HO SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANAtS, LAKES, 



were immediately before us ; but heavy and lowering clouds, whicfr 

 threatened us incessantly with a storm, concealed every dislant ob- 

 ject from our sight. 



We saw many districts in Iceland covered with lava; but T do 

 not recollect one so uncouth and desolate as this. No vegetation 

 \vas to be seen but that of a few stunted bushes of willow and 

 birch, growing between the crevices and hollows of the lava, into 

 which the wind had drifted sufficient soil for them to take root. 

 We could discover no mount or crater from whence we could con- 

 jecture, with any degree of probability, the lava to have issued. It 

 extended round us like a sea; and it had burst perhaps from some 

 part of the country it now covered, while the fire to which it owed 

 its origin, had escaped with its showers of cinders and ashes, frcun 

 some other orifice, and had formed one of the numberless cones vie 

 could discover amidst the neighbouring hills. 



The unpleasantness of our ride over this country was increased 

 "by the continual danger to which we were exposed of our horses 

 falling. The road was no other than what the few travellers of lire 

 country, as they passed from their farms to Rvkavick, had tracked 

 over the lava where it was least rough ; but even this uas inter. 

 Tiipted by many breaks and crevices, formed by the cooling of the 

 matter and the contraction of its parts. 



To this uncomfortable scene succeeded the view of a rich valley, 

 opening into an extensive green plain bounded by the sea. A river 

 was seen winding between several fertile meadows ; and beyond 

 these, the valley was terminated by a range of high and bold rocks. 

 But our attention was chiefly attracted by the clouds of steam, 

 which ascended in various parts of the valley from the hot springs, 

 and by jets of water, which, from some of them, were incessantly 

 darted into the air. 



\Ve descended into the valley by a road winding over the lava, 

 which, in one place, had flowed from the upper plain into the 

 country below. On which side it had stopped abruptly, and had 

 thus formed a perpendicular wall, at least sixty feet high. 



We pitched our tents in a pleasant field, on the side of the river, 

 opposite to the fa/in, and not far from it, and at the foot of the 

 bills which bounded the valley. Several fragments of rocks, which 

 bad fallen from these, lay scattered round our station. These 

 were entirely volcanic ; some of dark blue lava, not unlike basalte ; 



