meet us, and to accompany us to Inderholme.
Leaving, therefore, my Reikevig guide with
the luggage and other horses, to follow us
at leisure, Jacob and myself mounted some
steeds sent by the Etatsroed, and hastened
forward till we came to the foot of Akra-fiel,
a mountain of some height, which rose at no
great distance from this gentleman’s house,
but was separated from it by a morass*
that was not to be crossed without much difficulty.
In the worst places were laid sod
and large pieces of rock, which had been
procured from a considerable distance, but,
although these prevented the horses from
sinking deep in the mire, they by no means
rendered the passage firm: yet did this
* Let it not be regarded as a proof of the indolence
of the Icelanders, or as setting their characters in an
unfavorable light, that these morasses are to be seen,
occasionally, in the neighborhood of the best of their
houses, and that the roads, not unfrequently, lead over
them. All this is, unfortunately, aseribable to the
country itself, which is little else than rock and bog j
the latter, of so wet and spongy a texture, that no
materials, however adapted to the purpose, and no
quantity of them, however large, would be sufficient
to overcome their stubborn nature, or to make them
properly passable.
trackless swamp lead to the very best house
in the island, the residence of a man, at
once a Danish counsellor of state, and the
chief justice of Iceland ; one, too, whose talents
and acquirements would render him
the ornament of any society, but who lived
here shut out from all connexion with the
literary world. In such of the out-buildings
of the Etatsroed’s house, as first came in
view, was evident a degree of neatness as
to workmanship, of elegance as to form, and
of regularity as to design, which I had never
before seen in the island, and on approaching
the door of the principal building, it
seemed as if I was actually transported to
another country. In point of architecture
and materials, it was, indeed, built in the
true style of an Icelandic dwelling, and totally
unlike the Danish ones of Reikevig,
but there was, nevertheless, even in the turf
walls and numerous roofs, an appearance of
refinement which I little expected to have
met with: while the painted doors and the
large glass windows were quite novelties.
To comfort and cleanliness in the persons
of the natives I had not been much accustomed,
and was, therefore, the more glad