28 VISIT TO ICELAND 



had ever seen — and soon after four dropped anchor at 

 Thorshaven, the capital. Here we landed a good many- 

 passengers, for we had so far been rather inconveniently 

 crowded ; among them the Stiftsampteraand or Governor, 

 whose arrival was the cause of a deal of gunning. Wolley 

 and myself went ashore wth the mails, consisting of 

 twenty letters (the first post received this year from 

 Denmark). We walked about and viewed the town and 

 suburbs. All the houses are covered with grass, but such 

 as we entered seemed comfortable. They are built with- 

 out the shghtest reference to the inequaHties of the 

 ground, but with regular though extremely narrow 

 streets. We found the people sowing their barley, turn- 

 ing up the ground with an instrument, the inventor of 

 which must have had a marrow-spoon in his mind which 

 he enlarged to the dimensions of a cricket bat. Spade 

 it can hardly be called ; yet even this elaborate imple- 

 ment is not required in reality, for there being little or no 

 subsoil in Faero, about an inch and a half is as much as 

 seems to be dug up. All the male population seem 

 dressed in uniform, a brown homespun loose jacket, some- 

 times with silver buttons ; a striped woollen cap, the end 

 hanging down ; knee breeches, worsted stockings and 

 shoes without soles, built on the lines of a moccasin or a 

 Turkish slipper. One of the Sysselmaand, Miiller by 

 name, is a great " pal " of Wolley 's and he entertained 

 us to supper before we left, which we did about midnight, 

 the moon and the high latitude between them making it 

 quite light. On shore we only saw some Hooded Crows, 

 a Wheatear and Golden Plover. As we left Faero we got 

 a tolerable Atlantic roll which continued increasing for 

 the rest of our voyage. We now found our party reduced 

 considerably, not only by the desertion we had experi- 

 enced at Faero (one of whom was a most extraordinary- 

 looking German Professor, whose week-old beard and 

 bear-like projecting snout did him with a most grotesque 

 expression endue,) but by other causes which kept a 

 considerable number of Icelanders, both male and female, 

 to their berths. Wolley, however, behaved remarkably 



