40 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
not unlike the vestiges of a Celtic earthwork, with the 
tumulus of a hero or two in the centre,—hut the mounds 
turned out to he nothing more than the grass roofs of 
the house and offices, and the hanks and dykes, hut 
circumvallations round the plot of most carefully cleaned 
meadow, called the “ tun,” which always surrounds 
every Icelandic farm. This word “ tim ” is evidently 
identical with our own Irish “ town-land ,” the Cornish 
“ town ,” and the Scotch “ toon” terms which, in their 
local signification, do not mean a congregation of streets 
and buildings, hut the yard, and spaces of grass imme¬ 
diately adjoining a single house; just as in German we 
have “ zuanj' and in the Dutch “ tuyn ,” a garden. 
Turning to the right, round the head of a little 
hay, we passed within forty yards of an enormous eagle, 
seated on a crag; hut we had no rifle, and all he did 
was to rise heavily into the air, flap his wings like 
a harn-door fowl, and plump lazily down twenty yards 
farther off. Soon after, the district we traversed became 
more igneous, wrinkled, cracked, and ropy than any¬ 
thing we had yet seen, and another two hours’ scamper 
over such a track—as till then I would not have 
believed horses could have traversed, even at a foot’s 
