscape increases a
hundred-fold. In the calmest and
brightest weather there is always some
thing hard and stern about the far
North; but when seen, as now, beneath
the rolling clouds of a stormy evening,
its grimness becomes overwhelming.
Not tree, not shrub, 10 soften the
bare, bleak sides of innumerable noun
tains, heaving up their rocky slopes
against the cold, gray sky; not a sheep
nor COW on the few patches of grass
that linger in the clefts of this great
sepulchre 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, colorless
desolatiOn; an immense, crushing
silence; a sense of remoteness from the
living world-of being shut in by a
region where man comes only as an in
truder, yenturing rashly under the
destroying might of Natures tremen-
dous inaction. Amid such surroundings
one can well understand the feeling
which prompted the ancient Norseman
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.-Appletons Journal.