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After riding more than four miles, I reached a hill, from which I could see Reikjavik, the chief harbour, and, in fact, the only town on the island. But I was deceived in my expectations; the place before me was a mere village. The distance from Havenfiord to Reikjavik is scarcely nine miles; but as I was unwilling to tire my good old guide, I took three hours to accomplish it.
I resolved also to test the capabilities of the Icelandic horses more thoroughly than I had been able to do during my first ride from Havenfiord to Reikjavik, as I had been obliged on that occasion to ride at a foot-pace, on account of my old guide. The hour of starting was fixed for two o'clock.
A couple of miles beyond Havenfiord I saw the first birch-trees, which, however, did not exceed two or three feet in height, also some bilberry-plants. A number of little butterflies, all of one colour, and, as it seemed to me, of the same species, fluttered among the shrubs and plants.
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.
The number of inhabitants is estimated at 48,000, and the superficial extent of the island at 29,800 square miles. On the morning of the 16th of May I landed in the harbour of Havenfiord, and for the first time trod the shores of Iceland.
Iceland came in sight on the seventh day of a boisterous voyage, which had tried our traveller somewhat severely; and at the close of the eleventh day she reached Havenfiord, an excellent harbour, two miles from Reikiavik, the capital of Iceland. Her first impressions of the Icelandic coast, she says, were very different from the descriptions she had read in books.
The neighbourhood of Havenfiord is formed by a most beautiful and picturesque field of lava, at first rising in hills, then sinking into hollows, and at length terminating in a great plain which extends to the base of the neighbouring mountains.
I found that Havenfiord consisted merely of three wooden houses, a few magazines built of the same material, and some peasants' cottages. The wooden houses are inhabited by merchants or by their factors, and consist only of a ground-floor, with a front of four or six windows.
I therefore took leave of the kind gentleman, who intended to stay a week or ten days in Havenfiord, and mounting a small horse, set out in company of a female guide. In my guide I made the acquaintance of a remarkable antiquity of Iceland, who is well worthy that I should devote a few words to her description.
A few wooden houses, two of which belong to Herr Knudson, and some peasants' cottages, are the only buildings in this little village. I was hospitably received, and rested from the toils of the day at the house of Herr Siverson, Herr Knudson's manager. The whole tract of country from Grundivik almost to Havenfiord is called "The lava-fields of Reikianes."
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