82 ICELAND. 



Iceland ; the blossoms are larger there than I have sews 

 in the Alps or the Pyrenees, but probably the volcanic 

 constituents of the rock on which it lives are those oest 

 suited for its development. 



We may find a few saxifrages also, but one flower, 

 which is sure to attract the eye, is the dwarf campion, 

 of all gradations of colour, from pure snow-white to 

 carmine pink, in dense masses of little blossoms, studding 

 the sand, and growing where nothing else can grow. 

 Brave, bonny little plant ! I have become attached to it 

 from association, as it has cheered my eye, wearied with 

 the unrelieved monotony of black wastes for miles and 

 miles in Iceland. 



It was impossible to cross this desert in a day, and I 

 was obliged to obtain a guide to direct me to some spot 

 where I could encamp for the night, and where there was 

 sufficient herbage for the support of my ponies. We were 

 in the saddle for the greater part of the day, winding 

 among barren stony hills, traversing rolling swells of 

 exposed trap, trotting over sandy sweeps, skirting brist- 

 ling barriers of lava, and threading our way among 

 countless sheets of pale milky water, holding snow in 

 solution, and not sufficiently warm to become trans- 

 parent. 



At last, about six o'clock in the evening, we reached a 

 lake about three miles long and a mile wide, on which 

 my guide kept a boat for the purpose of fishing. He led 

 us to a node of rock, covered with moss, at the foot o* 

 which was a heap of brushwood, which he had sent 



