I forgot every thing around me, felt
neither cold nor storm, and let my horse pick his way as slowly as
he chose, so that I had once almost become separated from my guide.
One of the most considerable of the streams of lava lay in a
spacious broad valley. The lava-stream itself, about two miles
long, and of a considerable breadth, traversing the whole of the
plain, seemed to have been called into existence by magic, as there
was no mountain to be seen in the neighbourhood from which it could
have emerged. It appeared to be the covering of an immense crater,
formed, not of separate stones and blocks, but of a single and
slightly porous mass of rock ten or twelve feet thick, broken here
and there by clefts about a foot in breadth.
Another, and a still larger valley, many miles in circumference, was
filled with masses of lava shaped like waves, reminding the beholder
of a petrified sea. From the midst rose a high black mountain,
contrasting beautifully with the surrounding masses of light-grey
lava. At first I supposed the lava must have streamed forth from
this mountain, but soon found that the latter was perfectly smooth
on all sides, and terminated in a sharp peak. The remaining
mountains which shut in the valley were also perfectly closed, and I
looked in vain for any trace of a crater.
We now reached a small lake, and soon afterwards arrived at a larger
one, called Kleinfarvatne. Both were hemmed in by mountains, which
frequently rose abruptly from the waters, leaving no room for the
passage of the horses. We were obliged sometimes to climb the
mountains by fearfully dizzy paths; at others to scramble downwards,
almost clinging to the face of the rock. At some points we were
even compelled to dismount from our horses, and scramble forward on
our hands and knees. In a word, these dangerous points, which
extended over a space of about seven miles, were certainly quite as
bad as any I had encountered in Syria; if any thing, they were even
more formidable.
I was, however, assured that I should have no more such places to
encounter during all my further journeys in Iceland, and this
information quite reconciled me to the roads in this country. For
the rest, the path was generally tolerably safe even during this
tour, which continually led me across fields of lava.
A journey of some eight-and-twenty miles brought us at length into a
friendly valley; clouds of smoke, both small and great, were soon
discovered rising from the surrounding heights, and also from the
valley itself; these were the sulphur-springs and sulphur-mountains.
I could hardly restrain my impatience while we traversed the couple
of miles which separated us from Krisuvik. A few small lakes were
still to be crossed; and at length, at six o'clock in the evening,
we reached our destination.
