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Bonnets and inverted pudding-bowls are common on the heads of the Reykjavik ladies, though as yet they have not found their way into the interior. All who can afford it indulge in a profusion of jewelry silver clasps, breast-pins, tassel-bands, etc., and various articles of filigree made by native artists.
Meantime I was extremely anxious to see a little more of domestic life in Iceland, and made several foot-expeditions to the farm-houses in the neighborhood of Reykjavik. At one of these I passed a night.
Even Reykjavik itself cannot boast of more than 700 or 800 inhabitants. During winter time the men are chiefly employed in tending cattle, picking wool, manufacturing ropes, bridles, saddles, and building boats. The fishing season commences in spring; in 1853 there were as many as 3,500 boats engaged upon the water.
No spot is better suited to inspire freedom of thought and lofty imagination than this primitive meeting-place of a legislative assembly. Eventually, Iceland became subject to Norway and afterward a colony of Denmark, which it remains to-day. Self-government and the re-establishment of the old Parliament at Reykjavik was granted by Denmark in 1874.
Verily there is One whose "fury is poured out like fire; the rocks are thrown down by him; the mountains quake, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence." Passing a singular rock standing alone some twenty miles off the land, called the Meal-sack, we soon changed our course and bore up for the harbor of Reykjavik.
Notwithstanding that its site, as I mentioned in my last letter, was determined by auspices not less divine than those of Rome or Athens, Reykjavik is not so fine a city as either, though its public buildings may be thought to be in better repair.
Perhaps no vessel was bound for such distant parts. Alas! a little Danish schooner, the <i>Valkyrie</i>, was to sail on the second of June for Reykjavik. The captain, M. Bjarne, was on board, and was rather surprised at the energy and cordiality with which his future passenger shook him by the hand. To him a voyage to Iceland was merely a matter of course.
As soon as they get down to Reykjavik and finish their business, they are very apt to indulge in what we call in California "a bender;" that is to say, they drink a little too much whisky, and hang around the stores and streets for a day or two in a state of intoxication.
Here, the man who goes out across half the world in quest of the millennium is in the end led back to his origins. Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955. Tke University of Iceland, Reykjavík. Steingrímur J. Þorsteinsson. There was a man called Audunn; he came of a family of the Western Firths, and was not well off.
"My boy, with such clothing, with such boots, and such general equipment," said my uncle, in a state of rapturous delight, "we may hope to travel far." It took a whole day to put all these matters in order. In the evening we dined with Baron Trampe, in company with the Mayor of Reykjavik, and Doctor Hyaltalin, the great medical man of Iceland.
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