ICELAND. 



CHAPTER in. 



THE PEOPLE. 



fPHERE is no hotel in Iceland, always excepting the 

 miserable pot-house which does duty at the capital. 

 The churches are the hostelries, and the clergy, miserably 

 poor though they be, are the public exponents of a hospi- 

 tality which is a national virtue. You sleep and eat, and 

 may even smoke at your ease, in the churches. The 

 clergy join you, if you wish it, at such festivity, and 

 frequently the meal, or its choicest portion, is their con- 

 tribution. 



The churches are ridiculously- small buildings. The 

 one which formerly stood at Tingvalla one of the great 

 sights of the island, from being the seat of the old 

 Athling or open-air Parliament was only twenty-five 

 feet by ten, and when the clergyman was in the pul[it his 



