Evening star., 1902-09-15

and bring back a little fish for the young
ones, who could not go foraging for them
selves
Then they would all settle back again
into stiff and stately rows OF shirt fronts,
looking with curious, but unfrightened eyes
at the strange craft, belching black smoke,
that had invaded their sacred precincts.
The puffns are a still more interesting
bird With pink feet and red hooked bill
they closely resemble parrots at little dis
tancc, and from this resemblance have re-
ceived their common name of sea parrot
They, too. like the divers build their nests
In the holes in the cliff, and often seemed
to keep house with their larger neighbors in
the same hole without any quarreling.
Beautiful eulls, too, in myriads hovered
about the rocks, putting to shame by their
graceful movements in the air the more
awkward flight of the duck tribe, but rear
ing their young side bv side with them.
On lower land, around a projecting head
land, was a large colony of elder ducks,
which no man is allowed to shoot and
these, in part, protect their less valuable
Eeighbors, for no gun may be fired In the
vicinity, lest the elders should be scared
from their nests.
Far into the sunless recesses Of one of
these cliffs runs a deep cave, into which
some Of us were rowed in a small boat.
AS we came close to the cliffs, tbe quacks
and cries and screams of ducks and sea
parrots and gulls was almost deafening
The dozen men in our boat tried to out
scream them, with one united and vigorous
shout sought to make them fly from their
crevices, that we might estimate their num-
bers. But We might as well have shouted
to the winds or to the rocks themselves
for the birds looked on in calm compla-
cency, even when we approached within a
few feet of their nests, and the row OF
white shirt fronts remained unbroken
Within the cavern not bird apparently
had ever penetrated. There was no nest
or sign of habitation and the silence of it's
sunless depths was unbroken.
The guano and the elder down from these
rCcks Is source Of considerable revenue
to the 'Wcstmen,' but the sea yields them
still more of a rental.
Wonders Of the Deep.
Not only cod, herring halibut, sole and
other fiat fish abound in these waters,
but whales are numerous, and two great
leviathans on our return trip were an
chored in the harbor with large casks
attached to the carcasses to mark their
position.
The Westman Islands are close to the
mainland of Iceland, and Hecla is plainly
visibIy from them, as we'll as great gla cier
which seems to pour It's ice into the sea
itself These islands are of curious and
fantastic shapes, and were doubtless rent
and twisted off from the mother island in
some grand convulsion of nature, for
which, In prehistoric ages, as well as in re-
cent years Iceland. which is largely made
up of the contents Of extinct volcanoes,
must have been famous. a.
Ten hours from the Westman Islands our
little steamer rounds a long projecting reef
and sails into the magnificent "FaXa
Fjord,' which Is not a ford at all accord
ing to our ordinary notions. narrow in
let, surrounded by high cliffs, but a great
bay nearly eighty miles across at it's Wild
est part At the northern end Of this bay
at the very extremity of the great prom
ontory that incloses the water on that side
towers up symmetrical Snaefells Yokull, a
splendid. snow-clad mountain, almost as
regular in it's outlines as Fujiyama itself,
the sacred mountain OF Japan, which
springs out of the sea in the same way.
In winter Snaefell Is one glittering mass
of alabaster, from the summit to the sea,
but in July the snow line has crept up it's
side, until not more than two-thirds Of it Is
white, and one-third greenish brown.
In July, too, the sun has swung so far to
the northward that 1t sets about 10 o'clock
directly behind the 1celandic monarch,
lighting up its solemn splendors with all the
marvellous glories Of an arctic sunset
Few more beautiful spectacles are ever
witnessed, I believe, than sunset on a
clear evening behind Snaefells. Slowly and
with the utmost deliberation the sun, short
ly before midnight. sinks below the horizon
for his brief rest. leaving trail Of gold and
purple and amber and opal behind him.
Instead of bobbing below the horizon. as
he does In tropical lands, the sun goes to
bed with the utmost deliberation in the far
north. From the time his lower disk
touches the horizon to the moment he has