90 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
Fitz was equally taken aback, and as for Wilson, he 
looked as if he thought we had arrived at the end 
of the world. After having allowed us sufficient time 
to admire the prospect, Sigurdr turned to the left, 
along the edge of the precipice, until we reached 
a narrow pathway accidentally formed down a longi¬ 
tudinal niche in the splintered face of the cliff, which 
led across the bottom, and up the opposite side of the 
Gja, into the plain of Thingvalla. By rights our tents 
ought to have arrived before us, but when we reached 
the little glebe where we expected to find them pitched, 
no signs of servants, guides, or horses were to be seen. 
As we had not overtaken them ourselves, their non- 
appearance was inexplicable. Wilson suggested that, 
the cook having died on the road, the rest of the party 
must have turned aside to bury him; and that we 
had passed unperceived during the interesting cere¬ 
mony. Be the cause what it might, the result was not 
agreeable. We were very tired, very hungry, and it 
had just begun to rain. 
It is true there was a clergyman’s house and a church, 
both built of stones covered with turf sods, close by: 
at the one, perhaps, we could get milk, and in the other 
