These Ships Bring Every Thing To Iceland, Corn, Wood, Wines,
Manufactured Goods, And Colonial Produce, &C. The Imports Are Free,
For It Would Not Pay The Government To Establish Offices, And Give
Servants Salaries To Collect Duties Upon The Small Amount Of Produce
Required For The Island.
Wine, and in fact all colonial produce,
are therefore much cheaper than in other countries.
The exports consist of fish, particularly salted cod, fish-roe,
tallow, train-oil, eider-down, and feathers of other birds, almost
equal to eider-down in softness, sheep's wool, and pickled or salted
lamb. With the exception of the articles just enumerated, the
Icelanders possess nothing; thirteen years ago, when Herr Knudson
established a bakehouse, {31} he was compelled to bring from
Copenhagen, not only the builder, but even the materials for
building, stones, lime, &c.; for although the island abounds with
masses of stone, there are none which can be used for building an
oven, or which can be burnt into lime: every thing is of lava.
Two or three cottages situated near each other are here dignified by
the name of a "place." These places, as well as the separate
cottages, are mostly built on little acclivities, surrounded by
meadows. The meadows are often fenced in with walls of stone or
earth, two or three feet in height, to prevent the cows, sheep, and
horses from trespassing upon them to graze. The grass of these
meadows is made into hay, and laid up as a winter provision for the
cows.
I did not hear many complaints of the severity of the cold in
winter; the temperature seldom sinks to twenty degrees below zero;
the sea is sometimes frozen, but only a few feet from the shore.
The snowstorms and tempests, however, are often so violent, that it
is almost impossible to leave the house. Daylight lasts only for
five or six hours, and to supply its place the poor Icelanders have
only the northern light, which is said to illumine the long nights
with a brilliancy truly marvellous.
The summer I passed in Iceland was one of the finest the inhabitants
had known for years. During the month of June the thermometer often
rose at noon to twenty degrees. The inhabitants found this heat so
insupportable, that they complained of being unable to work or to go
on messages during the day-time. On such warm days they would only
begin their hay-making in the evening, and continued their work half
the night.
The changes in the weather are very remarkable. Twenty degrees of
heat on one day would be followed by rain on the next, with a
temperature of only five degrees; and on the 5th of June, at eight
o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at one degree below
zero. It is also curious that thunderstorms happen in Iceland in
winter, and are said never to occur during the summer.
From the 16th or 18th of June to the end of the month there is no
night.
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