Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-15
NEW SUMMER PLACE
Iceland as a Resort for the
Hot Weather.
ISLANDS CHIEF CHARM
A REGION OF INTENSE INTEREST
AS WELL AS IT'S PEOPLE.
Natives Are q Primitive Race-Reag-
ion, Manners and Gus
toms.
ISLANDS CHIEF CHARM
Copyright. 1902, BY r. E. Clark

SHOW place In Iceland, and can be reached
In a couple OF days on pony back from the
geysers
AS one Of the great volcanoes Of the
world ranking with Vesuvius and Pelee in
it's destructive eruptions. it Is always Of
interest, though in its present quiet condi-
ton 1t Is not particularly impressive
mountain among the great hills Of the
world.
A trifle over 5000 feet high, treeless and
bare as is all the rest of Iceland, it does
not compare in beauty with our own Mount
Washington: in height impressiveness
with Mount Shasta or in symmetry and
grace Of outline with Mount Hood, Mount
Rainier or Mount st. Helens. Still. like
| many a rugged old man. who has had a
great and stirring history. we look upon
Mount Hecla for what II has been rather
than for what 1t is.
Seventeen eruptions have occurred within
the last 800 years, some OF them having
rivaled Mount Pelee in the awful convul-
sions of nature which attended them and
In the amount Of lava and ashes thrown
out. though some of them, fortunately, have
not been so terribly destructive Of human
life. since Iceland contained fewer people
to be destroyed and there was no great
town like ST. Pierre in the path Of the lava.
The last eruption began on the I'd Of
September. 1915: the smoke and ashes were
shot up three miles into the air, and vol
canic sand fell on the Shetland Islands, 500
miles to the south. For seven months this
eruption continued, and In those terrible
300 days nature seemed to exhaust herself
for time. for more than half century
has passed without another eruption,
though there was a flow of lava from
crevice in the mountain in 1878.
Heca is not a very difficult mountain to
climb, and, in less than two hours after
leaving the ponies one may find himself at
the top, with a glorious panorama seward
and landward spread out before him on
every side: the great yokulls or snow fields
glitterng like cities of glass and marble in
the sun. towering crags of distorted lava in
other places. and far out in the Southern
sea the dots Of Westman Islands and the
ripping waters beyond
But the chief charm to me in Iceland lies
not In the show places" unique and I'M
approachable In some ways, these are.
Neither Thingvellie, the geysers.
neither Hecla nor the roaring rapids Of the
Cullfoss. makes Iceland so well worth a
visit as some of the common, everyday
features Of life in this land that remove 1t
so far from the ordinary category of sum-
mer resorts.
Its scenery, it's people, it's history it's
aloofness from the rest Of the world, and
its wild life in the air and water give to
Iceland its peculiar charm.
If 1t had no Thngvellie, no geysers no
Hecla, it would still be a supremacy inter-
esttng country to visit One needs not
journey a mile from Reykjavik, or in fact.
do much more than look out of his hotel
window, to see such landscape as he will
scarcely see again In lifetime. Bare and
gaunt and rugged the hills rise on every
side the cliff often sheer from the sea- the
mountains tumbled together and piled one
upon another as though a giant took the
remnants of the world he had just COM
pleted and threw them together in a heap
at the southern edge of the Arctic ocean
thus forming great wilderness Of rock and
moor and lake. which hardy man in his
temerity has attempted for a thousand
years to subdue, but has never yet been
able even thoroughly to explore.
AS one travels further from the CAPITAL
these scenes which first impress one on ap-
preaching Iceland with their rugged mag
nificence are repeated and intensified and
repeated again. Mountain succeeds noun
tain, glacier leads on to glacier, yokulls
rise before in ever-increa sing gran
deur, some of them requiring a journey of
twenty miles to cross their glitterng lev
slopes while between the hills and in the
midst of the barren moors often rustic
lakes Of charming blue, over which fit a
cloud of waterfowl
There is not in this great island one little
spot Of grandeur sublimity which can be
fenced in or roped off to which good roads
lead and a shilling is charged for the view
as one often finds In Great Britain and on
the continent. but uncounted miles Of
scenery. days Journeys of sublimity and
grandeur.
One travels weeks In crossing the island
from north to south from west to east
on slow pony back, and then finds that he
has seen but a little section of this great
round isle, and that there are unnumbered
miles yet of lofty mountains, glittering
glaciers and rocky moors to be traversed.
Yet Unexplored.
In fact. much of Iceland yet remains to
be explored. This can be said of few cor
ners Of the world today. But many a hardy
young American can yet add to his laurels
and to the worlds knowledge of geography
hy leay VII he 10 Nd
striking out for himself with trusty guide
across the UNEMPLOYED lava plains.
There Is many trout stream and 81 SSy
lake among the hills Astounding In fish that
has never yet reflected the anglers fly In
its unrufflod surface, and many a iocli Of
wild swans and geese and du ks tia have
never heard the port of a :por ismans
gun.
Its alcofress from the rest O the W rid
gives Iceland also q unique position in these
days of the telegraph and the trolley. Here
is a country without mile of IA lW ay.
wi bout the click Of single te egraph call.
without an electric road. and only one
short telephone Inc. Here no cabby pounccs
upon you when you step ashore. for tn IRE
is no cab or cabby: no newsb y shouts the
last murder or suicide in your ear, for there
Is no daily paper to record 1t.
On these lonely shores President ose-
welt himself, with all his Strenuous per
sonality. has faded into the distance Sena-
tors Hanna and Plat. Boss Quay and all
not and Joe Chamberlain and King Edward
We reck not Of
Not word Of news reached Iceland from
the outside world in three weeks, and our
own stanch little steamer the Laura
which sailed from Leith on the 18th of July
brought the latest tidngs up to the first of
August. Is King Edward alive or dead?
Is the coronation coming off or Is 1t post
poned again? Have the trusts absorbed all
America? And has ]. Pierpont Morgan an
| nexed any further outlying sections of
Europe? are all questions which must wait
for the monthly steamer to answer
In the winter this isolation Is worse still
or better still, as one may choose to re-
gard 1t, for some parts Of the island pass
two and even three months without hearing
from the rest of the world, which We, con-
ceited mortals think It so essential to the
welfare of mankind to know about.
Romantic History.
The romantic history of Iceland. It's an
Gent literature. the rude deeds of valor of
its heroes. the discoveries of It's explorers
to whom America would have been so In
debted If they had only established them
selves more firmly, or told the rest of the