47 



Iceland 



Pointed snow summits emerging above pink clouds and blue 

 water was our first picture of Iceland, and all one wonderful day 

 we watched the mountains assume more solid form, and could 

 scarce believe our eyes when we came abreast of the vast Jokull 

 ice fields which reached very nearly to the sea ; gradually the 

 coast became less wintry in aspect, and as we got around to the 

 west side and passed between the Westmann Islands we could 

 see grass on the hill slopes. 



The approach to the harbor of Reykjavik was during a ten 

 o'clock simultaneous sunset and moon rise, and our anchor was 

 hardly down before we were greeted by a boat load of young 

 women and men, who made a circle of our ship singing their 

 native songs. The town of Reykjavik has no beauty ; the 

 houses are of wood covered with corrugated iron as a protection 

 against fire, and have none of the picturesqueness of the little 

 fishing village of Thorshavn. The harbor was large and occu- 

 pied by a number of whaling or fishing boats, and on a clear day 

 must have been rather fine in its setting of snow-patched moun- 

 tains, but clouds hung low on the i ith of July veiling the sun 

 sufficiently to interfere with taking photographs. The country 

 around the town was destitute of trees or color, and the hills 

 were not high enough to be impressive. Even a New England 

 farmer would be in despair at the stones of Iceland, and one is 

 surprised to see any grass or plant growth when one looks at the 

 unpromising soil, if it can be called that. I believe the flowers 

 and vegetables I saw in the yards in the town must have been 

 grown on imported earth, and yet there were little fields of fairly 

 thick grass which was most carefully cherished as hay for the 

 ponies. One man came to the gate of his yard when he saw me 

 looking at his garden, and we had a peculiar talk, he knowing no 

 English and very little German and I no Danish, so the Latin 

 names of the plants furnished our means of communication. 

 His plants looked as if they had been set out about a year, and 

 I understood that they were not all native and certainly the trees 

 were dwarfed and pathetic in appearance ; he had growing the 

 mountain ash and sycamore maple both 5-6 feet tall, Ribes alpina, 



