A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XII.

A BAR­REN LAND

We had start­ed un­der a sky over­cast but calm. There was no fear of heat, none of dis­as­trous rain. It was just the weath­er for tourists.

The plea­sure of rid­ing on horse­back over an un­known coun­try made me easy to be pleased at our first start. I threw my­self whol­ly in­to the plea­sure of the trip, and en­joyed the feel­ing of free­dom and sat­is­fied de­sire. I was be­gin­ning to take a re­al share in the en­ter­prise.

“Be­sides,” I said to my­self, “where’s the risk? Here we are trav­el­ling all through a most in­ter­est­ing coun­try! We are about to climb a very re­mark­able moun­tain; at the worst we are go­ing to scram­ble down an ex­tinct crater. It is ev­ident that Saknussemm did noth­ing more than this. As for a pas­sage lead­ing to the cen­tre of the globe, it is mere rub­bish! per­fect­ly im­pos­si­ble! Very well, then; let us get all the good we can out of this ex­pe­di­tion, and don’t let us hag­gle about the chances.”

This rea­son­ing hav­ing set­tled my mind, we got out of Re­jki­avik.

Hans moved steadi­ly on, keep­ing ahead of us at an even, smooth, and rapid pace. The bag­gage hors­es fol­lowed him with­out giv­ing any trou­ble. Then came my un­cle and my­self, look­ing not so very ill-​mount­ed on our small but hardy an­imals.

Ice­land is one of the largest is­lands in Eu­rope. Its sur­face is 14,000 square miles, and it con­tains but 16,000 in­hab­itants. Ge­og­ra­phers have di­vid­ed it in­to four quar­ters, and we were cross­ing di­ag­onal­ly the south-​west quar­ter, called the ‘Sud­vester Fjor­dun­gr.’

On leav­ing Re­jki­avik Hans took us by the seashore. We passed lean pas­tures which were try­ing very hard, but in vain, to look green; yel­low came out best. The rugged peaks of the tra­chyte rocks pre­sent­ed faint out­lines on the east­ern hori­zon; at times a few patch­es of snow, con­cen­trat­ing the vague light, glit­tered up­on the slopes of the dis­tant moun­tains; cer­tain peaks, bold­ly up­ris­ing, passed through the grey clouds, and reap­peared above the mov­ing mists, like break­ers emerg­ing in the heav­ens.

Of­ten these chains of bar­ren rocks made a dip to­wards the sea, and en­croached up­on the scanty pas­turage: but there was al­ways enough room to pass. Be­sides, our hors­es in­stinc­tive­ly chose the eas­iest places with­out ev­er slack­en­ing their pace. My un­cle was re­fused even the sat­is­fac­tion of stir­ring up his beast with whip or voice. He had no ex­cuse for be­ing im­pa­tient. I could not help smil­ing to see so tall a man on so small a pony, and as his long legs near­ly touched the ground he looked like a six-​legged cen­taur.

“Good horse! good horse!” he kept say­ing. “You will see, Ax­el, that there is no more saga­cious an­imal than the Ice­landic horse. He is stopped by nei­ther snow, nor storm, nor im­pass­able roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or any­thing. He is coura­geous, sober, and sure­foot­ed. He nev­er makes a false step, nev­er shies. If there is a riv­er or fiord to cross (and we shall meet with many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were am­phibi­ous, and gain the op­po­site bank. But we must not hur­ry him; we must let him have his way, and we shall get on at the rate of thir­ty miles a day.”

“We may; but how about our guide?”

“Oh, nev­er mind him. Peo­ple like him get over the ground with­out a thought. There is so lit­tle ac­tion in this man that he will nev­er get tired; and be­sides, if he wants it, he shall have my horse. I shall get cramped if I don’t have- a lit­tle ac­tion. The arms are all right, but the legs want ex­er­cise.”

We were ad­vanc­ing at a rapid pace. The coun­try was al­ready al­most a desert. Here and there was a lone­ly farm, called a boër built ei­ther of wood, or of sods, or of pieces of la­va, look­ing like a poor beg­gar by the way­side. These ru­inous huts seemed to so­lic­it char­ity from passers-​by; and on very small provo­ca­tion we should have giv­en alms for the re­lief of the poor in­mates. In this coun­try there were no roads and paths, and the poor veg­eta­tion, how­ev­er slow, would soon ef­face the rare trav­ellers’ foot­steps.

Yet this part of the province, at a very small dis­tance from the cap­ital, is reck­oned among the in­hab­it­ed and cul­ti­vat­ed por­tions of Ice­land. What, then, must oth­er tracts be, more desert than this desert? In the first half mile we had not seen one farmer stand­ing be­fore his cab­in door, nor one shep­herd tend­ing a flock less wild than him­self, noth­ing but a few cows and sheep left to them­selves. What then would be those con­vulsed re­gions up­on which we were ad­vanc­ing, re­gions sub­ject to the dire phe­nom­ena of erup­tions, the off­spring of vol­canic ex­plo­sions and sub­ter­ranean con­vul­sions?

We were to know them be­fore long, but on con­sult­ing Olsen’s map, I saw that they would be avoid­ed by wind­ing along the seashore. In fact, the great plu­ton­ic ac­tion is con­fined to the cen­tral por­tion of the is­land; there, rocks of the trap­pean and vol­canic class, in­clud­ing tra­chyte, basalt, and tuffs and ag­glom­er­ates as­so­ci­at­ed with streams of la­va, have made this a land of su­per­nat­ural hor­rors. I had no idea of the spec­ta­cle which was await­ing us in the penin­su­la of Snæfell, where these ru­ins of a fiery na­ture have formed a fright­ful chaos.

In two hours from Re­jki­avik we ar­rived at the burgh of Gu­fu­nes, called Aolkirk­ja, or prin­ci­pal church. There was noth­ing re­mark­able here but a few hous­es, scarce­ly enough for a Ger­man ham­let.

Hans stopped here half an hour. He shared with us our fru­gal break­fast; an­swer­ing my un­cle’s ques­tions about the road and our rest­ing place that night with mere­ly yes or no, ex­cept when he said “Gardär.”

I con­sult­ed the map to see where Gardär was. I saw there was a small town of that name on the banks of the Hval­fiord, four miles from Re­jki­avik. I showed it to my un­cle.

“Four miles on­ly!” he ex­claimed; “four miles out of twen­ty-​eight. What a nice lit­tle walk!”

He was about to make an ob­ser­va­tion to the guide, who with­out an­swer­ing re­sumed his place at the head, and went on his way.

Three hours lat­er, still tread­ing on the colour­less grass of the pas­ture land, we had to work round the Kol­la fiord, a longer way but an eas­ier one than across that in­let. We soon en­tered in­to a ‘pings­taœr’ or parish called Ejul­berg, from whose steeple twelve o’clock would have struck, if Ice­landic church­es were rich enough to pos­sess clocks. But they are like the parish­ioners who have no watch­es and do with­out.

There our hors­es were bait­ed; then tak­ing the nar­row path to left be­tween a chain of hills and the sea, they car­ried us to our next stage, the aolkirk­ja of Bran­tär and one mile far­ther on, to Saur­boër ‘An­nex­ia,’ a chapel of ease built on the south shore of the Hval­fiord.

It was now four o’clock, and we had gone four Ice­landic miles, or twen­ty-​four En­glish miles.

In that place the fiord was at least three En­glish miles wide; the waves rolled with a rush­ing din up­on the sharp-​point­ed rocks; this in­let was con­fined be­tween walls of rock, precipices crowned by sharp peaks 2,000 feet high, and re­mark­able for the brown stra­ta which sep­arat­ed the beds of red­dish tuff. How­ev­er much I might re­spect the in­tel­li­gence of our quadrupeds, I hard­ly cared to put it to the test by trust­ing my­self to it on horse­back across an arm of the sea.

If they are as in­tel­li­gent as they are said to be, I thought, they won’t try it. In any case, I will tax my in­tel­li­gence to di­rect theirs.

But my un­cle would not wait. He spurred on to the edge. His steed low­ered his head to ex­am­ine the near­est waves and stopped. My un­cle, who had an in­stinct of his own, too, ap­plied pres­sure, and was again re­fused by the an­imal sig­nif­icant­ly shak­ing his head. Then fol­lowed strong lan­guage, and the whip; but the brute an­swered these ar­gu­ments with kicks and en­deav­ours to throw his rid­er. At last the clever lit­tle pony, with a bend of his knees, start­ed from un­der the Pro­fes­sor’s legs, and left him stand­ing up­on two boul­ders on the shore just like the colos­sus of Rhodes.

“Con­found­ed brute!” cried the un­horsed horse­man, sud­den­ly de­grad­ed in­to a pedes­tri­an, just as ashamed as a cav­al­ry of­fi­cer de­grad­ed to a foot sol­dier.

“_Fär­ja,_” said the guide, touch­ing his shoul­der.

“What! a boat?”

“_Der,_” replied Hans, point­ing to one.

“Yes,” I cried; “there is a boat.”

“Why did not you say so then? Well, let us go on.”

“_Tid­vat­ten,_” said the guide.

“What is he say­ing?”

“He says tide,” said my un­cle, trans­lat­ing the Dan­ish word.

“No doubt we must wait for the tide.”

“_För­bi­da,_” said my un­cle.

“_Ja,_” replied Hans.

My un­cle stamped with his foot, while the hors­es went on to the boat.

I per­fect­ly un­der­stood the ne­ces­si­ty of abid­ing a par­tic­ular mo­ment of the tide to un­der­take the cross­ing of the fiord, when, the sea hav­ing reached its great­est height, it should be slack wa­ter. Then the ebb and flow have no sen­si­ble ef­fect, and the boat does not risk be­ing car­ried ei­ther to the bot­tom or out to sea.

That favourable mo­ment ar­rived on­ly with six o’clock; when my un­cle, my­self, the guide, two oth­er pas­sen­gers and the four hors­es, trust­ed our­selves to a some­what frag­ile raft. Ac­cus­tomed as I was to the swift and sure steam­ers on the Elbe, I found the oars of the row­ers rather a slow means of propul­sion. It took us more than an hour to cross the fiord; but the pas­sage was ef­fect­ed with­out any mishap.

In an­oth­er half hour we had reached the aolkirk­ja of Gardär