CHANGE. 
137 
no very interesting particulars to give you. During 
the early part of the morning there had been a slight 
threatening of rain ; but by twelve o’clock it had 
settled down into one of those still dark days, which 
wrap even the most familiar landscape in a mantle of 
mystery. A heavy low-hung, steel-coloured pall was 
stretched almost entirely across the heavens, except 
where along the flat horizon a broad stripe of opal 
atmosphere let the eye wander into space, in search 
of the pearly gateways of Paradise. On the other side 
rose the contorted lava mountains, their bleak heads 
knocking against the solid sky and stained of an inky 
blackness, which changed into a still more lurid tint 
where the local reds struggled up through the shadow 
that lay brooding over the desolate scene. If within 
the domain of nature such another region is to be 
found, it can only be in the heart of those awful 
solitudes which science has unveiled to us amid the 
untrodden fastnesses of the lunar mountains. An 
hour before reaching our old camping-ground at 
Thingvalla, as if summoned by enchantment—a dull 
grey mist closed around us, and suddenly confounded 
in undistinguishable ruin the glory and the terror of the 
