366 Messrs. W. E. Clarke and J. Backhouse — Autumn 



After experiencing some very heavy weather, the glistening 

 snow-capped mountains of Eastern Iceland were sighted on 

 the 9thj and we entered Sey^isfjor^r early in the evening. 

 It is a narrow picturesque inlet of the sea, and perhaps the 

 most important one on the east coast. Its northern pro- 

 montory, rising almost perpendicularly from the ocean, is 

 the resort of myi'iads of sea-fowl in the summer, but now 

 only a few Puffins and a small flock of Eiders were seen. 

 After steaming for some miles in sheltered waters, we 

 dropped anchor at dusk within a few yards of the strand at 

 the head of the fjorSr. Next morning we took up our 

 quarters at the " Hotel Island/' probably one of the most 

 primitive inns in the world, where guests and host and 

 hostess all sup in company. A stroll on the margin of the 

 fjor'Sr was disappointing, ornithologically, for we only ob- 

 served a family party of White Wagtails and a solitary 

 Wheatear ; and several hours of careful investigation in the 

 valley at the head of the fjor^r only added Meadow-Pipits 

 and a pair of Ravens to our list. Another ramble on the 

 shores of the fjor'Sr in the afternoon resulted in our seeing 

 another pair of Ravens and a few Great Black-backed Gulls. 

 This extreme poverty of bird-life at the coast made us 

 anxious to proceed inland with all possible speed ; so the fol- 

 lowing day (the 11 th) found us busy making arrangements 

 for the journey, such as hiring ponies for riding and baggage 

 purposes. We left SeySisfjor'Sr about midday on the 12th, 

 riding in company with a party of some seventeen Icelanders 

 across the mountains (2500 feet) in a westerly direction. 

 The ascent was steep, rough, and in many places dangerous, 

 and we soon experienced the wonderful adroitness and sure- 

 footedness of the ponies. The " col " reached, we crossed 

 several swamps and large beds of snow, and skirted the 

 margins of some likely-looking tarns ; but here, there, and 

 everywhere around us was an appalling solitude, the silence 

 of which was only broken by the hoarse croak of a Raven. 

 The great valley of the Lagarfljot — Iceland's longest lake, 

 forty-five miles in length — into which we descended in the 

 evening light, presented a most weird aspect, the marshy 



