THE ISLAND. 15 



Among the grass and stones few worms or little insects 

 meet your eye. I saw no beetle, or spider, or snail. 

 The very house-fly did not visit our tent; and certain 

 heavy and light cavalry, so common in the houses of more 

 southern lands, are, so far as I could learn, prudently 

 indifferent to so cold and unpromising a field of industry 

 and enterprise as is presented to them in Iceland. 



Everywhere a strange silence reigns, like that of the 

 Great Desert. Over head and under foot everything 

 wears the lifeless silence of desolation. It is in winter 

 that the echoes are aroused, and then, with the hurri- 

 cane " travelling in the greatness of his strength," and 

 the ice artillery, the long valleys and iron hills shout 

 again. 



Craters of all sizes are very commonly met with. 

 Occasionally, a lew yards from the road, you can look 

 down a black funnel into an unknown abyss ; sometimes 

 an unfathomable lake occupies an old vent ; and I have 

 heard of filled-up craters serving as sheep-folds. But it 

 is not lava alone which is projected from the subter- 

 ranean chambers of Iceland. Hot mud, boiling water, 

 liquid sulphur, are at different places thrown up ; and it 

 is especially in those valleys, where the discoloured 

 sloughs of sulphur smudge the ground and streak the hill- 

 side, and where the vapours of boiling cauldrons con- 

 stantly fill the air, that you fully realise your near 

 approach to the "ignes suppositi," and feel disposed to 

 examine suspiciously all the hollows and lurking places 

 for the befitting genius. 



