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But M. Fridrikssen, professor of natural sciences at the school of Rejkiavik, was a delightful man, and his friendship became very precious to me. This modest philosopher spoke only Danish and Latin. He came to proffer me his good offices in the language of Horace, and I felt that we were made to understand each other. In fact he was the only person in Iceland with whom I could converse at all.
Nial lived in Iceland during most singular times, in which though there were laws provided for every possible case, no man could have redress for any injury unless he took it himself, or his friends took it for him, simply because there were no ministers of justice supported by the State, authorised and empowered to carry the sentence of the law into effect.
And he began to think about Jon and Maria, whom God Almighty had taken to Himself up in yon great, foreign heaven, which vaults over New Iceland and is something altogether different from the heaven at home. And he saw still in his mind those Icelandic pioneers who had stood over the grave with their old hats in their sorely tired hands and droned.
I was sorely tempted to linger another day in the neighbourhood; but we have already spent more time upon the Geysirs than I had counted upon, and it will not do to remain in Iceland longer than the 15th, or Winter will have begun to barricade the passes into his Arctic dominions.
The stems of these, which, considering the scarcity of trees in Iceland, may be called remarkable phenomena, were crooked and knotty, but yet six or seven feet high, and about four or five inches in diameter. As my guide had foretold, I found a very comfortable room and a good bed in the priest's house. Herr Horfuson is one of the best men I have ever met with.
The most valuable mineral is sulphur, the supply of which appears to be inexhaustible. The chief exports are wool, oil, fish, horses, eider-down, knit goods, sulphur, and Iceland moss. Transparent calcite, a mineral commonly called "Iceland spar," is found, one mine of which furnishes an excellent quality. It is highly prized by mineralogists on account of its double refractive qualities.
I will try to relate it here mainly in the words of the chief engineer of a certain steamship which, after bunkering, left Lerwick, bound for Iceland. The weather was cold, the sea pretty rough, with a stiff head wind. All went well till next day, about 1.30 p.m., then the captain sighted a suspicious object far away to starboard.
The only personage amongst us at all disconcerted by these arrangements is the little white fox which has come with us from Iceland.
By her Onund had a son named Thorgrim, who grew up quickly to manhood, tall and strong, wise and a good manager. Onund continued to live at Kaldbak until his old age. He died a natural death and lies in Treefoot's howe. He was the boldest and most active one-legged man that ever came to Iceland. Among Onund's sons Thorgrim was the foremost, although the others were older.
She was very silent all through the supper spread for them in the hall of the castle, while Jean exchanged conversation with their host upon Iceland hawks and wolf and deer hounds, as if she had been a young lady keeping a splendid court all her life, instead of a poverty-stricken prisoner in castle after castle.
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