46 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 



morning at eleven o'clock, and you may suppose we were 

 not sorry to find, on waking, the bright joyous sunshine 

 pouring down through the cabin skylight, and illuminating 

 the white-robed, well-furnished breakfast-table with more 

 than usual splendour. At the appointed hour we rowed 

 ashore to where our eight ponies — two being assigned to 

 each of us, to be ridden alternately — were standing ready 

 bridled and saddled, at the house of one of our kindest 

 friends. Of course, though but just risen from breakfast, 

 the inevitable invitation to eat and drink awaited us ; and 

 another half-hour was spent in sipping cups of coffee poured 

 out for us with much laughter by our hostess and her pretty 

 daughter. At last, the necessary libations accomplished, 

 we rose to go. Turning round to Fitz, I whispered, how I 

 had always understood it was the proper thing in Iceland 

 for travellers departing on a journey to kiss the ladies who 

 had been good enough to entertain them, — little imagining 

 he would take me at my word. Guess then my horror, 

 when I suddenly saw him; with an intrepidity I envied but 

 dared not imitate, first embrace the mamma, by way of pre- 

 lude, and then proceed, in the most natural manner possible, 

 to make the same tender advances to the daughter. I con- 

 fess I remained dumb with consternation ; the room swam 

 round before me ; I expected the next minute we should be 

 packed neck and crop into the street, and that the young 

 lady would have gone off into hysterics. It turned out, how- 

 ever, that such was the very last thing she was thinking of 

 doing. With a simple frankness that became her more 

 than all the boarding-school graces in the world, her eyes 

 dancing with mischief and good humour, she met him half 

 way, and pouting out two rosy lips, gave him as hearty a 

 kiss as it might ever be the good fortune of one of us he- 

 creatures to receive. From that moment I determined to 

 conform for the future to the customs of the inhabitants. 



Fresh from favours such as these, it was not surprising we 

 should start in the highest spirits. With a courtesy peculiar 

 to Iceland, Dr. Hjaltelin, the most jovial of doctors, — and 



