I had unfortunately not
known of the existence of these caves, and was consequently
unprepared to visit them. Torches, at least, would have been
requisite. But I subsequently heard that they were not at all deep,
and contained nothing of interest.
In the course of the day we passed through valleys such as I had
seen nowhere else in Iceland. Beautiful meadow-lawns, perfectly
level, covered the country for miles. These rich valleys were, of
course, tolerably well populated; we frequently passed three or four
contiguous cottages, and saw horses, cows, and sheep grazing on
these fields in considerable numbers.
The mountains which bounded these valleys on the left seemed to me
very remarkable; they were partly brown, black, or dark blue, like
the others; but the bulk of which they were composed I considered to
be fine loam-soil layers, if I may trust my imperfect mineralogical
knowledge. Some of these mountains were topped by large isolated
lava rocks, real giants; and it seemed inexplicable to me how they
could stand on the soft soil beneath.
In one of these valleys we passed a considerable lake, on and around
which rose circling clouds of steam proceeding from hot springs, but
of no great size. But after we had already travelled about twenty-
five miles, we came to the most remarkable object I had ever met
with; this was a river with a most peculiar bed.
