I was very brown, my lips were cracked,
and my nose, alas, even began to rebel against its ugly colour. It
seemed anxious to possess a new, dazzling white, tender skin, and
was casting off the old one in little bits.
The only circumstance which reinstated me in the good opinion of the
young girls was, that having brushed my hair unusually far out of my
face, a white space became visible. The girls all cried out
simultaneously, quite surprised and delighted: "Hun er quit" (she
is white). I could not refrain from laughing, and bared my arm to
prove to them that I did not belong to the Arab race.
A great surprise was destined me in this house; for, as I was
ransacking the Sysselmann's book-case, I found Rotteck's Universal
History, a German Lexicon, and several poems and writings of German
poets.
July 2d.
The way from Kalmannstunga to Thingvalla leads over nothing but
lava, and the one to-day went entirely through marshes. As soon as
we had crossed one, another was before us. Lava seemed to form the
soil here, for little portions of this mineral rose like islands out
of the marshes.
The country already grew more open, and we gradually lost sight of
the glaciers. The high mountains on the left seemed like hills in
the distance, and the nearer ones were really hills.
