the Etatsroed, and who would not suffer us
to depart without setting before us some
coffee, roast mutton, rum, and claret, and
forcing us to partake of his hospitality; neither
could we prevent him from accompanying
us on our way till we had reached a
difficult pass upon a mountain, through
which he observed that the Etatsroed, however
well acquainted with the country in
general, would not prove a sufficient guide.
As we went along, we observed not far from
the road a small turf building, which we
found on inquiry to be a printingroffice, and
at this time the only one in the island. Its
distance from Reikevig must necessarily be
a source of great inconvenience, and cause
considerable delay in the issuing of proclamations
and other matters relative to government,
to which, indeed, may be attributed
in some measure the misunderstanding between
Count Tramp and ]VIr. Phelps; the
former of whom made this a plea for the not
having published earlier the convention that
he had entered into with the captain of the
Rover sloop of war. For other purposes it
may serve well enough, and its vicinity to
the Etatsroed, who furnishes it with mor?
employment than any other person, is of
considerable convenience to him, as well as
of no small advantage to the proprietor. We
now approached the mountain Skardsheidi,
which we had to cross in our way to Hva-
more, but we previously touched upon the
borders of some brush-wood, which here
bears the name of a forest, and is considered
the finest in the island. To have entered
into the wood would have led us too much
out of our intended course, so that I was
prevented from judging either of the size
of the largest birches, of which it was composed,
or of its rank in the scale of Icelandic
forests. Of such trees, “ if trees
they may be called, which trees are none,”
as we passed on the outskirts, the tallest did
not exceed three feet or four at the utmost,
and would scarcely have received a more important
appellation than that of bushes in
other countries. The sides of Skardsheidi
are in many places extremely steep and barren,
and its base, from being every where,
except in the gullies, wholly environed by an
immense wall formed of loose pieces of rock
that have fallen from the cliffs above, is thus
rendered no less impassable than the parts