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An hour before reaching our old camping-ground at Thingvalla, as if summoned by enchantment, a dull grey mist closed around us, and suddenly confounded in undistinguishable ruin the glory and the terror of the panorama we had traversed; sky, mountains, horizon, all had disappeared; and as we strained our eyes from the edge of the Rabna Gja across the monotonous grey level at our feet, it was almost difficult to believe that there lay the same magical plain, the first sight of which had become almost an epoch in our lives.
As it was already eight o'clock, and we had been told the entire distance from Reykjavik to Thingvalla was only five-and-thirty miles, I could not comprehend how so great a space should still separate us from our destination.
He accordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient, and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did actually accomplish the matter; namely, get Christianity, by open vote, declared at Thingvalla by the general Thing of Iceland there; the roar of a big thunder-clap at the right moment rather helping the conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon Olaf's joy was no doubt great.
The way from Kalmannstunga to Thingvalla leads over nothing but lava, and the one to-day went entirely through marshes. As soon as we had crossed one, another was before us. Lava seemed to form the soil here, for little portions of this mineral rose like islands out of the marshes. The country already grew more open, and we gradually lost sight of the glaciers.
Our last stage from Thingvalla back to Reykjavik was got over very quickly, and seemed an infinitely shorter distance than when we first performed it.
These unpretending little churches are to be seen in the vicinity of every settlement throughout the whole island. Simple and homely as they are, they speak well for the pious character of the people. The pastor of Thingvalla and his family reside in a group of sod-covered huts close by the church.
A three hours' ride brought us to the Rabna Gja, the eastern boundary of Thingvalla, and, winding up its rugged face, we took our last look over the lovely plain beneath us, and then manfully set forward across the same kind of arid lava plateau as that which we had already traversed before arriving at the Almanna Gja.
I said to myself: "I will go to America and see my dear friends, and then return to go to 'The Land of the Long Night." I could cross the Sound, go to Copenhagen, the city was almost in sight, and a nice city it is, and take one of the comfortable steamers of the Thingvalla Line, now called Scandinavian-American Line, for New York.
Gazing down through their emerald depths, you can still follow the pattern traced on the surface of the bottom, by cracks and chasms similar to those into which the dry portion of Thingvalla has been shivered. The accompanying ground plan will, I trust, complete what is wanting to fill up the picture I so long to conjure up before the mind's eye.
The main or left side forms a fearful precipice of more than eighty feet, and runs in a direct line toward the mountains, a distance of four or five miles. On the right, toward the plain of Thingvalla, the inferior side forms nearly a parallel line of rifted and irregular masses of lava, perpendicular in front and receding behind.
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