34 ISLANDS OF THE NOETII ATLANTIC. 



northern extremity of the rocky peninsula was the Logberg (" Mountain of the 

 Law"), where the wise men sat in council. Here the delegates of the people 

 assembled for centuries. The lawgiver took his seat on the highest step of the 

 lava ; grouped round about him on lower seats were the assessors of the High 

 Court ; sentinels mounted guard at the entrance of the isthmus ; while on the 

 opposite side of the crevasse sat the people listening to the decrees and mandates 

 of the supreme congress. After proclamation of their doom, criminals were here 

 hurled into the abyss, while wizards and witches were burnt at a stake set up on a 

 rocky eminence. The ping was not only the great national assembly, but also the 

 yearly market, where for eight days all the trading business of the people was 

 effected, whence the name of Almannagja, or "All Men's Cry." 



Now the Alj^ing is a wretched and often forsaken grazing ground. 



EiYERs, Lakes, and Fiords. 



When spring releases the ice-bound land the island is everywhere abundantly 

 watered, except in the tracks covered by thick layers of ashes. Such, in the centre 

 of the country is the region known as the Sprengisan^r, or "Bursting Sands," 

 so called from the danger the traveller's horse here runs of perishing. These 

 wastes were crossed for the first time in 1810, Yet some of the streams rising in 

 the vicinity and on the Vatna-Jokull slopes are veritable rivers in the volume of 

 their waters. The pjorsa, flowing from the north side of the Skaptar-Jokull, and 

 draining the Hekla district, and the Olfusa, which receives the Hvita and the 

 tepid rivulets of the geysers, both in the south-west, are the two great historic 

 streams of Iceland. The north and north-east are watered by four copious rivers, 

 the Skjalfjandifliot, the two Jokulsa, or " Glacier Waters," and the Lagarfliot, all 

 flowing from the frozen plateau of Vatna. The largest in the island is the Western 

 Jokulsa, bordering the sulphur region on the east, one of whose falls, the famous 

 Dettifoss, is formed by a perpendicular basalt wall rising 200 feet above a lake 

 several hundred yards wide. 



The rivers and glacier torrents are almost impassable in the floods, and the 

 natives of the east coast, when bound for Reykjavik, prefer to round the Yatna- 

 Jokull plateau on its north side rather than expose themselves to the ice-charged 

 streams which escape from its southern base, and which are constantly shifting 

 their beds. They especially dread the Skei^arar-Sandr, or " Quicksands," which 

 cover an area of over 400 square miles to the south of the Yatna- Jokull. 



There are no extensive lakes in the island, the largest being the j^ingvalla in 

 the south, and Myvatn in the north. But there are hundreds, even thousands, 

 of smaller bodies of water, from the lake properly so called, down to mere pools. 

 In many districts we may travel for days over hill and dale on the buoyant surface 

 of bogs, beneath which many such waters lie concealed. The countless basins 

 scattered over certain tracts, and without visible outlets, are not brackish, probably 

 because their lava beds resist disintegration, and tlius retain their saline 

 particles. 



