They Informed Us That His Imperial
Highness Had Reached Reykjavik Two Days After We Had
Left, That He Had Encamped Last Night At Thingvalla, And
Might Be Expected Here In About Four Hours:
They themselves
having come on in advance to prepare for his arrival.
My
first care was to order coffee for the tired Frenchmen;
and then - feeling that long residence having given us
a kind of proprietorship in the Geysirs, we were bound
to do the honours of the place to the approaching band
of travellers, - I summoned the cook, and enlarging in a
long speech on the gravity of the occasion, gave orders
that he should make a holocaust of all the remaining
game, and get under way a plum-pudding, whose dimensions
should do himself and England credit. A long table having
been erected within the tent, Sigurdr started on a
plundering expedition to the neighbouring farm, Fitzgerald
undertook the ordering of the feast, while I rode on my
pony across the morass, in hopes of being able to shoot
a few additional plover. In a couple of hours afterwards,
just as I was stalking a duck that lay innocently basking
on the bosom of the river, a cloud of horsemen swept
round the base of the distant mountain, and returning
home, I found the encampment I had left so deserted - alive
and populous with as merry a group of Frenchmen as it
might ever be one's fortune to fall in with. Of course
they were dressed in every variety of costumes, long
boots, picturesque brigand-looking hats, with here and
there a sprinkling of Scotch caps from Aberdeen; but -
whatever might be the head-dress, underneath you might
be sure to find a kindly, cheery face.
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