98 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



KEYKJAVIK, THE CAPITAL OF ICELAND. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE ICELANDERS. 



SkMlholt.— Eeykjavlk.— The Fair.— The Peasant 

 and the INIerdiant.— A Clergyman in his Cups. 

 — Hay-makins.— The Icelander's Hut.— Chiircli- 

 es.— Poverty of the Clertry.— Jon Thorlaksen. 

 —The Seminary of Eeykjavik.— Benelicial Influ- 

 ence of the Clergy. — Home Education. — The Ice- 

 lander's Winter's Evening.— Taste for Literature. 

 —The Language.— The Public Library at Eeyk- 



javik.— ThT Icelandic Literary Society.— Icelanric Newspapers.— Longevity.— Lepro-^y.—Travellin;; 



in Iceland.— Fording tlie Rivers.— Crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland.— A Night's Bivouac. 



NEXT to ThiniiTvalln, there is no place in leelnnd so replete Avith liistoricali 

 interest as Skalholt, its ancient capital. Here in the eleventh century was 

 founded the first school in the island ; here was the seat of its first bishops; 

 here flourished a succession of great orators, historians, and poets; I.sleif, the 

 oldest chronicler of the North ; Gissur, Avho in the beginning of the twelfth 

 century had visited all the countries of Europe and spoke all their languages; 

 the philologian Thorlak, and Finnnr Johnson, the learned author of the " Ec- 

 clesiastical History of Iceland." The Cathedral of Skalholt was renowned far 

 and wide for its size, and in the year 1100, Latin, poetry, music, and rhetoric, 

 the four liberal arts, were taught in its school, more than they were at that time 



