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So, for instance, they only brought the share of the merchant to the harbour of Reikjavik, and were far too lazy to carry the salmon from the boat to the warehouse, a distance certainly not more than sixty or seventy paces from the shore. They sent a message to their employer, bidding him "send some fresh hands, for they were much too tired."
Tired and almost benumbed with cold, I arrived in the evening at Reikjavik, with no other wish than to retire to rest as fast as possible. In these three days I had ridden 114 miles, besides enduring much from cold, storms, and rain. To my great surprise, the roads had generally been good; there were, however, many places highly dangerous and difficult.
It seemed therefore the more singular to me to see a few clouds skimming over the surface of the mountains, now shrouding a part of them in vapour, now wreathing themselves round their summits, now vanishing entirely, to reappear again at a different point. This is a phenomenon frequently observed in Iceland during the finest days, and one I had often noticed in the neighbourhood of Reikjavik.
I did not witness the dangerous operation of collecting this down from between the clefts of rocks and from unapproachable precipices, where people are let down, or to which they are drawn up, by ropes, at peril of their lives. There are, however, none of these break-neck places in the neighbourhood of Reikjavik. It is conducted in a very simple manner.
I had already seen the district between Reikjavik and Havenfiord at my first arrival in Iceland. At the present advanced season of the year it wore a less gloomy aspect: strawberry-plants and violets, the former, however, without blossoms, and the latter inodorous, were springing up between the blocks of lava, together with beautiful ferns eight or ten inches high.
We had a journey of above forty miles before us the first day, and yet, on account of the damaged saddle, we could not start before eight o'clock in the morning. The first twelve or fourteen miles of our journey lay through the great valley in which Reikjavik is situated; the valley contains many low hills, some of which we had to climb.
I had seen all there was to be seen in Iceland, had finished all my excursions, and awaited with inexpressible impatience the sailing of the vessel which was destined to bring me nearer my beloved home. But I had to stay four very long weeks in Reikjavik, my patience being more exhausted from day to day, and had after this long delay to be satisfied with the most wretched accommodation.
I made excursions to every part of Iceland, and am thus enabled to place before my readers, in regular order, the chief curiosities of this remarkable country. I will commence with the immediate neighbourhood of Reikjavik. May 25th. Stiftsamtmann von H was to-day kind enough to pay me a visit, and to invite me to join his party for a ride to the great lake Vatne.
I had intended to travel in the former; but a merchant of Reikjavik had already engaged the only berth, for there rarely is more than one in such a small vessel, and I deemed myself lucky to obtain the one in the other ship. Herr Bernhoft thought, indeed, that the vessel might be too bad for such a long journey, and proposed to examine it, and report on its condition.
If any person could suddenly, and without having made the journey, be transported into one of these houses, he would certainly fancy himself in some continental town, rather than in the distant and barren island of Iceland. And as in Havenfiord, so I found the houses of the more opulent classes in Reikjavik, and in all the places I visited.
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