Tuesday Coffee was early prepared for us
July is. ky Ma(jame Joneson this morning,
and was succeeded by a glass of rum,-previously
to our taking our breakfast, which
consisted of a large dish of boiled salmon,
eaten with butter and vinegar, and, after it,
a mess of mutton, boiled to rags, mixed with
melted butter, and seasoned with a sweet
sauce of oatmeal and sugar. During this
repast, the persons, who were sent for the
preceding evening to be my guides to Hecla,
arrived with the unwelcome intelligence,
that, in the present state of the weather and
morasses, they neither could nor would undertake
to conduct me to that place. The
rivers, too, were so swollen, that those,
which at other times were said to be deep,
were not now to be crossed without extreme
danger. My Reikevig guide, also, declared
he would not proceed with me, but await
my return at Skalholt. It was in vain conhaustaque
pura puta aqua ; turn, inquam, optime con-
veniebat, sed nescio num in hortis nostris magis amara
sit et acris, vel an gustus nobis in Lapponia fuerit alius,
quam extra earn; extra Lapponiam enim nunquam
arrisit: forte fercula persica persicum requirunt adpeti-
tum.” FI. Lapp. p. 73.
tending with the obstinacy and superstitious
timidity of these men ; for, though, owing
to the excessive wetness of thé season, there
would, undoubtedly, have been some difficulty
in wading through the morasses, yet
their apprehensions principally arose from
the necessity there would have been for
them to climb a volcanic mountain, which
triany of them believe * to be the abode of
the damned, and which all the lower class
* This opinion is well known to have existed of old
in heathen superstition j following which the classical
poets make Ætna the prison of the giants : Gaspar
Peucer, as quoted by Arngrimus Jonas, states the matter,
respecting Hecla, very circumstantially : “ Est in
Islandià, inquit, mons Hecla, qui immanis barathri, vel
inférai potiùs profnnditate terribilis ejulantium misera-
bili et lamentabili ploratu personat, ut voces plorantium
circumquaque ad intervallum magni miliaris audiantur.
Circumvolitant hunc corvorum et vulturum nigerrima
agmina, quæ nidulari ibidem ab incolis existimantur.
Vulgus incolarum deseensum esse per voraginem illam
ad inferos persuasum habet. Inde cum prselia commit-
tuntur alibi in quâcunque parte orbis teriarum, aut
cædes fiunt cruentæ, commoveri horrendos circumcirca
tumultus, et excitari clamores atque ejulatus ingentes
longà experientià didieerunt.” Hackluyt’s Collection of
Voyages, edit. 1810, vol. ii. p. 590.—Not very dissimilar
is the vulgar belief among the Japanese, except that