60 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



expressions to urge them on. I may say without 

 hesitation that people in this country have no 

 idea what a really good Iceland pony is like, simply 

 because they have never seen aught but the useless 

 stock that are annually shipped to Scotland and 

 employed as hill carriers or in the mines. There is 

 in Iceland a high-class breed which never leaves 

 the country, and which the owners will not sell 

 except at an exorbitant price ; and these little rats 

 will carry a huge man like Thorgrimmer Gudmansen 

 for fifty miles a day, day after day, travelling the 

 greater part of it over the merest apology for a 

 track in the lava. Thorgrimmer's own pony, 

 though twelve years old, could on occasion trot 

 ten to twelve miles an hour, and looked a mite under 

 its owner's long legs, which nearly touched the 

 ground. Yet this and all the other ponies did some 

 800 miles' travelling with us in two and a half 

 months, and lived on nothing but the extremely 

 scanty herbage they were able to find amongst the 

 rocks. 



On the 23rd came Thorgrimmer, tired and dusty, 

 having crossed Iceland, a distance of 300 miles, by 

 the trail in five days. Pretty good going this 

 sixty miles a day for five days continuously, and 

 driving fourteen ponies all the time and a fine test 

 of horse and human endurance. With him came 

 one Jon, who was to be our pony-man; and an 

 excellent and hardworking little chap we found him. 

 He was often on the grin, and when spoken to 

 seemed to enjoy his work amazingly, but his face 

 when at rest was sad. He looked upon the expedi- 

 tion not as work, but as a holiday, said Thorgrimmer, 

 for his wife had the reputation of being a shrew who 



