There was no sign of any disposition to depart; I
believe I could have sat there till doomsday, and failed to tire my
audience out. At length, after this scene had lasted a full hour, I
could stand it no longer, and was fain to request my amiable
visitors to retire, as I wished to go to bed.
My sleep that night was none of the sweetest. A certain feeling of
discomfort always attaches to the fact of sleeping in a church
alone, in the midst of a grave-yard. Besides this, on the night in
question such a dreadful storm arose that the wooden walls creaked
and groaned as though their foundations were giving way. The cold
was also rather severe, my thermometer inside the church shewing
only two degrees above zero. I was truly thankful when approaching
day brought with it the welcome hour of departure.
June 5th.
The heavy sleepiness and extreme indolence of an Icelandic guide
render departure before seven o'clock in the morning a thing not to
be thought of. This is, however, of little consequence, as there is
no night in Iceland at this time of year.
Although the distance was materially increased by returning to
Reikjavik by way of Grundivik and Keblevik, I chose this route in
order to pass through the wildest of the inhabited tracts in
Iceland.
The first stage, from Krisuvik to Grundivik, a distance of twelve to
fourteen miles, lay through fields of lava, consisting mostly of
small blocks of stone and fragments, filling the valley so
completely that not a single green spot remained. I here met with
masses of lava which presented an appearance of singular beauty.
They were black mounds, ten or twelve feet in height, piled upon
each other in the most varied forms, their bases covered with a
broad band of whitish-coloured moss, while the tops were broken into
peaks and cones of the most fantastic shapes. These lava-streams
seem to date from a recent period, as the masses are somewhat scaly
and glazed.
Grundivik, a little village of a few wretched cottages, lies like an
oasis in this desert of lava.
My guide wished to remain here, asserting that there was no place
between this and Keblevik where I could pass the night, and that it
would be impossible for our horses, exhausted as they were with
yesterday's march, to carry us to Keblevik that night. The true
reason of this suggestion was that he wished to prolong the journey
for another day.
Luckily I had a good map with me, and by dint of consulting it could
calculate distances with tolerable accuracy; it was also my custom
before starting on a journey to make particular inquiries as to how
I should arrange the daily stages.
