64 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 



All criminals, men and women, were tried by juries ; and 

 that the accused had the power of challenging the jurymen 

 empannelled to try them, appears from the following extract 

 from the Book of Laws : — " The judges shall go out on 

 Washday, i.e., Saturday, and continue out for challenges, 

 until the sun comes on Thingvalla on the Lord's-day." And 

 again, " The power of challenging shall cease as soon as the 

 sun can no longer be seen above the western brink of the 

 chasm, from the Logberg." 



Turning aside from what, I dare say, was the scene of 

 many an unrecorded tragedy, we descended the gorge of the 

 Almanna Gja, towards the lake ; and I took advantage of the 

 opportunity again to examine its marvellous construction. 

 The perpendicular walls of rock rose on either hand from 

 the flat greensward that carpeted its bottom, pretty much as 

 the waters of the Red Sea must have risen on each side of 

 the fugitive Israelites. A blaze of light smote the face of 

 one cliff, while the other lay. in the deepest shadow; and on 

 the rugged surface of each might still be traced correspond- 

 ing articulations, that once had dovetailed into each other, 

 ere the igneous mass was rent asunder. So unchanged, so 

 recent seemed the vestiges of this convulsion, that I felt as 

 if I had been admitted to witness one of nature's grandest 

 and most violent operations, almost in the very act of its 

 execution. A walk of about twenty minutes brought us to 

 the borders of the lake — a glorious expanse of water, fifteen 

 miles long, by eight miles broad, occupying a basin formed 

 by the same hills, which must also, I imagine, have arrested 

 the further progress of the lava torrent. A lovelier scene I 

 have seldom witnessed. In the foreground lay huge masses 

 of rock and lava, tossed about like the ruins of a world, and 

 washed by waters as bright and green as polished malachite. 

 Beyond, a bevy of distant mountains, robed by the trans- 

 parent atmosphere in tints unknown to Europe, peeped over 

 each other's shoulders into the silver mirror at their feet, while 

 here and there from among their purple ridges columns of 

 white vapour rose like altar smoke toward the tranquil heaven. 



