determined to gratify his wishes during the summer of
1810 hy a visit to that island. Two gentlemen of
the University of Edinburgh, Mr. Henry Holland (now
Dr. Holland) and Mr. Richard Bright (now Dr.
Bright), volunteered their services to accompany him,
which were cordially accepted; and to Dr. Holland his
subsequent publication is greatly indebted for the most
valuable papers contained therein. To this able and
intelligent writer he owes the preliminary dissertation
on the history and literature of Iceland, the account of
the present state of literature, and the chapter on
government, laws and religion, and also the account of
the diseases of the Icelanders. To Mr. Bright he is
indebted for an account of the zoology and botany of
Iceland. To the kindness of Dr. Holland since my
return I owe many thanks. I have only to regret that
his MS. Journals, with the perusal of which he favoured
me, with permission to make what use of them I pleased,
came a little too late, or I should have availed myself
much more extensively of the valuable information
they contain, which Sir George Mackenzie’s volume has
by no means exhausted.
In the years 1814 and 1815, Mr. Ebenezer Henderson
took up his residence in Iceland, with the view
exclusively, as he tells us, of investigating the wants of
the inhabitants with respect to the Holy Scriptures, and
to take measures for the speedy distribution of the copies
which had been provided for them by the bounty of the
British and Foreign Bible Society. To accomplish this
effectually, he found it expedient to make the whole tour
of the island. This necessarily brought him into contact
with all classes of inhabitants, and he has published
the result of his observations in two octavo volumes,
abounding with much curious and interesting matter;
but as his descriptions of men and things are avowedly
only of secondary consideration with him, he is not so
sure a guide as he might otherwise have been. He is
also, like some of his predecessors, disposed to be somewhat
credulous, as may be inferred from his giving
credit to Olafsen and Povelsen’s long story of the instinctive
sagacity of the little wood-mouse {nius
sylvatims), transporting seeds or berries across broad
rivers, on thin and flat pieces of dried cow-dung, wdiich
parties of four to ten are said to drag to the waterside,
and then arrange themselves on their little raft so that
they face the centre and each other, while their tails
hang over the sides to row the raft, and serve at the
same time to steer i t : arrived on the opposite bank, they
drag their raft and its cargo to the little magazine prepared
to receive their winter’s store. The Danish travellers
do not pretend to have seen this operation themselves,
but state that they had the account from those who
had seen it, and who were worthy of belief; and that they
see nothing in it to induce them to doubt it. Mr. Pennant
was a great naturalist, and in that department was
much given to the marvellous; he repeats this story, and
is credulous enough to believe it, which is perhaps
to be expected from one who “ assents to the fact.