CHAPTER V.

ICELAND WOMAN—SUNDAY WEAR.

German races we look for complexion and piquancy to take the place of that classical beauty which is exceptional beyond the lovely Mediterranean shores. The congregation showed many a pretty girl, but not a single face that would be remarked farther south. The hair is admirable, and requires no chignon—the invention which conceals the Englishwoman’s chief defect, hercapigliatura. It is eitherblond-cendré, dark red, or light chestnut-brown, as in older Denmark; farther south, but not here, brown-black is by no means a rarity. Plaited in two large queues, which hang down the back at home, it is gathered up when abroad under

ICELAND WOMAN—MONDAY WEAR.

the Hufa or cap. This article is a caricature of the Fez, as the Skór are of the Mizz, and it has every defect except that of ugliness. The material is elastic black web woven by the women. The old style is to wear it large, like the night-cap of former days: the juniors prefer a mere apology for head-covering, much smaller than the thing now called a hat in England. It is provided with a Tuskana, a long tassel of black spun silk brought from Copenhagen; and the latter is ornamented at the base by a short cylinder (Hólkr) of silver, gilt-silver, or brass made in the country. This tassel serves for not a little by-play;usually it depends upon the right or left shoulder indifferently, but when bending, for instance, it may be held under the chin for coquettish contrast of colours. The whole affair, which costs some six rixdollars, is kept in position by hair-pins, and, as it gives no protection against cold, it is covered out of doors with a shawl, mostly grey, striped white or chocolate; in fact, women rarely leave the house, even in what we consider warm weather, without being muffled to the ears; and the men are not less effeminate. There is only one specimen of the old Falldr or Skott Falldr (galeated cap), which seems to be growing obsolete; the day is windy, and this curved and

“High-peaked head-dress of snowy white,”

which corresponds with the “Roide Cornette” of ancient Holland, and of which modifications may still be seen in Normandy, could hardly be worn. I shall reserve a description of the crested and helmet-like affair which strangers compare with a flattened cornucopia, with a cap of liberty, or with a dragoon casque, ultra Amazonian: here let me merely premise that it is a larger edition of the Lapp head-dress; that, within the memory of man, it was worn in the Orkneys; and that the whole costume somewhat resembles that of the Oberland Bernois. The few hats and bonnets accompany more modern attire, and even the crinoline and the Dolly Varden are not wholly unknown. In Iceland dress denotes the station; in Europe it is only the most advanced society that escapes from this outward show. The sensible Yankee travels in his “Sunday best,” because it procures him respect and attention where he is unknown; we reverse the rule, and notably so on “the Continent”—which is uncivil and breeds incivility. Most of the elderly women are in black Wadmal; the juniors prefer fine, dark bottle-green stuff, with plaid or rainbow-coloured aprons. I at once remark the absence of the γυνή πυγοστόλος, called “bussle-wearer” by our grandmothers. Those in the island-costume wear a narrow band of gold embroidery round the skirt, which resembles the costume of the Slav women about Trieste. The bosom is no longer flattened as much as possible—was this the result of a savage decencywhich, taught the sex to mask nature? On the contrary, about the middle of the jacket asoupçonof white chemisette is now allowed to peep forth. But these coy dames have still to borrow a hint from the young Irish person who wore

“every beauty freeTo sink or swell as heaven pleases.”

“Sabbath” in the “moral north” passed away as usual. The respectables, masculine as well as feminine, sat at the windows opposite one another, the former smoking vile Hamburg cigars, the latter devoting themselves to the serious and exhaustive study of street scenery. The German mirror placed to reflect the thoroughfare is still a rarity, and therefore the prospector must display herself aschez nous. The commonalty leaned against the walls and railings, much like the Irish peasantry of the present day, whose poetry, wit, and humour, once so famous, appear, like art in Italy, to have been crushed out of life by a generation-long course of “patriotism,” politics, and polemics. There was a little more apparent drunkenness than usual, men staggering about, peasants supporting one another, and all jostling whatever they met in the streets. This unpleasant process of “rubbing up” seems to be here the rule, and we can hardly complain of it when we remember the lower orders, and not only the lower orders, of the Lowland Scotch: as the Yankee is the Englishman with the weight taken off him, so here the people, like the scenery, are Caledonian intensified. In the evening, thus to speak, when the dissolute sun, instead of keeping the regular hours of the tropics, does not turn in before elevenP.M., the sexes paired, and one gentleman accompanied his “lady” in carpet slippers. The day ended without a brawl. On St Monday, however, there was a tavern quarrel, when one of the strongest men in the town had his face cut open by a stone. We were assured by all that such things are very rare. Yet on the following Wednesday one of the couthless Calibans from the country, whom tangle-leg had made “drunk as an auk,” thinking that he was derided by a party of Englishmen, slipped up behind one of them and hit him a rounder, in popular parlance a “regular slogdolager.” The Briton, thus unexpectedly assaulted, soon recovered himself,

THE HEAD CONSTABLE.

and, though the peasant bundled away, rolling like a bolting bear, Mr A—— succeeded in lodging a couple of sound lashes with his horsewhip. A small crowd gathered; of course it took part against the strangers, and a free fight became imminent. This was prevented by the chief constable, whose badge is the tallest hat I ever did see, and who commands a body of three men, armed with the “Northern Star.” When appealed to, however, the dignitary distinctly refused to take his fellow-countryman into custody; hence, perhaps, the freedom of the jails from jail-birds, a peculiarity strongly insisted upon by complimentary writers, and quaintly corresponding with our “gratifying diminution of crime.” This is not what we readabout Iceland and the Icelanders. It of course will be said that fair time is approaching, and that we are at Reykjavik, a centre of dissipation, where men are eagerly looking forward to the arrival of a grind-organ.

This appears to be the place for inserting a few remarks upon the subject of drinking in Iceland compared with that of England and Scotland. I had asserted in theStandardthat “more cases of open, shameless drunkenness may be seen during a day at Reykjavik than during a month in England and Scotland.” A gentleman interested in the matter writes to me: “According to the only official returns of Icelandic statistics (’Skýrslur um landshagi (resources of the country) á Íslandi, gefnar út af hinu islenska Bókmenntäfélagi,’ Kaupmannahöfn, 8vo), from 1865 to 1869, the date of the last publication, the consumption of intoxicating drinks has been steadily decreasing. Thus in—

In 1869 the gross total used in the island was thus one gallon and three pints per head. In Scotland the consumption of spirits alone for 1870 was a fraction of a gill less than two gallons a head (Parliamentary return for 1870 relating to spirits, beer, and malt spirits), and in the United Kingdom one gallon a head. I have not been able to ascertain the quantity of wines consumed, nor the proportion contributed by the secret stills of Scotland and Ireland; but of beer and spirits together, the consumption in the United Kingdom was no less than thirty gallons per head per annum. You must remember that the Icelanders have no spirits equal in strength to whiskies and French brandies. You must also remark in connection with the drunkenness observed by you at Reykjavik that you were there during the trading season, when people flock to the capital. They have not tasted, perhaps, a drop of intoxicating liquor during nine or ten months, and they make up for their sobriety by a fortnight or so of indulgence. I have known several peasants who bought a keg of Danish brandy at the trading-place, and who made free use of itduring their homeward journey, and as long after as the supply lasted. Then they did not taste a drop till the next season, for the very good reason that they could not get it. It would therefore not be quite fair to state, as a general condition of the Icelanders, what might be observed at Reykjavik during the fair, from about the middle of June to the end of July. It would be equally unjust to show up the condition of Londoners on Boxing Night, or of the Scotch on New Year’s Day, not to speak of every Saturday night.”

To this I reply. In 1834 the consumption was only 2 bottles of spirits per head; on the whole, therefore, there is an increase. Between 1849-62 (Paijkull[379]) the imports had increased 79 per cent., and in the latter year the consumption per head was of 6·7 Danish pots or quarts, when Scotland uses 1½ gallons per head. Mr Consul Crowe (1870-71, p. 648) shows that the consumption is “about 24 quarts annually for every adult male, without counting ale, wine, rum, punch extract, and other spirituous drinks imported.” My stay in Iceland lasted not till the end of July, but till September the first. I found drunkenness prevail not only in the capital, but in the farm-houses; and, as the trading stations and market-ships are now scattered all round the coast, there is no difficulty in obtaining spirits throughout the year. Since 1869, the practice has apparently increased with the growth of commerce. As regards the figures, they are like facts perfectly capable of misleading as well as leading. The statistics of a sparse and scattered population can hardly be expected to be correct; for instance, the fleet of French fishing vessels smuggles a quantity of cognac which does not appear in the returns. The Consular Report (1870-71, p. 650) adds, “The consumption of ardent spirits in the island is very great, being as 490,000 imperial quarts annually (or 490,000: 70,000), and of this large quantities are landed by the foreign fishermen, who barter it with the natives for their fish and other raw produce.” We all issued from the “Queen” with more or less whisky, about which nothing was asked or said; and this may counter-balanceeven the large produce of the “secret stills” existing in Ireland,[380]but rare in England, Wales, and Scotland. Also what is consumed in Iceland is almost entirely drunk by the men—I never saw that disgrace of our great cities, a drunken woman.

The actual state of things is not what is shown by the figures. An eminent Icelander openly asserted that he had dived into the gin-palaces of London and Edinburgh, yet that he had seen more drunkenness in a day at Reykjavik than during his whole visit to Great Britain. This comparison with a nation which derives £13,000,000 of revenue from spirits alone, and which has “drunk itself out of the Alabama difficulty,” is telling. There have been repeated attempts to establish teetotalism, but none have succeeded—perhaps a whisky war might lead to victory. And here hard drinking is apparently a little reprobated practice. A party of English travellers lodged at the house of an educated man, who, fresh from a visit to Denmark, expressed thedulce domumand domesticity sentiment by loud and late striving in strong liquors. The same tourists engaged a guide, who kept himself sober during the march, but afterwards broke out in a way which prevented his re-engagement, sleepingunter freien himmel, and so forth.

That our vices like our virtues are regulated by our “media,” no traveller can doubt. Thus in England, out of an annual total of 150,000 souls “drunk and disorderly,”[381]the number proceeded against in the south (not including London) was 3·2: 1000; in the Midland district, 4·0: 1000; whilst in the north it rose to the extreme ratio of 10·8: 1000. These figures show, if evidence be wanted, that “as we go north drunkenness increases.” The classical Scandinavian and the Northmen generally were deep topers, quarrelsome withal; their wives always removed their weapons when they sat down to drink; and they looked forward to a Houri-lacking andpro temporeparadise, where the dead rode forth daily to cut one another topieces, and rode back to gorge nasty boiled pork and swill vasty draughts of bilious mead. In the south, take Europe for instance, men hold wine to be the ἰατρεῖον ψυχῆς, and prefer to over-nourishment gambling, or what we call immorality, in the confined sense of the word. Race, again, heredity and atavism, or the habits bequeathed by forefathers, modify climate: the Slav, for example, who occupies the same latitudes as the abstemious Turk and Italian, is a hard eater and wine-bibber. And I have a conviction that spirit-drinking is becoming common in countries where it was formerly almost unknown. During a late ride to Ronda in Spain, two drunken men were seen in one day, and three appeared at an Italian country-fair—these are instances out of many which might be quoted.

In England, on the other hand, drinking in society has been modified not solely, as we flatter ourselves, by better taste or by a “higher tone,” but also by the increased use of nicotine—an axiom which will be grateful to the readers ofCope’s Tobacco Plant, and unpleasant to gentlemen of the happily defunct Palmerstonian school. In the age of Queen Anne apparently all Englishmen smoked. The Continental war made the practice “un-English,” and an increase of snuff was the result. At Oxford, shortly before I matriculated, some youth of heroic mould, who deserves a statue if any one does, lit a cigar almost immediately after the hall-dinner. He was called hard names, but he persevered, and he found imitators: the consequence was a notable curtailing of the “wines” which used to last from seven to elevenP.M.In 1852 I was objurgated, and not unfrequently cut, for smoking a manilla in the streets of London. Very shortly afterwards a ducal reformer spread his plaid under a tree in Hyde Park, produced a briar-root, and expected his friends to do likewise. I need hardly say that they did.

After this little experience of life, man will be careful how far he allows local custom to modify his comfort and his convenience.

VISITS—CONVIVIALITIES—THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF THE “REFORMATION”—SURTAR-BRAND—THE HOME-RULE PARTY.

The Reykjavikers may be distributed into four classes: the official, ecclesiastic, and civil; the merchants; the fishing-class; and the paupers. The visiting hour begins with noon. You open the outer door of the diminutive hall and rap at either side-entrance: but generally the left, otherwise the gynæceum may be sorely disturbed. The rapping possibly lasts for five minutes; the servant hears you or not, and if she condescends to open she usually stares, backs, and leaves you on the threshold. This class in Iceland appears to me the worst in the world—practical communists with the rude equality of the negro, worse even than the Irish help in the United States, or the servitor at Trieste, where the men are either louts or rogues, and the women are cheats, bacchanalians, or something worse. The domestic agrees to live with his employer for a certain sum, finds little to do, will do nothing but drink and be dissolute, refers frequently to the contract, tells the master, with true northern candour, to serve himself, and finally retires to the house of his brother’s wife’s third cousin. So the Greenlander gives warning by “Kasuonga” (I am tired of you). Throughout the country it appears a dishonour to do household work. Most of the farms, even when in debt, have some article of the kind, but generally it is an aged and feminine body, perhaps connected with the family and liable to starve when turned off.

On the other hand, if after knocking you enter, there is probably a startled rise and rustle of petticoats, like a flushed covey of partridges, the home-toilette, as in the nearer “East,” being the one all-sufficient cause. At this season well-to-do Reykjavikers rise at eightA.M.; breakfast substantially at nine or ten, and sally forth after noon to walk, ride, or call upon friends. The islanders dine at twoP.M.; the Danes at four, and sometimes, when parties are given, at five—already an approach to civilised hours. A supper, mostly cold like the breakfast, is taken at eightP.M.; and thus, as in the homely parts of Austria and Italy, the evening visit is impossible. There is no better contrivance for cutting up society.

As on the Continent of Europe, the stranger makes the first call, and of course he begins with the governor. H. E. Hilmar Finsen, despite his Danised name, Finsen for Finnsson, is an Icelander of old and well-known stock, and he worthily keeps up the hospitalities of the late Count Trampe, whom so many English travellers have cause to remember with the liveliest gratitude. The family is a little hurt by the Napoleon book, which gives (p. 160) the genealogy of Vilhjalmr Finsen, in 1857 “magistratus” (mayor) “Reykjavicæ,” through Adam, Noah, Saturn, Jupiter, Priam, and “Odinn, rex Asarum.” The table was sent to the prince as a specimen of an Icelandic tree, and French sense of humour could not let pass the opportunity of taking itau sérieuxand printing itin extenso. After all there is a fine Old World flavour in it: so a Greek eupatrid found in his genealogy, either paternal or maternal, all his country’s gods both of Olympus and of the other place. Governor Finsen’s great-great-grandfather was the celebrated Bishop of Skálholt (1754) and editor of the Landnámabók, Finn Jónsson, who loved to latinise himself into Finnus Johannæus; his “Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ,” though much decried by Catholics, continues to be a standard work. The portrait of this worthy, in ruff and gown, is found everywhere; and the fine oval face, straight features, and serene blue eyes have not left the family.[382]His son Hannes Finsson was the last Bishop of Skálholt, when shortly before 1800, Danes, for motives of economy, fused together the two sees, in the person of Geir Vidalin, first primate of Iceland. About this time the patronymic began to be exchanged for thefamily name; the son of Bishop Finsson was called Ólafr (Olave) Finsson, and, he being a Danish official, a judge in Jutland who never saw Iceland, Finsson became Finsen.

The present governor’s title, Stiftamtmand (Icel. Stiptamtmaðr), has been lately changed to Landshöfðingsi (Danish), a higher grade without extra rank or salary; and the mayor (Bæarfógeti) has similarly been advanced to Landsskrifari, or official secretary. Hr Finsen is a civilian—admirals and naval officers are no longer the privileged ruling caste, and Iceland has gained by the loss. He speaks French, but prefers Danish; whilst his very young looking wife, whose six stalwart boys and girls suggest brothers and sisters, knows only her native tongue. We talked of the mysterious volcano in the depths of the Vatnajökull, whose flames were first seen about the end of August 1867: he advised me strongly to attempt the south-eastern corner of the island viâ Berufjörð; Professor Gunnlaugsson did the same, and the only dissentient voice was Hr Procurator Jón Guðmundsson. The governor was, I shall show, right.

The second call should be paid to Bishop Pèter Pètursson, who is also agent for the Bible Society.[383]This dignitary was most obliging in giving me information, and he presented me with a copy of his work, alluded to in the Introduction. He was then (1841) licentiate of theology, “toparchiæ Snæfellensis et Hnappadalensis Præpositus” and “Pastor Stadastadensis.” I asked him why he did not bring it up to the present day, and he replied, with excellent sense, that to write contemporary annals is a hard task; and thatDe vivis nil nisi bonum, though a fine Christian precept, is a prescription for composing history of very dubious value.

The approaching departure of “Le Cher,” and the presence of a Danish cruiser, and the mail-steamer, officered by the Royal Navy, caused an unusual outburst of hospitality. The first dinner where I “met the surly Dane,” and found him an uncommonly good fellow, was at the house of the good M. Randrŭp,Consul de France, a Continental, whose devotion to the interests of his native country has considerably “exercised” the political section of the islandry. I cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude to this gentleman and his family; he was ever ready to assist me and, indeed, all travellers; whilst madame and mademoiselle made visits peculiarly pleasant. A Danish house is always known by pictures and engravings of Copenhagen and other home scenes, in addition to family photos and loyal portraits of King Christian IX. and his queen; of King Frederick VII., who travelled in Iceland and left there the best of names; of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Alexandra, who has warmed every heart; and, perhaps, of the battle of “Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.” One enjoys even the artificial presence of trees, which look like the portentous growths of the Brazil or Central Africa, after the stunted vegetation in and around Reykjavik. The Icelanders sing or are supposed to sing:

“From the midst of Copenhagen’s smoke,We all yearn for home;Long, dearest, again to behold thee.The noisy din irks us;Revelry tempts us in vain;And the fool grins contemptuously at usIn the streets of Copenhagen.”

The Danes slily remark that a good appointment and the easy temptation of rixdollars greatly modify all this athumia and nostalgia; and there is much truth in what the Napoleon book says, “Chose étonnante! il n’y a pas de patriote islandais, lorsqu’il est de retour dans son pays, ne caresse l’idée de s’en aller vivre dans un pays à végétation sérieuse” (p. 157). In a certain stage of civilisation, there is no place like home; about the end of the last century we find Ireland, that “mild and sedimentary Iceland,” styled the “kingdom of the zephyrs,” and grandiloquently described as a “country particularly dignified by the magnificent hand of Nature, whose liberality has denied it nothing that is necessary to constitute a great and happy nation.” A fallacy lurks in the well-worn quotation:

“So the wild torrent and the whirlwind’s roarBut bind him to his native mountains more.”

The Switzer readily leaves hismère patrie, but ever cherishes the hope of returning, a wealthy man, to lay his bones in the place which gave him birth. The Englishman, whose native mountains are mole-hills and whose wild torrents are mere “cricks,” does exactly the same. The Frenchman, also an inhabitant of the plains, tears out his heartstrings whilst bidding adieu to “beautiful France,” but when comfortably settled abroad seems to care little for seeing her charms again. Perhaps I should speak in the past tense, for railways and steamers are levelling these differences.

All the guests spoke English and French, and all were very charming. They were curious concerning Bláland, the country of the blacks; and they asked about Dr Livingstone, whose name is known in every farm-house which owns a few books. They inquired if I belonged to the “Jökull Klubb” (Alpine Club): apparently in a mountainous country an Englishman must study mountains not mountaineers. The table is alwaysà la Russe; flowers and fruits have been to our “groaning boards” what the cigar and the pipe were to the dessert and “wine;” only those who remember the last generation can appreciate this relief from endless side dishes and the barbarous hospitality which prided itself upon pressing an indigestion upon theconviva satur. The flowers are mostly artificial—I wonder why the tender and beautiful island heaths are not more generally used. The salmon from the Laxá and the sea-trout are undeniably better than ours. The venerable custom of drinking healths is still preserved: it descends directly from the “full,” or tumbler, quaffed in honour of Odin and Njord, Frey and Braga. Christianity converted these toasts to the Father, the Son (Kristsminni), the Angels, especially Michael, and the Saints; and modern conviviality has devoted them to present and absent friends. The habit is to “cap out” after bowing, and then to tilt the wine-glass slightly toward the compotator, with a second bow. When you help your neighbour from a fresh bottle, you first pour, as in the Brazil, a few drops into your own glass; and at a certain stage of the proceedings you do not administer a bumper. The sole toast was to Justisrað Bojesen, the governor’s venerable father-in-law, who was on a visit to theisland. After a dessert of thestudentenfutter, cold pudding, dates, prunes, and olives, all rise and, whether introduced or not, bow or shake hands, especially with the host and hostess, saying “Velkomme,” not “welcome” but “prosit,” a hearty old Danish, or rather German, practice, not indigenous to this part of Scandinavia. There is no sitting when the smallcoats leave the table; and probably from the scantiness of accommodation only men dine out.

The next banquet, being at the governor’s, was more official, only four black coats appeared, and even the mayor was dressed in uniform, gold-embroidered cuffs and collar of green velvet. Toasts were numerous, beginning with the French and Danish nations, which were duly acknowledged: and the two strangers, a young Englishman and myself, replied in French—not in Latin. After dinner we smoked and drank coffee, whilst the juniors, despising the damp cold, repaired for croquet to the “lawn.” At the bishop’s there was a strong muster of the clergy from the out-stations, in honour of the Rev. Guttormr Vigfusson, who had that day been ordained. Here, and here only, we saw snuff taken at table, and a use of the knife in the matter of peas and gravy, which still lingers amongst the best society in parts of Europe—it would be insidious to specify—but which Beau Brummel and his cloth have completely banished from England. It is only in the “Regimen Mensæ honorabile,” that we still read:

The bishop’s wife dined with us, and went through the laborious process of dispensing soup and meat to some two dozen guests; there was no room for the two pleasing daughters, nor for the adopted child—certainly the best looking of maidens at Reykjavik. We separated early, and after the Homeric proportions of the banquet a long walk was judged advisable.

The evening’s conversation taught me how thin-skinned are Icelanders upon all subjects connected with their country and themselves. I could not but think of a canny people farther south, who hold praise to be an impertinence, whilst dispraise, ifit were not so truly contemptible, would be the one offence never to be condoned. Madame Ida Pfeiffer’s angry book was duly sat upon, all declared that she has misconstrued almost everything she observed. The fact is, that the poor authoress, when flitting through the country on her “weird visit,” was utterly misunderstood by the people, and showed her resentment by the use of her especial weapon. Even the genial and amiable owner of the yacht “Foam,” who, so far from wishing to hurt the feelings of any reader, has passed over in silence many things which ought to have been told, is not forgiven for the Latin speech beginning with “Pergratum est”—“chaff” is unknown in Iceland, and gives terrible offence to this painfully sensitive race. Chambers is afarceur; Prince Napoleon is harsh-judged for writing anything that might not please Icelandic readers; Forbes never rounded Snæfell; the late Professor Paijkull is a prejudiced foreigner, whose views about the sheep disease are simply ridiculous; and even Baring-Gould is incorrect in his details. For science, we are referred to Sir George Mackenzie; and for geography, manners, and customs, to Dr Henderson. It is only fair, however, to state that sensible Icelanders, who have lived out of this “living and antiquarian museum, recalling, as far as material and practical progress is concerned, the Europe of a century ago,” agree that Henderson praises them beyond all measure, and recommend to all Englishmen Professor Paijkull, as the fairest and the least exaggerated in general statements.

I already felt the growling and the bursting of the storm upon my devoted head. But the traveller who would do his duty to the Public must think as little as possible of blame and praise. The reader, and also the critic, enjoy high spirits, persistent optimism, and especially the “burying of all animosities, and condoning of all offences”—in fact, every tale of travel must be a Chinese picture, all lights and no shades. The end of a journey, like the resignation of a ministry, should cause a general whitewashing. If we tell the truth, we are sure to be assured that our pictures are forbidding or “bilious in tone.” My only reply is, that under certain circumstances they can be nothing else, if, indeed, they are to be portraits, and not fancy sketches for a Book of Beauty. I own to feeling a personal grievance against a writerwho spreads before me all the sweets, and who hides under the table all the sours and bitters of his experience.

The next invitation was from Capitaine Alfred Le Timbre, of Saint-Malo, a pleasant, gentlemanly man, who spends his summer in looking forward to September, when the “Cher’s” head will turn south. To an Englishman the most companionable of Frenchmen is generally a sailor, and a Breton is all but a compatriot. Capitaine Le Timbre and his consul have no slight task in controlling some 3000 French fishermen, distributed amongst 250 vessels: the foreigners are bound not to land, and, indeed, not to approach the shore within the normal score of miles. This law is much broken; the men are often obliged to be invalided, and are sometimes wrecked with considerable loss of life: the underwriters after August add 1 per cent., and 0·50 per cent. for every subsequent fortnight. I afterwards travelled with nineteen of them on board the “Diana,” and found them by no means a “rough lot.” The people buy smuggled goods low, and sell provisions uncommonly high, and the results are frequent free fights between the strangers and the islandry. The former complain that they are always wrong in the eye of the law, and that their own authorities are ever the most severe in the matter of fines and imprisonment. As has been said, the Reformation made salt cod more valuable to Catholic lands; still sundry of our fishermen, when they fail at the Færoes, where the fish is better and more easily carried home alive, try Iceland: the Grimsby men are said to be the worst, the Hull men the best. An occasional cruiser is much wanted to keep the ruffians in order: Forbes recommended the measure years before H.M.S. “Valorous,” Captain Thrupp, appeared in August 1872. No English man-of-war deigned to grace the millenary festival of 1874—the successful effacement of Great Britain should be a matter of heartfelt congratulation to us; butgarethe recoil of the spring. The evening was pleasant, as usual on board a ship of war, and the belongings wore a home look, a civilised aspect, which made it more than normally agreeable—I felt again at home. The traveller cannot help remarking one effect of railroads and steamers upon European society: in dress and manners we all seem to be forming one great nation. One of the guestswas a Hr Grímr Thomsen, who is favourably mentioned by Messrs Dasent and Newton: after being employed in sundry consulates, this gentleman of “grim cognomen”[384]has taken a pension, and settled at the old college of Bessastaðr, where he attends to agriculture, and looks after the fishing. From him I heard how far superior to Arab blood are Iceland ponies, and a curious local grievance—it must serve for a better—namely, that strangers come to the island under the impression that they cannot break their necks in it. He first showed me the popular habit of making unpleasant and antipathetic, if not rude, remarks: this mordant tone is still a mania in Iceland; it descends from the days of the defamatory songs, which spared neither gods nor men. And now, having dined out, we will turn elsewhere.

The Klafter (chat) Klubb is an institution even more primitive than that of Madeira, which, greatly to feminine and connubial satisfaction, used to close at sixP.M.The many-windowed wooden building in Hafnarstræti is the store kept by Hr Möller, who manages the club, and allows it three small rooms somewhat higher in the ceiling than usual. It opens only on Wednesday evenings, when the principal merchants congregate to drink “toddy.” The yearly subscription is $12; and strangers, after being presented, may visit it three times gratis—unless the usual sharp practice rule otherwise. In such matters there is a conventional honesty; even in London the secretary will sometimes do for the institution what he would not think of doing for himself.

At the first opportunity I called upon M. l’Abbé Baudouin, now the only Catholic missionary in the island, which formerly had two. The road leads past the Hospital, and we can inspect the tarn whose southern bank is the Paseo for “beauty and fashion”—I rarely met any there but English. The little piece of water in former days was covered with wild fowl; now it supports nothing but yellow-green weed, especially when it shrinks in July and August. It drains large peat bogs at the southern orinland end, and when swollen it passes to the sea by the foul ditch before mentioned, fit only for stickle-backs. In winter it serves for skating, but it is not always frozen over, another proof of unexpectedly mild climate despite high latitudes. Of course it is very variable under the influence of the volcano and the iceberg: in 1845, the last eruption of Hekla covered the adjacent valleys with abundant vegetation; in 1869 and 1873, the greater part of the island was ice-bound for months.

On the western bank of the tarn are two targets for rifle practice, one at 95, the other at 112 paces. I never saw shooting there; in fact the only soldiering known to Reykjavik is when the Danish “Fylla” disembarks her short, stout, dapper, little crew, averaging twenty-two years of age, for drill under a tall quartermaster. On the other side of the road is the cemetery, guarded by posts and rails; the mortuary chapel, with its dwarf steeple, all wood, and lighter than those of the Sienna country, faces east. Crosses are everywhere, from the deadhouse to theparva domus: some of the tombs are not to be despised, and the epitaphs beginning with “Hver Hvílir” (here lies) are not the comedies of our country churchyards. It is a peculiar custom to keep the dead unburied sometimes for three to six weeks; and the measure can hardly be precautionary, as the bodies are screwed down in the coffins, and stored at the solitary cemetery. A resident foreigner lately exposed himself to prosecution because he interred his servant only six days after death.

Turning rightwards we pass a windmill to the south-west of the town. On its eminence the people assembled in May 1860 to see the flames and flashes proceeding from the “aqua-igneous” fissure of Kötlu-gjá, which, distant some eighty miles, shot up, they say, a pillar of smoke, steam, and scoriæ some 24,000 feet high (?). From this point also, we are assured, the gleam of the Vatnajökull volcano could be detected in 1867. The country beyond the mill is a barren stretch of stone, where dodgy plovers lay their eggs, and where swarms of gnats put the promenader to flight. A few steps lead us to the house of M. Baudouin, which is the best in the island; it was built by Bishop Helgi Thordursson, predecessor of the present dignitary, and the use to which itwas converted gave some scandal. The Abbé fenced himself in with a railing and turnstile, levelled the warts, and manured the ground—the shells and the sea-wrack offer excellent compost, but they are never used. This was done seven years ago, yet double crops are still produced: the inordinate price of labour, $2 a day being the wage of a field hand, prevented further operations. Truly a few Trappist establishments scattered over the island would do an immensity of good.

M. Baudouin then built to the west of his dwelling-place a cross-crowned chapel, and preached to full congregations, who attended regularly—I should mention that he is an excellent Icelandic scholar. This proceeding aroused the wrath of the Reformed. Strange to say, in this section of the nineteenth century, a country which boasts of “liberal institutions” will not permit version; and, although the Althing has been strongly in favour of extending everywhere freedom of faith, propagandism is allowed only to commercial settlements. The house being out of town, Monsieur l’Abbé was warned that he was noten règle: the code of Denmark authorises a “subvention” to those who build places of worship, but “subvention” was altered by Icelandic interpretation to “permission,” and thus the good missionary was assured that he required permission to do what the law permitted—which is absurd. His opponents then tried to revive against him the obsolete tyrannical ordinances of the old Protestant world: he is an outlaw, he may be flogged, and even killed with impunity, whilst harbouring a Papist is punishable by a heavy fine—six ounces of silver doubled every day.

The Abbé wanted nothing better than to be a martyr, but of course he wanted in vain. Laws in Iceland are somewhat flexible things, exceptionally applied at times, and liable to be broken with impunity: so in England “law” contrasts pleasantly with the rigidity of “la loi” of France. In this island, where people cannot afford paupers, families are dispersed even more cruelly than in our inhuman workhouse system, and each member is transferred to his or her Sýsla (county): the country, however, can plead necessity for these severe conditions. M. Baudouin chose to lodge and board an unhappy household subjectto forcible separation. Thereupon the mayor imposed upon the paupers a fine, which they refused to pay, and lastly, he ordered their protector to expel them. The Abbé stoutly refused, and asked what would result if the affair came before Chief Justice Thorður Jonassen? The reply was, “It will be as he sees it.” Presently, the authorities perhaps remembered that when something of the same kind happened in the north, the case was quashed by the Court of Cassation in Denmark—nothing more was said. As Rome proposes to establish a Vicar Apostolic for Scandinavia,[385]M. Baudouin bides his time. For two years he has been in bad health, and wears a frostbitten look; he now proposes to sun himself for a time in France, and after his return, to preach in Icelandic when he pleases and where he pleases. The Protestant party boldly hopes never to see him again.

I was pleased to hear from the Abbé a Catholic version of the Reformed movement which followed the proclamation of Christian III. in 1540, and more especially of the murder or just execution of that “illiterate and turbulent prelate” who ended the “dismal ages of papal darkness,” Jón Arason (Are’s son), whom foreigners call Aræson and Areseni, the last occupant of the northern see, Hólar.[386]His enemies declare that at eighty he had a concubine; that he unmercifully seized and otherwise persecuted, his opponents; that he never went south without an armed retinue of two hundred bravos; that he refused to go to Copenhagen, and that he was a rebel against the Crown. His friends refute the charges preferred against him; deny the hólmganga or duel which he is fabled to have fought with Bishop Ögmund; assert that the “Historia Ecclesiastica” contains no less than three contradictions, and persistently declare that J. A. was simply a martyr to Catholicism. The Reformers, acting under the Danish Government, were headed by Oddur Gottswálksson and Gizurr Einarson. The former, a son of the Bishop of Hólar,when studying at Wittenberg, had been strongly imbued by Luther and Melancthon with the spirit of the new faith; he afterwards became the first translator of the Bible, and lawyer for the northern division of the island till he was drowned in 1556. The latter was in turn secretary to Ögmund, Catholic Bishop of Skálholt, Lutheran priest, and, finally, first Lutheran bishop of the southern see. They suborned against J. A. one Daði, a peasant of Mýra Sýsla, in the Borgarfjörð; and Judas, as usual, pretending to be his friend, betrayed him to his foes. The house in which he was arrested is still shown a little south of the Kvennabrekka chapel: he was carried to Skálholt, the southern see, already Lutheran, and was incontinently beheaded.

Followed the usual scenes of persecution and destruction: we might be reading a History of England. The Reformers became deformers. Cruel laws were passed against the priests; the churches were plundered of their wealth; the various religious houses,—four monasteries, two priories, and two nunneries,—each of which, after the excellent fashion of El Islam and its mosques, had a school attached, were suppressed, whilst the lands were either sold, vested in the Crown, or made over to Lutheranism. It was a case of “non licet esse vos,” and the proceeding was exactly that of our Act of 1537.

Let me briefly remark that in treating of matters which happened three centuries ago, both Catholic and Protestant writers are too apt to look upon them from the stand-point of the present. Catholics see only the use of their establishments; they will not accept the consequences of defeat, and yet they know that by the rule “Væ victis” they would have dealt, had they been conquerors, the same measure which was dealt to them. Protestants note only the abuses which marked the age; they look upon the old system with a jaundiced eye, and they misrepresent, undoubtedly, often without knowing it, the state of the ancient Church. Thus, we find it chronicled that many of the Icelandic bishops were married, without being told that they might have been married before they were ordained. And if there is anything in the present day which draws English Protestants to Catholicism, it is the fact that honest inquirers findthey have been brought up in gross ignorance, to say nothing more, of the rival creed.

The Abbé Baudouin is strong in the belief that by virtue of the jewel Fair Play he would soon revive Catholicism in one of its old seats. And looking at the lukewarm action of the Lutheran faith, the scanty hold it has upon the affections and the passions of the people, the laical lives of the clergy, the prevalence of the “squarson,” and the growth of “free thinking,” I cannot but agree with him. Indeed the revival of Catholicism is one of the phenomena of the later nineteenth century, which time only can explain. Is it a steady flame or a fitful flicker preceding the final darkness? Its statistics are wonderful. During the last eighty-five years in the United States, it has risen from 25,000 to 9,600,000, a proportion of 1:4 of the population; whilstthefaith of the nineteenth century, spiritualism (R. D. Owen), numbers only 7,500,000. In Holland, the very cradle of the Reformation, Catholics and Protestants are now about equal; and, whilst the census of Victoria gives 121 religions to less than three-quarters of a million, Catholicism in England seems bent upon forcing men into the extremes so distasteful to the English mind, upon dividing the country into two great camps, Catholicism and its complement Methodism. In Iceland the result of free propagandism would probably result in making all the people Catholics or Rationalists.

It was generally regretted that Dr Hjaltalín the Archiater, who was preparing for a trip in the “Diana” to Europe, did not take part in the festivities. I need say nothing about the scientific acquirements of this well-informed and most obliging Icelander, whose writings are known throughout Europe. He has travelled extensively in his own country; and I was the greatest loser by his departure, as otherwise he might have led me to the unexplored regions in the south-east. He was especially interested about coal, a subject which seems now to be undergoing revival in the north: a fresh impetus has been given to its exploration in Norway and Sweden: even in the Færoe Islands a Danish company proposes to exploit the beds. An expedition, accompanied by Professor Jonstrüp and a Silesian engineer, lately returned to Copenhagen, and revived the viewsof Professor Krazenstein, who in 1778 examined the Pröstefjeldt in the island of Suderoë. The report is that the people have used their coal as fuel for a century; that although not so easily fired as the English, it gives a stronger and more lasting flame, and that it is free from sulphur and other minerals injurious to the fabrication of steel and iron. But, after settling its calorific properties, the grand question is, whether the veins are in the real carboniferous formation, whose beds are thick enough to work profitably. Seams which occur in the nummulite-hippurite Jurassic formation mostly lead to loss, witness those which have been worked near Trieste, on the Adriatic coast, and in parts of the Libanus.

Dr Hjaltalín was sanguine concerning the coal lately found in the regions about Norðrá, a northern influent of the Western Hvítá River: the exact position is between the little tarns Vikrafell and Herðavatn in Norðrardal. He expects soon to settle a long-disputed question, “Has coal been producedin situ?” and the sister formation of the Færoe Islands, where a Danish officer, Captain Dahl, has bought a vein seven feet thick for $50,000, ought to aid in solving the mystery. It is found associated with the Surtar-brand,[387]a semi-mineralised lignite, common on the western coast of the island. Uno Von Troil tells us that cups and plates which take a fine polish are made of it at Copenhagen: this reminds us of the bitumen “finjans” from the Tomb of Moses, near the Dead Sea.

Uno Von Troil, Sartorius Von Waltershausen, and Professor Silliman maintain this Devil’s or black fuel to be a local produce of forests buried by ashes, and ripened by the superincumbent sand and humus. On the other hand, Professor Steenstrüp and M. Gaimard declare this “brown coal” to be flotsam and jetsam from the Gulf of Mexico. Professor Paijkull found in it some thirty kinds of growth: the vine and platanus, the tulip-tree and mahogany, associated with oak, elm, willow, alder, birch, walnut, fir, and other resinous vegetation. These items, if grownin situ, as they appear to be, suggest a change of temperature utterly unknown to historic times, and belonging to the flora of the upper Miocene,e.g., Madeira. Halley explained the intense cold of Behring’s Straits, by placing the Pole there before the earth’s axis had altered its direction. Others have attributed the change to the diminution of ecliptical obliquity, the excentricity of the earth’s orbit, the precession of the equinoxes, and the revolution of the apsides. Similarly the Markgraf F. Marenzi (Fragmente über Geologie) cuts the Gordian knot, by supposing an altered obliquity of the ecliptic, which may have acted, he says, in past ages even as the present ever-increasing excentricity of the orbit will in some 210,000 years produce another Glacial Period, and render Northern Europe uninhabitable. On the other hand, he remarks that however torrid may have been the hyperborean climates, they must ever have lacked the fructifying insects, peculiar to temperate, sub-equatorial, and equatorial zones. Judging from Miocene Greenland, the reverse would appear to be fact.

It is impossible to stay a week in Reykjavik without finding out that the world is split into two divisions, strongly marked as were our Whig and Tory of the last generation. The Danes are in the minority: they represent the utilitarian, the cosmopolitan, and, perhaps, the metropolitan side of politics; and they complain that whatever the mother country does for her distant dependency, the latter is ever clamorous for more. The majority is the Icelandic party, for whose political aspirations I can find no better name than “Home Rulers,”—warning readers, however, that the comparison must not be strained and identified with that of Ireland. The main difference of the movement, as far as I can see, appears simply this. Iceland is actually 1600 miles distant from Denmark, as far as London from Jamaica, and practically, when the post goes only seven times a year, as far as Australia from England. Again, the proportions of Iceland to Denmark (1,800,000) are 1:35, and the population is 1:25·70. England certainly would not refuse Home Rule to the Irish if they lived in New Zealand and numbered about 750,000. No wonder then that Iceland objects to be treated like a “Crown colony of a rather severe type.”

The islanders show a growing dissatisfaction with the Danish Government, which they declare to be, though mild, meddlingand unintelligent—in fact, perpetuating the petty, “nagging,” and annoying policy which, lost the duchies. They might respect whilst they hated a strong despotism; but perpetual interference they despise as well as hate. They are urgent as Mr Butt, for leave to stand on their own legs, to manage their own affairs; the Danes have tried, they say, for centuries to govern them, and progress could hardly be less were they left to themselves. The worst that could happen to them would be to starve, in which case they would deserve their fate, and could blame none but themselves. They complain, and I think with justice, that individually the Dane is not sympathetic to them; whilst Icelanders learn Danish, which, however, they pronounce with their own accent, Danes disdain their language and will not even attend their church. Residents of twenty years declare that they never read the theogenic, cosmogenic, and mythic Eddas,[388]because they are literally “grandams’ tales;” whilst the Sagas or Sayings, moral and dogmatic, epic and historical, are a tissue of inventions, monotonous, moreover, sanguinary, immoral, and barbarous. The actual leader of the opposition, or Home Rule party, is Hr Jón Sigurðsson (nat. 1811), now in Denmark, a far-famed Norsk scholar, and anemployéof the Danish Government. “White John,” as the popular nickname is, shows his clean shaven face everywhere, photographed for the patriot party. He owns advanced opinions, but he rests within constitutional limits; his followers, of course, go further afield, and not a few of them may be called republican. He has the honour to appear in the Millenary lithograph with the following notice: “President of the Althing, President of the Icelandic Literary Society, President of the Icelandic Thjóðvinafèlag; has distinguished himself as an uninterested and faithful champion of the national and political rights of the Icelanders; besides he has made himself conspicuous as a thorough scholar in the history and legislation of Iceland.”

There is also a small and uninfluential Norwegian faction which seems bent upon drawing the islanders to itself, chiefly, it appearsto me, because Naddodd and Ingólfr discovered and colonised Iceland, and because she still speaks the Norræna-Túnga: a few distinguished names, literary and political, belong to this political category.

In the Introduction I have offered a few remarks on the pros and cons of Home Rule in Iceland. But the history of the world generally, and especially that of Italy, teaches one great lesson—how easy it is to divide and how hard to “unify” a country. The line between local and imperial measures is difficult to draw and facile to be overstepped at all times of popular excitement: a manner of dismemberment is proposed at the time when the condition of Europe seems to demand centralisation. Diets in Great Britain will only assimilate her with Austria, which exists by a political necessity: statesmen say that if she were not she would have to be invented. We can all distinguish the dim form which stands behind Home Rule in Ireland, and I venture to predict that in Iceland it will be the shortest path to separation from the mother state, and to the re-establishment of the old Norwegian Republic.

END OF VOL. I.M‘Farlane, & Erskine, Printers, Edinburgh.

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