CXXXV 
fern frond or willow shrublet which I have sometimes, to my delight, 
found in the lava cracks, the one witness to the power of life in this 
great wilderness of death. 
Thus only the seaboard of Iceland is habitable, whilst across the desert 
interior from south to north are three passes, though two are but rarely, 
and the third not frequently, used. The interior mountain ranges have 
never been, and probably never can be, explored. 
Of the habitable seaboard, but one-third will grow even the coarsest 
herbage. Only a short distance from Reykjavik, the capital, I crossed 
wide tracts of bare lava, in one place level, where, I suppose, streams 
passing overa plain, had cooled evenly; in another, formed of blocks 
of all sizes, weathered into position like your stony field of Mount 
Wellington, though the boulders were not commonly so large. 
Abruptly from such plains rise black detached con‘cal hills of 
comparatively recent tufa, or a long flat topped basaltic ridge. The 
valleys, the wooded glens and gullies, which, running deep into 
the mountain recesses, make so much the beauty of mountain scenery 
elsewhere,are altogether wanting in Iceland. In these plains are set 
lakes, commonly with low shelving banks, and through them rush down 
the rivers, fed by the snows of the central desert ; thus form and 
colour, two elements of the beautiful, are wanting, and in their place 
are barrenness and gloom,and yet there is also a great fascination. It 
arises partly, perhaps, from the stillness, the absence of life, the largeness 
of the waste, the sense that we look upon the two great forces, 
cold and heat, at their work on matter so nakedly, so largely, 
and with such grim results. Something, too, there is inthe stimulating 
dryness of the air, and again in the feeling of separation by so wide a 
stretch of southern seas from all but this singular land, and equally 
singular offset of mankind. 
The sense of strong contrast formed my first impression of 
this weird land. Coming on deck early in the morning I 
found not only that Iceland was in sight, but that we were 
hugging the shore somewhat closely. An ice mountain towered up 
7,000 feet, not far from the shore, and from its lower spurs a wide glacier 
stream ran down, apparently straight into the sea. One flank of the 
mountain fell in rugged black precipice until it softened into the 
grassy bed of an upland valley, where the sun shone on a low farmstead 
and a large flcckof scattered sheep. Yet close on the other flank, almost 
side by side with the glacier, and yet wider, was a broad stream of 
lava, which in past ages had sullenly forced its way from some volcanic 
mountain, hidden inland. 
Hitherto I have painted in black and white, but there is yet a third 
colour marking Icelandic scenery—the yellowish green of the scanty 
vegetation. Much of this is marshy bog. Where forests once stood 
are now treacherous tussocky hillocks of rank grass rising out of 
quaking bog, ground almost impassable for the wayfarer on foot, but 
which the clever little ponies cross in a quick run without a stumble. 
The pasture lands where they exist, are left undrained, unworked, and 
unenclosed to the sheep, saving a few acres about the farmhouses 
carefully manured, and enclosed within low turf walls. These enclosures 
are called tiins, and here the few head of cattle graze, and the crops 
of hay are had upon which the prosperity of the Icelanders so largely 
depends, since it is the only provender they can raise for their beasts. 
The climate is now so severe that no grain will ripen, and there is 
but one tree throughout the south, with a few dwarf birch in the 
north. Here and there on the better land some brushes of willow and 
birch struggle for life. Sometimes, moreover, the summer in the 
north will be changed into winter by the drifting in of Greeland ice. 
Still, the land is not only habitable, but could be made far more 
