Not far from
Skalholt we came to the river Thiorsa, which is deep and rapid. We
crossed in a boat; but the horses had to swim after us. It is often
very troublesome to make the horses enter these streams; they see at
once that they will have to swim. The guide and boatmen cannot
leave the shore till the horses have been forced into the stream;
and even then they have to throw stones, to threaten them with the
whip, and to frighten them by shouts and cries, to prevent them from
returning.
When we had made nearly twelve miles on marshy roads, we came to the
beautiful waterfall of the Huitha. This fall is not so remarkable
for its height, which is scarcely more than fifteen to twenty feet,
as for its breadth, and for its quantity of water. Some beautiful
rocks are so placed at the ledge of the fall, that they divide it
into three parts; but it unites again immediately beneath them. The
bed of the river, as well as its shores, is of lava.
The colour of the water is also a remarkable feature in this river;
it inclines so much to milky white, that, when the sun shines on it,
it requires no very strong imaginative power to take the whole for
milk.
Nearly a mile above the fall we had to cross the Huitha, one of the
largest rivers in Iceland. Thence the road lies through meadows,
which are less marshy than the former ones, till it comes to a broad
stream of lava, which announces the vicinity of the fearful volcano
of Hecla.
