34 VISIT TO ICELAND 



they charge as much as £l, so that we did not go 

 deeply into them. Harlequins and Barrow's Ducks are 

 moderate, but there is no great stock of them. I also got 

 a few birds skinned by a good woman who does them 

 very fairly well, and very reasonably. Young Glaucous, 

 Adult Black-backed Gulls, White-fronted Goose, Great 

 Northern Diver, etc., besides some Ptarmigan ; these 

 have not yet got much out of their winter plumage, 

 though, by the way, I have not seen any fresh-killed the 

 last week or ten days. Thus much of our stay at Keyk- 

 javik ; we left it, as I said before, on the 19th with Geier 

 Zoega (the man recommended by Bushby) as our guide, 

 in company with the Land Physicus, — ^a sort of Govern- 

 ment Doctor, — ^who was going his rounds to look after 

 lepers. He is the man whom Ld. Dufferin calls the 

 " cheeriest of Doctors," and very rightly so, as he is a 

 real good fellow. We hired horses for this expedition, 

 as grass is so scarce we could hardly expect to feed them 

 here, and in addition to this the time of our stay here 

 was, and is, so uncertain. We had some difficulty in 

 accomplishing about 30 miles English the first day, 

 owing to the badness of the ponies' condition and of the 

 road ; the Doctor, who is a very big man, had three of 

 his own for his own riding and they all had a benefit of 

 it. I rode one animal all the way except the last few 

 miles. WoUey had two. We had besides in company 

 the Doctor's guide (who was also Ld. Dufferin's and to 

 whom we brought a whip from Ld. D.) and a Veterinary 

 surgeon who is sent here to cure the scab, which is kilHng 

 all the sheep ; so that we had medical accommodation 

 for man and beast. The Vet., by the way, got a very 

 nasty fall, the ground giving under his pony, who came 

 on the top of him. 



The greater part of the way lay over streams of lava, 

 all the productions of some one or other of the half-dozen 

 or so respectable-looking volcanoes whose cones break 

 the horizon to the eastward of us. These lava streams 

 vary very much in their character ; some are tolerably 

 smooth, or look like dried coal-tar that has run out ; 



