Across Iceland
9781465622938
301 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
These notes, besides describing a journey made during the summer of 1900 across Central Iceland from the north-east to the south-west, give an account of further travels by land in the west, and by sea along the coast and into the fjords of the north-west, north and east coasts. The voyage to Iceland was made in one of the vessels owned by the United Steamship Company, a Danish company trading from Copenhagen to Leith, and thence to the Faroes and Iceland. We were six in all—a semi-scientific party. There was Miss J. A. Hastie, a woman who has travelled much in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and who is not unacquainted with our Colonies at the Antipodes, or with the islands of the South Seas. She was specially interested in the botany of the country, in its folklore, and in the people. Then there was Captain W. H. Cope; he had been at sea for the greater part of his life, and had in the course of his journeyings seen much of the world; he was our nautical adviser, and we referred to him in matters connected with the sea. W. Glen, Miss Hastie's cousin, was known as the "handy man" of the party. If anybody was in difficulties, Glen was always on the spot to lend a helping hand. He produced all sorts of things at the right moment. Did any one require a screw-driver, then Glen had it; want a corkscrew, Glen could supply it; a pair of scissors, he produced them—some string, a strap, it was all the same. If a camera struck work, Glen could render the strike ineffective, for he carried two, and could lend one without interfering with his own photographic work. A. W. Hill, of King's College, Cambridge, was our botanist—who describes what he saw. H. H. Thomas, of Balliol, paid special attention to the geological formation of the country that we traversed, and he was frequently to be seen, camera in hand, taking shots at interesting formations—a glaciated lava surface, a volcanic vent, or an immense "erratic" boulder or "perched block," for instance; he also sketched industriously, and sometimes paced the ground compass in hand in order that he might record in his note-book the direction of a line of fissure, or the position of hot springs along that line; or something else of interest to geologists in particular. I was the geographer, whose mission it was to make a map of a small portion of the country traversed, to get a general idea of its conformation, and to note valleys and mountains, ice-fields and snow slopes, lava flows and hot springs, mighty rivers and tiny rivulets. I undertook to chronicle the events of the journey and to "take shots"—photographic shots—at men and things. We were all more or less devoted to sport, and frequently the desire to kill took possession of us, especially when we caught sight of duck, grouse, or golden plover—or, when we came to stream or river where trout or salmon were known to abound, we had a desire to cast a fly. But it was maddening to know that our desires could not be gratified, for where were gun and cartridges, rod and line? The man who had undertaken to look after that branch of our preliminary arrangements had failed us at the last moment, and it was not till too late, when we were embarking at Leith, that we learned that he was not coming with us. It was not his fault, poor fellow, but his misfortune. He had come a cropper from his bicycle, falling on his head, had remained unconscious for more than twelve hours, and had been forbidden by his medical advisers to travel—all this we knew nothing of until we were embarking at Leith, when it was altogether too late to procure another sporting outfit to replace that which we had fondly believed to be already on board ship, but which was really lying many miles away, far beyond our reach. But I will hasten over a subject that awakens the most tantalising of recollections, for many were the opportunities that were missed.
