greater distance than twelve or fourteen miles,
I resolved, if possible, to climb some part of
them to-day, and accordingly set offon foot,
and without a guide, early in the morning
for that purpose. But, after going in as direct
a line towards the nearest point of them, by
the compass, as the nature of the country
would permit, at six o’clock in the evening,
I found myself, apparently, as far from the
object of my walk a® when I first set out.
This delusion, I apprehended, was owing to
the extensive valley that I entered yesterday,
through which the lava had made its course,
which was concealed by intervening hills
from the view of a person looking towards it
from the neighborhood of Reikevig. Except
for the first three or four miles, the rest of my
walk was. entirely over the Hraun; and a
more toilsome excursion can hardly be conceived
: it seemed to be rendered doubly so,
by my being obliged to return without
reaching the mountains. The immense quantity
of Trichostomum, which covered a great
part of the lava, and filled up the interstices
of it, only rendered walking among it more
difficult; for it was impossible to see where
it concealed a deep hole or a piece of lava,
which would give way under my feet; and
consequently, I was frequently precipitated
upon the sharp edges of the rock. The worst
of all was, that I could not well have chosen
■a more barren spot for plants, in so long a
ramble; though I met with one species that
delighted me much, and-made me for a time
forget the fatigue: this was Andromeda hyp-
noides *, which I found just in flower, on the
north side of a huge mass of lava, and only
there.. Rhodiola rosea was tolerably plentiful
on the Hraun, but scarcely in flower. I also
met with Lycopodium annotinum and Conos-
tomum horeale. In boggy grounds, before I
arrived at the Hraun, I found Orchis hyper-
horea, the scent of which is very pleasant,
* Besides the beauty of the color of the flowers o f
this plant, which particularly attracted the attention
of Linnaeus, during the course of his travels in Lapland,
and induced him to say, that, “ florens mirum
in modum jucundissimo florum suorum colore specta-
torem allicit,” it struck me no less forcibly by the
singular elegance of its form and general appearance.
The delicate tint of the flowers was here finely contrasted
with the uniform blackness of the lava. Its
barren shoots, as is observed by Linnaeus, exactly resemble
those of a moss, or of a small Lycopodium.