and the tops of the doors only, and perhaps about half
of a row of Avindows peeping aboA'e the said beach ;
bnt he sees enough of them to satisfy himself that
tliey are of a Ioav mean character, and only of one
story in height. On each extremity of this line of
liouses he Avill observe a rising eminence, scarcely
deserving the name of a hill, on Avhich he Avill perceive
a number of sod or turf huts raised a little,
and but a little, above the level of the ground;
their roofs, and generally their sides too, verdant
enough and well clothed Avith grass— the abodes
chiefly of fishermen, labourers in the merchants’
employ, and idlers, of Avhich there Avere not a few
at this time sauntering about the toAvn. Amono-
these hovels, or rather above them, on the Avestern
eminence, stands conspicuously the house of the
physician-general of Iceland, or, perhaps more
properly, surgeon and apothecary of Reikiavik,
for he acts in all these capacities; which tall
building, speaking comparatively Avith its neighbours,
is kept in countenance by a still taller one—•
the only windmill on the island. On the eastern
eminence are also placed a number of similar
hovels to those on the opposite hill, and, at a
distance beyond them, a monument of stones,
raised by the scholars, Avhen the only school on
the island Avas at Reikiavik: it had been alloAved
to fall into ruin, but was recently converted by the
present goA crnor into a neat little look-out house,
from Avhence he has a very extensive view of the
/
distant Snsefell Yokul, or snowy mountains, and the
whole amphitheatre of the less lofty ones^ which
inclose the plain of Reikiavik, but most of Avhich
are pa r tia lly covered Avith snow. The mountains
of Essian to the north-east, the Snsefell Yokul to
the north-west, and the Cape Reikianses and mountains
of the Goldbringe Syssel to the south, Avith
the little islands in the bay and the few ships in
the harbour, complete the view.
On landing by means of a jetty, of which there
are four carried out into the water, the stranger
will find himself al the foot of the rising beach,
covered Avith slag and cinders, and all the accompaniments
of the various kinds of lava, pebbles
of all dimensions, rounded by the action
of the sea, and almost all of them full of holes,
as if penetrated by worms, mixed also Avith black
sand, the decomposition of lava; and on one part
of the beach, near to the water’s edge, he Avill see
a low range of vitrified rock split into masses, exhibiting
imperfect, dislocated, and broken basaltic
pillars.
Here then it would be impossible to mistake
from whence the materials that compose this sea
beach had received their origin, or to doubt that
the great agent Avas fire : this, the appearance of
the coast, the islands both above and beloAV Avater,
and the lava shoals, sufficiently testify. Of
these shoals two very extensive ones exist in the
F 2