215
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quired us to stoop to enter i t ; but the poor clergyman
was above six feet high, and, as our guide informed
us, he was once considered as the finest man
ill Iceland; he was now, however, a complete
cripple, and scarcely able to move about.
I paid this poor man a visit in his miserable
dwelling, and found him stretched out on a pallet,
or rather a sort of broad shelf, the only one in the
room, which, with a small deal table and a couple
of broken chairs, composed the whole of the furniture
; the room, however, was wainscoted, and had
a small Avindow to admit a little light. We offered
to send a surgeon from Reikiavik to give him some
advice as to the treatment of his complaint, which,
as far as I could collect, Avas a Avhite swelling in
the knee, but he declined it, probably on account
of the expense. To see a poor man so circumstanced
filling such a situation Avas quite deplorable.
I have no idea of Avhat his establishment might
consist, for the only creature that appeared, except
himself and his Avife, was of a doubtful gender, a
creature of an amphibious nature which, from her
dress, I at first took for a male, but from the
appearance of the upper half of the body I soon
discoA'ered to be a female. H e r nether clothinPto'
consisted of a pair of thick light-brown wadmal pantaloons,
so light as almost to be the colour of the
human skin, and so close that a tailor Avould call
them a “ tight fit.” Such a being, large and lusty
partaking of the Hottentot form, habited in such a
dress, brought involuntarily to my lips the
" Monstrum horrenduin, informe, ingens”—
but there Avas no “ lumen ademptum ; ” this was
the only breeched lady I saAV, and Ave will suppose
that, in the hurry, she had left her gOAvn or petticoat
behind.
The little hoy that attended our guides I found
eagerly devouring a mess of porridge, Avhich haA'ing
finished, he Avent up to the priest lying in bed and
kissed his cheek, the usual mode of expressing
gratitude here, as a shake of the hand is in
Norway. I gave the clergyman’s Avife a pair of
scissars, and on departing Ave left a fcAV dollars on
the Communion table ; and made, after this, all the
haste to get aAvay from this Avretched dAvelling and
its apparently miserable tenants that our guides
could or would exert.
I t is a remarkable coincidence that the priest of
Middalr, Avhen Dr. Hooker was there, had a dislocated
hip and an ulcerated wound. By the Doctor’s
account, his living Avas only worth twenty rix-
dollars, or 41. a-year ; and he observed both him
and tAvo or three persons of his family eagerly
picking up from the ground the heads and entrails
of some fish, Avhich the doctor’s servants, in preparing
for cooking, had throAvn aAvay. Why he
should have been thus eager to pick up these remnants
is the more unaccountable, as a short journey
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