which are naturally more perpendicular.
We ascended through a hollow in one side
of the mountain, where the appearance of
vegetation, scanty and miserable as it was,
induced us to alight from our horses and
give up a little time to botanizing. I do
not recollect that any particularly rare plants
rewarded our researches in this spot, but I
well remember how much I was surprised
at the extent of the Etatsroed’s botanical
acquirements, and especially at the readiness
and correctness with which he called
most of the plants by their Linnaean names.
This astonished me the more as his only aid
has been a few books, the principal of which
is Lightfoot's Flora Scotica, and even these
he has been condemned to study by himself;
there being no individual attached to similar
pursuits in the whole island. He consequently
expressed great pleasure at being
now in company with a person who had
made botany one of the chief objects of his
attention, and he spared no pains in collecting
with his own hands and in directing
his son to collect such specimens as I most
wished to possess. It was not long, however,
before we left behind us all traces of
vegetation, and climbed the steeper and perfectly
barren sides of the mountain, where
we observed nothing remarkable, till we
came to the difficult passage through which
the Sysselman had volunteered to conduct
us. This was a sort of chasm, where a
quantity of loose stones and decomposed
rock, that had been washed down by the
rains, afforded a rugged pathway overhanging
a precipice on our right, so narrow as
scarcely to leave room for our horses to set
one foot before the other. We crossed it,
however, in safety, and took leave of our
kind friend, who returned to Leera. The
higher we, ascended the more severe was the
cold; and a storm of snow, which we had
watched for some time above us spending
its rage against the upper part of the mountain,
now assailed us, and made us feel still
more sensibly the difference between the
month of August in Iceland and in England.
When we had reached the highest summit,
over which we had to pass, a still loftier one,
called Honn, of a most extraordinary shape,
presented itself to our view. Its figure, from
the direction in which we saw it, was almost
a perfect pyramid, of a most gigantic size;
but what rendered it still more singular was