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Updated: June 14, 2025
Of late years, however, fashion has begun to assert her sway, even in this isolated part of the world, and the native costume is gradually becoming modernized. The pastor having joined the more congenial circle of which Zoega was the admired centre, I was left alone in the chilly little room allotted to travelers to meditate upon the comforts of Icelandic life.
You crave the relief of darkness; your spirits, at first exuberant, go down, and still down, till they are below zero; the novelty wears away, and the very light becomes gloomy. People must sleep, nevertheless. With me it was a duty I owed to an overtaxed body. Our tent was rather small for two, and Zoega asked permission to sleep with an acquaintance who lived in a cabin about two miles distant.
Without one word of comment Zoega would throw him the bread, and then gravely mount his horse and ride on. For hours after the victim of his displeasure would run, and jump, and bark, and caper with excess of delight. I really thought it was a kindness to whip him, he enjoyed it so much afterward.
A portrait figure stands now before us; it is that of a Dane, the learned and severe Zoega, to whom the young artist is specially recommended, but who only sees in him a common talent; whose words are only those of censure, and whose eye sees only a servile imitation of the antique in his works.
Was it possible he was going to force his horse into it? Surely the man must be crazy. "Stop, Zoega! stop!" I shouted, at the top of my voice; "you'll be swept over the precipice. There's a great gap in the river just before you." "All right, sir!" cried Zoega. "Come on, sir!" Again and again I called to him to stop but he seemed to lose my voice in the roar of the falling waters.
When that was done nothing remained but to go to work in front of my little tent and finish up my rough sketches. This is a very absorbing business, as every body knows who has tried it, and I was deeply into it when Zoega made his appearance. "Well, sir," said he, "what success? Did he erupt?" "Of course he erupted, Zoega.
I looked where Zoega pointed, and saw, about a hundred yards off, a boiling caldron. This was our grand tea-kettle. Upon a nearer inspection, I found that it consisted of two great holes in the rocks, close together, the larger of which was about thirty feet in circumference, and of great depth. The water was as clear as crystal.
We rode for some time along an elevated plateau of very barren aspect till something like a break in the outline became visible a few hundred yards ahead. I had a kind of feeling that we were approaching a crisis in our journey, but said nothing. Neither did Zoega, for he was not a man to waste words. He always answered my questions politely, but seldom volunteered a remark.
I was continually troubled by the circuits made by Zoega to avoid certain tracts of this kind which to me did not look at all impracticable.
You didn't suppose a Great Geyser would keep a gentleman all the way from California waiting here an entire night without showing him what he could do?" "No, sir; but he sometimes disappoints travelers. How do you like it? Does he compare with your California Geysers?" "Well, Zoega, he throws up more hot water, to be sure, because our Geysers don't erupt at all; but here is the grand difference.
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