82 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



splendid head, and I watched him trotting slowly 

 away with disgust that can be more easily imagined 

 than described. 



Dettifoss was so magnificent that it almost 

 compensated for the loss of the reindeer. It was 

 a truly grand sight to the lover of fine scenery, 

 almost worth going to Iceland to see. An immense 

 volume of glacier water leaps through a narrow 

 chasm of rocks and falls into a boiling cauldron 

 some three or four hundred feet below. The sun 

 came out just as we arrived and exquisite rainbows 

 appeared in the rising spray, whilst over all hung 

 a splendid White-tailed Eagle, as if especially sent 

 there by the Creator to add the one artistic touch 

 to this great natural picture. We left Dettifoss 

 the peerless with feelings of regret. There is a 

 strange fascination about a great cataract in wild 

 surroundings that all must feel — notably the un- 

 utterable littleness of all things human compared 

 with the works of the great Creator. 



The ponies did a good run back to Myvatn — 

 sixty-five miles in under ten hours — and we made 

 camp near Reykalid in the worst spot on earth for 

 flies. By this time Geoff and I had become in a 

 small degree hardened to their attacks, and had 

 given up veils after the first day, because under 

 these coverings one could see nothing of the 

 country, nor even a trout rise. The Icelanders 

 seemed to feel the flies more keenly than we did, 

 and they seldom came near the lake or the river 

 unless obliged to do so. But here we saw the 

 children of the Reykalid farm eating the flies 

 wholesale which they picked off their faces. The 

 flies are very sweet, like little lumps of sugar, and, 



