NOTES ON TKAVEL 231 



sister, SigriSur Jonsdottir, was in charge and did the honours of 

 the place most nobly. How much milk was drunk by the strangers 

 I do not know, but there was enough for them. The children 

 looked on and said nothing. I remember the youngest, a solemn 

 water-baby, whose name was Pjetur Tomas. SigriSur was 

 offended at the mention of payment : ' Jeg sel eJcki mjolk, 9 she 

 said (' I do not sell milk '). She has our thanks, and we went on 

 our way considerably indebted to Iceland. 



I remember a midnight at Vopnafjord a little later, and a 

 moon and the sun rising about 1 a.m., 



"Quhilk to behald was pleasance and half wonder." 

 as Bishop Gavin Douglas says of the midsummer night in 

 the North. Eamsay spent some of this time visiting a 

 French schooner, where he gave some help to the captain 

 about his letters I forget how ; I was ashore at the time 

 with Wheeler and Hanson, walking up to the moor above 

 the little town. But I remember the white Breton schooner, 

 such as we read about later in Pecheurs d'lslande. Husavik we 

 saw in a mist : there an American lady came on board, Miss 

 Elizabeth Taylor, beginning an acquaintance which still for- 

 tunately continues. So to Akureyri, the great port in the north 

 of Iceland, where Ramsay and I left the ship, meaning to ride 

 to Reykjavik, and Hanson also, meaning to walk, with an eye 

 for a line of telegraph. Mr. Havsteen of Oddeyri helped us 

 with good advice ; and the best possible guide, Sigurj6n Sumar- 

 liSason, found horses for us. We spent some time in Akureyri 

 before starting, and paid a visit, unintroduced and readily 

 welcomed, to the house of Sira Matthias Jochumsson the poet. 

 I was glad to find him at home (in another house) in Akureyri 

 in August 1914 ; we had met in the meantime in London ; our 

 first morning call was not ill-timed, it would appear. 



The road we took from Akureyri was the regular way (called 

 sveitavegur) with no unusual hazards in it. We were not out 

 for explorations in the wilderness ; we travelled in the usual 



