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Updated: June 28, 2025
On the 7th of July, 1856, at two o'clock in the morning, after a ball given by Commander de Mas on board the 'Artemise, the 'Reine Hortense, with the English schooner in tow, left Reykjavik harbour, directing her course along the west coast of Iceland, towards Onundarfiord, where we were to join the 'Saxon' which had left a few hours before us.
As a voyage to the Danish colonies on the western coast of Greenland formed part of the scheme of our arctic navigation, we were aware at our departure from Paris, that it was our business to make ourselves well acquainted with the southern part of the ice-field, from Reykjavik to Cape Farewell.
Jón Trausti, the son of a farm labourer and his wife, who had been born on one of the northernmost farms in Iceland in a barren and outlying district, was brought up in dire poverty. From an early age he had had to fend for himself as a farmhand and fisherman, finally settling in Reykjavík as a printer.
My plan, on returning to Reykjavik, is to send the schooner round to wait for us in a harbour on the north coast of the island, while we ourselves strike straight across the interior on horseback. The scenery, I am told, is magnificent.
Unless we get his head round during the night, he will have to sit facing his horse's tail, in order to see before him. We do not seem to run any danger of falling short of provisions, as by all accounts there are birds enough in the interior of the country to feed an Israelitish emigration. Reykjavik, July 7, 1856.
Reykjavík, the only municipality of fairly long standing and by far the biggest one, had at the turn of the present century a population of only between six and seven thousand now about eleven times that number. We catch glimpses of these small trading stations at the beginning of the twentieth century in A Dry Spell and Father and Son.
We were in the position of three fast young men about Reykjavik, determined to make a night of it, but without the wherewithal. There were neither knockers to steal, nor watchmen to bonnet. At last we remembered that the apothecary's wife had a conversazione, to which she had kindly invited us; and accordingly, off we went to her house.
It appears that the dove-cots of Reykjavik have been a good deal fluttered by an announcement emanating from the gallant Captain of the "Artemise" that his fair guests would be expected to come in low dresses; for it would seem that the practice of showing their ivory shoulders is, as yet, an idea as shocking to the pretty ladies of this country as waltzes were to our grandmothers.
She's a very good woman, sir, and, if you please, I'll get her to make you some coffee when we get back to Reykjavik." So goes the world, thought I, from the Skjaldbraid Jokul to a cup of coffee! Why bother our heads about these troublesome questions, which can only result in proving us all equally ignorant. The wisest has learned nothing save his own ignorance.
Before I close this letter the thing will have been settled one way or another; for I am to have the honour of dining with the Prince this evening, and between this and then I shall have made up my mind. After dinner there is to be a ball on board the frigate, to which all the rank, fashion, and beauty of Reykjavik have been invited. I give up seeing the rest of Iceland, and go North at once.
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