A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XIII.

HOS­PI­TAL­ITY UN­DER THE ARC­TIC CIR­CLE

It ought to have been night-​time, but un­der the 65th par­al­lel there was noth­ing sur­pris­ing in the noc­tur­nal po­lar light. In Ice­land dur­ing the months of June and Ju­ly the sun does not set.

But the tem­per­ature was much low­er. I was cold and more hun­gry than cold. Wel­come was the sight of the boër which was hos­pitably opened to re­ceive us.

It was a peas­ant’s house, but in point of hos­pi­tal­ity it was equal to a king’s. On our ar­rival the mas­ter came with out­stretched hands, and with­out more cer­emo­ny he beck­oned us to fol­low him.

To ac­com­pa­ny him down the long, nar­row, dark pas­sage, would have been im­pos­si­ble. There­fore, we fol­lowed, as he bid us. The build­ing was con­struct­ed of rough­ly squared tim­bers, with rooms on both sides, four in num­ber, all open­ing out in­to the one pas­sage: these were the kitchen, the weav­ing shop, the bad­sto­fa, or fam­ily sleep­ing-​room, and the vis­itors’ room, which was the best of all. My un­cle, whose height had not been thought of in build­ing the house, of course hit his head sev­er­al times against the beams that pro­ject­ed from the ceil­ings.

We were in­tro­duced in­to our apart­ment, a large room with a floor of earth stamped hard down, and light­ed by a win­dow, the panes of which were formed of sheep’s blad­der, not ad­mit­ting too much light. The sleep­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion con­sist­ed of dry lit­ter, thrown in­to two wood­en frames paint­ed red, and or­na­ment­ed with Ice­landic sen­tences. I was hard­ly ex­pect­ing so much com­fort; the on­ly dis­com­fort pro­ceed­ed from the strong odour of dried fish, hung meat, and sour milk, of which my nose made bit­ter com­plaints.

When we had laid aside our trav­el­ling wraps the voice of the host was heard invit­ing us to the kitchen, the on­ly room where a fire was light­ed even in the sever­est cold.

My un­cle lost no time in obey­ing the friend­ly call, nor was I slack in fol­low­ing.

The kitchen chim­ney was con­struct­ed on the an­cient pat­tern; in the mid­dle of the room was a stone for a hearth, over it in the roof a hole to let the smoke es­cape. The kitchen was al­so a din­ing-​room.

At our en­trance the host, as if he had nev­er seen us, greet­ed us with the word “_Sæl­lver­tu,_” which means “be hap­py,” and came and kissed us on the cheek.

Af­ter him his wife pro­nounced the same words, ac­com­pa­nied with the same cer­emo­ni­al; then the two plac­ing their hands up­on their hearts, in­clined pro­found­ly be­fore us.

I has­ten to in­form the read­er that this Ice­landic la­dy was the moth­er of nine­teen chil­dren, all, big and lit­tle, swarm­ing in the midst of the dense wreaths of smoke with which the fire on the hearth filled the cham­ber. Ev­ery mo­ment I no­ticed a fair-​haired and rather melan­choly face peep­ing out of the rolling vol­umes of smoke - they were a per­fect clus­ter of un­washed an­gels.

My un­cle and I treat­ed this lit­tle tribe with kind­ness; and in a very short time we each had three or four of these brats on our shoul­ders, as many on our laps, and the rest be­tween our knees. Those who could speak kept re­peat­ing “_Sæl­lver­tu,_” in ev­ery con­ceiv­able tone; those that could not speak made up for that want by shrill cries.

This con­cert was brought to a close by the an­nounce­ment of din­ner. At that mo­ment our hunter re­turned, who had been see­ing his hors­es pro­vid­ed for; that is to say, he had eco­nom­ical­ly let them loose in the fields, where the poor beasts had to con­tent them­selves with the scanty moss they could pull off the rocks and a few mea­gre sea weeds, and the next day they would not fail to come of them­selves and re­sume the labours of the pre­vi­ous day.

“_Sæl­lver­tu,_” said Hans.

Then calm­ly, au­to­mat­ical­ly, and dis­pas­sion­ate­ly he kissed the host, the host­ess, and their nine­teen chil­dren.

This cer­emo­ny over, we sat at ta­ble, twen­ty-​four in num­ber, and there­fore one up­on an­oth­er. The luck­iest had on­ly two urchins up­on their knees.

But si­lence reigned in all this lit­tle world at the ar­rival of the soup, and the na­tion­al tac­itur­ni­ty re­sumed its em­pire even over the chil­dren. The host served out to us a soup made of lichen and by no means un­pleas­ant, then an im­mense piece of dried fish float­ing in but­ter ran­cid with twen­ty years’ keep­ing, and, there­fore, ac­cord­ing to Ice­landic gas­tron­omy, much prefer­able to fresh but­ter. Along with this, we had ’skye,’ a sort of clot­ted milk, with bis­cuits, and a liq­uid pre­pared from ju­niper berries; for bev­er­age we had a thin milk mixed with wa­ter, called in this coun­try ‘blan­da.’ It is not for me to de­cide whether this di­et is whole­some or not; all I can say is, that I was des­per­ate­ly hun­gry, and that at dessert I swal­lowed to the very last gulp of a thick broth made from buck­wheat.

As soon as the meal was over the chil­dren dis­ap­peared, and their el­ders gath­ered round the peat fire, which al­so burnt such mis­cel­la­neous fu­el as bri­ars, cow-​dung, and fish­bones. Af­ter this lit­tle pinch of warmth the dif­fer­ent groups re­tired to their re­spec­tive rooms. Our host­ess hos­pitably of­fered us her as­sis­tance in un­dress­ing, ac­cord­ing to Ice­landic us­age; but on our grace­ful­ly de­clin­ing, she in­sist­ed no longer, and I was able at last to curl my­self up in my mossy bed.

At five next morn­ing we bade our host farewell, my un­cle with dif­fi­cul­ty per­suad­ing him to ac­cept a prop­er re­mu­ner­ation; and Hans sig­nalled the start.

At a hun­dred yards from Gardär the soil be­gan to change its as­pect; it be­came bog­gy and less favourable to progress. On our right the chain of moun­tains was in­def­inite­ly pro­longed like an im­mense sys­tem of nat­ural for­ti­fi­ca­tions, of which we were fol­low­ing the counter-​scarp or less­er steep; of­ten we were met by streams, which we had to ford with great care, not to wet our pack­ages.

The desert be­came wider and more hideous; yet from time to time we seemed to de­scry a hu­man fig­ure that fled at our ap­proach, some­times a sharp turn would bring us sud­den­ly with­in a short dis­tance of one of these spec­tres, and I was filled with loathing at the sight of a huge de­formed head, the skin shin­ing and hair­less, and re­pul­sive sores vis­ible through the gaps in the poor crea­ture’s wretched rags.

The un­hap­py be­ing for­bore to ap­proach us and of­fer his mis­shapen hand. He fled away, but not be­fore Hans had salut­ed him with the cus­tom­ary “_Sæl­lver­tu._”

“_Spe­tel­sk,_” said he.

“A lep­er!” my un­cle re­peat­ed.

This word pro­duced a re­pul­sive ef­fect. The hor­ri­ble dis­ease of lep­rosy is too com­mon in Ice­land; it is not con­ta­gious, but hered­itary, and lep­ers are for­bid­den to mar­ry.

These ap­pari­tions were not cheer­ful, and did not throw any charm over the less and less at­trac­tive land­scapes. The last tufts of grass had dis­ap­peared from be­neath our feet. Not a tree was to be seen, un­less we ex­cept a few dwarf birch­es as low as brush­wood. Not an an­imal but a few wan­der­ing ponies that their own­ers would not feed. Some­times we could see a hawk bal­anc­ing him­self on his wings un­der the grey cloud, and then dart­ing away south with rapid flight. I felt melan­choly un­der this sav­age as­pect of na­ture, and my thoughts went away to the cheer­ful scenes I had left in the far south.

We had to cross a few nar­row fiords, and at last quite a wide gulf; the tide, then high, al­lowed us to pass over with­out de­lay, and to reach the ham­let of Alf­tanes, one mile be­yond.

That evening, af­ter hav­ing ford­ed two rivers full of trout and pike, called Al­fa and Heta, we were obliged to spend the night in a de­sert­ed build­ing wor­thy to be haunt­ed by all the elfins of Scan­di­navia. The ice king cer­tain­ly held court here, and gave us all night long sam­ples of what he could do.

No par­tic­ular event marked the next day. Bogs, dead lev­els, melan­choly desert tracks, wher­ev­er we trav­elled. By night­fall we had ac­com­plished half our jour­ney, and we lay at Krö­solbt.

On the 19th of June, for about a mile, that is an Ice­landic mile, we walked up­on hard­ened la­va; this ground is called in the coun­try ‘hraun’; the writhen sur­face pre­sent­ed the ap­pear­ance of dis­tort­ed, twist­ed ca­bles, some­times stretched in length, some­times con­tort­ed to­geth­er; an im­mense tor­rent, once liq­uid, now sol­id, ran from the near­est moun­tains, now ex­tinct vol­ca­noes, but the ru­ins around re­vealed the vi­olence of the past erup­tions. Yet here and there were a few jets of steam from hot springs.

We had no time to watch these phe­nom­ena; we had to pro­ceed on our way. Soon at the foot of the moun­tains the bog­gy land reap­peared, in­ter­sect­ed by lit­tle lakes. Our route now lay west­ward; we had turned the great bay of Faxa, and the twin peaks of Snæfell rose white in­to the cloudy sky at the dis­tance of at least five miles.

The hors­es did their du­ty well, no dif­fi­cul­ties stopped them in their steady ca­reer. I was get­ting tired; but my un­cle was as firm and straight as he was at our first start. I could not help ad­mir­ing his per­sis­ten­cy, as well as the hunter’s, who treat­ed our ex­pe­di­tion like a mere prom­enade.

June 20. At six p.m. we reached Büdir, a vil­lage on the sea shore; and the guide there claim­ing his due, my un­cle set­tled with him. It was Hans’ own fam­ily, that is, his un­cles and cousins, who gave us hos­pi­tal­ity; we were kind­ly re­ceived, and with­out tax­ing too much the good­ness of these folks, I would will­ing­ly have tar­ried here to re­cruit af­ter my fa­tigues. But my un­cle, who want­ed no re­cruit­ing, would not hear of it, and the next morn­ing we had to be­stride our beasts again.

The soil told of the neigh­bour­hood of the moun­tain, whose gran­ite foun­da­tions rose from the earth like the knot­ted roots of some huge oak. We were round­ing the im­mense base of the vol­cano. The Pro­fes­sor hard­ly took his eyes off it. He tossed up his arms and seemed to de­fy it, and to de­clare, “There stands the gi­ant that I shall con­quer.” Af­ter about four hours’ walk­ing the hors­es stopped of their own ac­cord at the door of the priest’s house at Stapi.