A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER IX.

ICE­LAND! BUT WHAT NEXT?

The day for our de­par­ture ar­rived. The day be­fore it our kind friend M. Thom­sen brought us let­ters of in­tro­duc­tion to Count Trampe, the Gov­er­nor of Ice­land, M. Pic­turssen, the bish­op’s suf­fra­gan, and M. Fin­sen, may­or of Re­jki­avik. My un­cle ex­pressed his grat­itude by tremen­dous com­pres­sions of both his hands.

On the 2nd, at six in the evening, all our pre­cious bag­gage be­ing safe­ly on board the _Valkyr­ia,_ the cap­tain took us in­to a very nar­row cab­in.

“Is the wind favourable?” my un­cle asked.

“Ex­cel­lent,” replied Cap­tain Bjarne; “a sou’-east­er. We shall pass down the Sound full speed, with all sails set.”

In a few min­utes the schooner, un­der her mizen, brig­an­tine, top­sail, and top­gal­lant sail, loosed from her moor­ings and made full sail through the straits. In an hour the cap­ital of Den­mark seemed to sink be­low the dis­tant waves, and the _Valkyr­ia_ was skirt­ing the coast by Elsi­nore. In my ner­vous frame of mind I ex­pect­ed to see the ghost of Ham­let wan­der­ing on the leg­endary cas­tle ter­race.

“Sub­lime mad­man!” I said, “no doubt you would ap­prove of our ex­pe­di­tion. Per­haps you would keep us com­pa­ny to the cen­tre of the globe, to find the so­lu­tion of your eter­nal doubts.”

But there was no ghost­ly shape up­on the an­cient walls. In­deed, the cas­tle is much younger than the hero­ic prince of Den­mark. It now an­swers the pur­pose of a sump­tu­ous lodge for the door­keep­er of the straits of the Sound, be­fore which ev­ery year there pass fif­teen thou­sand ships of all na­tions.

The cas­tle of Kro­ns­berg soon dis­ap­peared in the mist, as well as the tow­er of Hels­ing­borg, built on the Swedish coast, and the schooner passed light­ly on her way urged by the breezes of the Cat­te­gat.

The _Valkyr­ia_ was a splen­did sail­er, but on a sail­ing ves­sel you can place no de­pen­dence. She was tak­ing to Re­jki­avik coal, house­hold goods, earth­en­ware, woollen cloth­ing, and a car­go of wheat. The crew con­sist­ed of five men, all Danes.

“How long will the pas­sage take?” my un­cle asked.

“Ten days,” the cap­tain replied, “if we don’t meet a nor’-west­er in pass­ing the Faroes.”

“But are you not sub­ject to con­sid­er­able de­lays?”

“No, M. Lieden­brock, don’t be un­easy, we shall get there in very good time.”

At evening the schooner dou­bled the Skaw at the north­ern point of Den­mark, in the night passed the Sk­ager Rack, skirt­ed Nor­way by Cape Lind­ness, and en­tered the North Sea.

In two days more we sight­ed the coast of Scot­land near Pe­ter­head,,and the _Valkyr­ia_ turned her lead to­wards the Faroe Is­lands, pass­ing be­tween the Orkneys and Shet­lands.

Soon the schooner en­coun­tered the great At­lantic swell; she had to tack against the north wind, and reached the Faroes on­ly with some dif­fi­cul­ty. On the 8th the cap­tain made out My­gan­ness, the south­ern­most of these is­lands, and from that mo­ment took a straight course for Cape Port­land, the most souther­ly point of Ice­land.

The pas­sage was marked by noth­ing un­usu­al. I bore the trou­bles of the sea pret­ty well; my un­cle, to his own in­tense dis­gust, and his greater shame, was ill all through the voy­age.

He there­fore was un­able to con­verse with the cap­tain about Snæfell, the way to get to it, the fa­cil­ities for trans­port, he was obliged to put off these in­quiries un­til his ar­rival, and spent all his time at full length in his cab­in, of which the tim­bers creaked and shook with ev­ery pitch she took. It must be con­fessed he was not un­de­serv­ing of his pun­ish­ment.

On the 11th we reached Cape Port­land. The clear open weath­er gave us a good view of Myrdals jokul, which over­hangs it. The cape is mere­ly a low hill with steep sides, stand­ing lone­ly by the beach.

The _Valkyr­ia_ kept at some dis­tance from the coast, tak­ing a west­er­ly course amidst great shoals of whales and sharks. Soon we came in sight of an enor­mous per­fo­rat­ed rock, through which the sea dashed fu­ri­ous­ly. The West­man islets seemed to rise out of the ocean like a group of rocks in a liq­uid plain. From that time the schooner took a wide berth and swept at a great dis­tance round Cape Re­jkianess, which forms the west­ern point of Ice­land.

The rough sea pre­vent­ed my un­cle from com­ing on deck to ad­mire these shat­tered and surf-​beat­en coasts.

Forty-​eight hours af­ter, com­ing out of a storm which forced the schooner to scud un­der bare poles, we sight­ed east of us the bea­con on Cape Sk­agen, where dan­ger­ous rocks ex­tend far away sea­ward. An Ice­landic pi­lot came on board, and in three hours the _Valkyr­ia_ dropped her an­chor be­fore Re­jki­avik, in Faxa Bay.

The Pro­fes­sor at last emerged from his cab­in, rather pale and wretched-​look­ing, but still full of en­thu­si­asm, and with ar­dent sat­is­fac­tion shin­ing in his eyes.

The pop­ula­tion of the town, won­der­ful­ly in­ter­est­ed in the ar­rival of a ves­sel from which ev­ery one ex­pect­ed some­thing, formed in groups up­on the quay.

My un­cle left in haste his float­ing prison, or rather hos­pi­tal. But be­fore quit­ting the deck of the schooner he dragged me for­ward, and point­ing with out­stretched fin­ger north of the bay at a dis­tant moun­tain ter­mi­nat­ing in a dou­ble peak, a pair of cones cov­ered with per­pet­ual snow, he cried:

“Snæfell! Snæfell!”

Then rec­om­mend­ing me, by an im­pres­sive ges­ture, to keep si­lence, he went in­to the boat which await­ed him. I fol­lowed, and present­ly we were tread­ing the soil of Ice­land.

The first man we saw was a good-​look­ing fel­low enough, in a gen­er­al’s uni­form. Yet he was not a gen­er­al but a mag­is­trate, the Gov­er­nor of the is­land, M. le Baron Trampe him­self. The Pro­fes­sor was soon aware of the pres­ence he was in. He de­liv­ered him his let­ters from Copen­hagen, and then fol­lowed a short con­ver­sa­tion in the Dan­ish lan­guage, the pur­port of which I was quite ig­no­rant of, and for a very good rea­son. But the re­sult of this first con­ver­sa­tion was, that Baron Trampe placed him­self en­tire­ly at the ser­vice of Pro­fes­sor Lieden­brock.

My un­cle was just as cour­te­ous­ly re­ceived by the may­or, M. Fin­sen, whose ap­pear­ance was as mil­itary, and dis­po­si­tion and of­fice as pa­cif­ic, as the Gov­er­nor’s.

As for the bish­op’s suf­fra­gan, M. Pic­turssen, he was at that mo­ment en­gaged on an epis­co­pal vis­ita­tion in the north. For the time we must be re­signed to wait for the hon­our of be­ing pre­sent­ed to him. But M. Fridrikssen, pro­fes­sor of nat­ural sci­ences at the school of Re­jki­avik, was a de­light­ful man, and his friend­ship be­came very pre­cious to me. This mod­est philoso­pher spoke on­ly Dan­ish and Latin. He came to prof­fer me his good of­fices in the lan­guage of Ho­race, and I felt that we were made to un­der­stand each oth­er. In fact he was the on­ly per­son in Ice­land with whom I could con­verse at all.

This good-​na­tured gen­tle­man made over to us two of the three rooms which his house con­tained, and we were soon in­stalled in it with all our lug­gage, the abun­dance of which rather as­ton­ished the good peo­ple of Re­jki­avik.

“Well, Ax­el,” said my un­cle, “we are get­ting on, and now the worst is over.”

“The worst!” I said, as­ton­ished.

“To be sure, now we have noth­ing to do but go down.”

“Oh, if that is all, you are quite right; but af­ter all, when we have gone down, we shall have to get up again, I sup­pose?”

“Oh I don’t trou­ble my­self about that. Come, there’s no time to lose; I am go­ing to the li­brary. Per­haps there is some manuscript of Saknussemm’s there, and I should be glad to con­sult it.”

“Well, while you are there I will go in­to the town. Won’t you?”

“Oh, that is very un­in­ter­est­ing to me. It is not what is up­on this is­land, but what is un­der­neath, that in­ter­ests me.”

I went out, and wan­dered wher­ev­er chance took me.

It would not be easy to lose your way in Re­jki­avik. I was there­fore un­der no ne­ces­si­ty to in­quire the road, which ex­pos­es one to mis­takes when the on­ly medi­um of in­ter­course is ges­ture.

The town ex­tends along a low and marshy lev­el, be­tween two hills. An im­mense bed of la­va bounds it on one side, and falls gen­tly to­wards the sea. On the oth­er ex­tends the vast bay of Faxa, shut in at the north by the enor­mous glacier of the Snæfell, and of which the _Valkyr­ia_ was for the time the on­ly oc­cu­pant. Usu­al­ly the En­glish and French con­ser­va­tors of fish­eries moor in this bay, but just then they were cruis­ing about the west­ern coasts of the is­land.

The longest of the on­ly two streets that Re­jki­avik pos­sess­es was par­al­lel with the beach. Here live the mer­chants and traders, in wood­en cab­ins made of red planks set hor­izon­tal­ly; the oth­er street, run­ning west, ends at the lit­tle lake be­tween the house of the bish­op and oth­er non-​com­mer­cial peo­ple.

I had soon ex­plored these melan­choly ways; here and there I got a glimpse of fad­ed turf, look­ing like a worn-​out bit of car­pet, or some ap­pear­ance of a kitchen gar­den, the sparse veg­eta­bles of which (pota­toes, cab­bages, and let­tuces), would have fig­ured ap­pro­pri­ate­ly up­on a Lil­liputian ta­ble. A few sick­ly wallflow­ers were try­ing to en­joy the air and sun­shine.

About the mid­dle of the tin-​com­mer­cial street I found the pub­lic ceme­tery, in­closed with a mud wall, and where there seemed plen­ty of room.

Then a few steps brought me to the Gov­er­nor’s house, a but com­pared with the town hall of Ham­burg, a palace in com­par­ison with the cab­ins of the Ice­landic pop­ula­tion.

Be­tween the lit­tle lake and the town the church is built in the Protes­tant style, of cal­cined stones ex­tract­ed out of the vol­ca­noes by their own labour and at their own ex­pense; in high west­er­ly winds it was man­ifest that the red tiles of the roof would be scat­tered in the air, to the great dan­ger of the faith­ful wor­ship­pers.

On a neigh­bour­ing hill I per­ceived the na­tion­al school, where, as I was in­formed lat­er by our host, were taught He­brew, En­glish, French, and Dan­ish, four lan­guages of which, with shame I con­fess it, I don’t know a sin­gle word; af­ter an ex­am­ina­tion I should have had to stand last of the forty schol­ars ed­ucat­ed at this lit­tle col­lege, and I should have been held un­wor­thy to sleep along with them in one of those lit­tle dou­ble clos­ets, where more del­icate youths would have died of suf­fo­ca­tion the very first night.

In three hours I had seen not on­ly the town but its en­vi­rons. The gen­er­al as­pect was won­der­ful­ly dull. No trees, and scarce­ly any veg­eta­tion. Ev­ery­where bare rocks, signs of vol­canic ac­tion. The Ice­landic buts are made of earth and turf, and the walls slope in­ward; they rather re­sem­ble roofs placed on the ground. But then these roofs are mead­ows of com­par­ative fer­til­ity. Thanks to the in­ter­nal heat, the grass grows on them to some de­gree of per­fec­tion. It is care­ful­ly mown in the hay sea­son; if it were not, the hors­es would come to pas­ture on these green abodes.

In my ex­cur­sion I met but few peo­ple. On re­turn­ing to the main street I found the greater part of the pop­ula­tion bus­ied in dry­ing, salt­ing, and putting on board cod­fish, their chief ex­port. The men looked like ro­bust but heavy, blond Ger­mans with pen­sive eyes, con­scious of be­ing far re­moved from their fel­low crea­tures, poor ex­iles rel­egat­ed to this land of ice, poor crea­tures who should have been Es­quimaux, since na­ture had con­demned them to live on­ly just out­side the arc­tic cir­cle! In vain did I try to de­tect a smile up­on their lips; some­times by a spas­mod­ic and in­vol­un­tary con­trac­tion of the mus­cles they seemed to laugh, but they nev­er smiled.

Their cos­tume con­sist­ed of a coarse jack­et of black woollen cloth called in Scan­di­na­vian lands a ‘vad­mel,’ a hat with a very broad brim, trousers with a nar­row edge of red, and a bit of leather rolled round the foot for shoes.

The wom­en looked as sad and as re­signed as the men; their faces were agree­able but ex­pres­sion­less, and they wore gowns and pet­ti­coats of dark ‘vad­mel’; as maid­ens, they wore over their braid­ed hair a lit­tle knit­ted brown cap; when mar­ried, they put around their heads a coloured hand­ker­chief, crowned with a peak of white linen.

Af­ter a good walk I re­turned to M. Fridrikssen’s house, where I found my un­cle al­ready in his host’s com­pa­ny.