402 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



thrown away ; for I quickly discerned that it would be advan- 

 tageous to discard my tent and rations, and throw in my lot with 

 the farmers wherever I went, paying them for the accommoda- 

 tion of myself and guides. These people are very poor — from 

 our standpoint — and gratefully appreciate the money which some 

 travellers spend with them ; while they certainly resent the 

 action of those who take their tents and provisions, and get all 

 they want out of the country, leaving the smallest possible 

 amount of money behind them. The action of the Icelanders 

 on this score I consider to be perfectly justij&able ; and I would 

 advise any naturalists who contemplate travelling in this wonder- 

 land to prepare themselves for " roughing it," to engage a first- 

 class guide, and put up with whatever the farmers can supply in 

 the way of food. The Icelander's mode of dining appears strange 

 and rough at first, but the climate and the rough life one leads 

 are so bracing, that one does not think of how things are cooked, 

 or what it is which is placed on the table. I had nothing to 

 complain of in the good houses ; the great desire is to get some- 

 thing of some kind to satisfy hunger. I was certainly put to 

 sore straits at times, when the calculations of my chief guide, 

 Sigurdur Samarlidason, miscarried, and sighed for my tent and 

 provisions, which I had come to regard as nothing but an 

 encumbrance ; but these were exceptions, and I should never 

 hesitate to adopt the plan again, even if I knew that greater 

 hardships were in store than those I have already gone through. 

 At the outset I was confronted with great difiiculties in con- 

 sequence of the strictness of the law as to shooting birds in 

 the close-time, and once thought I might just as well pack up 

 my traps, and return by the first vessel I could find ; but ulti- 

 mately I firmly determined that, after all my preparations, I 

 would not do so until I had exhausted every art of diplomacy of 

 which I was capable. The result was that, in an interview with 

 the chief magistrate for the north and east portions of the 

 island, I so enlisted his sympathies in the educational works I 

 had in hand, that he said he considered he ought to be in a posi- 

 tion not only to give me the permission I asked for, but to render 

 me every assistance in his power ; but the law was made — a bad 

 law he believed it to be — and he could not alter it. However, 

 bit by bit, I gained concession after concession, until eventually 



