THE DESEKT. 



87 



are crossing igneous rock. You may wander for days 

 before you reach grass, and if your ponies die you will 

 hardly be able to reach a place of safety on foot. 



The Icelanders had, and in some parts have still, a 

 conviction that the recesses of these wilds are inhabited 

 by a race of men of their own stock, but slightly differing 

 from them in their language and in their dress. They 

 call these people Utlegumennir, and there are some 

 curious stories told about them. 



They are supposed to be the descendants of outlaws 

 and robbers, who in old times haunted these deserts, and 

 who having discovered fertile valleys in the heart of the 

 wilderness, are content to reside there, and inherit a 

 feeling of enmity against the coast-dwellers, who expelled 

 their ancestors from the community of their fellow-men. 

 These people are said to be sadly deficient in iron, and 

 to shoe their horses with horn. They are thought to have 

 made their appearance occasionally when merchant ships 

 have entered the fiords to trade with the natives. 



Of course the existence of this race is a possibility, but 

 I cannot say anything for its probability. When we 

 consider that the population of Iceland is only 68,000, 

 and that it is a third larger than Ireland, and that this 

 population is confined to the coast and to the banks of 

 the rivers just above their entrance into the friths, it 

 leaves ample room for a colony in the heart of the 

 country to live undisturbed. 



About two o'clock at night if I may call it "night" 

 when it is light, the sun just beginning to struggle up 



