A STRIKE AMONG THE PONIES. 
145 
property, amounts to about 3,000?.; the expenditure 
for education, officers’ salaries (the Governor bas about 
400?. a-year), ecclesiastical establishments, &c., exceeds 
6,000?. a-year; so that the island is certainly not a 
self-supporting institution. 
The clergy are paid by tithes; their stipends are 
exceedingly small, generally not averaging more than 
six or seven pounds sterling per annum; their chief 
dependence being upon their farms. Like St. Dunstan, 
they are invariably excellent blacksmiths. 
As we approached Reykjavik, for the first time during 
the whole journey we began to have some little trouble 
with the relay of ponies in front. Whether it was that 
they were tired, or that they had arrived in a district 
where they had been accustomed to roam at large, 
I cannot tell; but every ten minutes, during the last six 
or seven miles, one or other of them kept starting aside 
into the rocky plain, across which the narrow bridle-road 
was carried, and cost us many a weary chase before 
we could drive them into the track again. At last, 
though not till I had been violently hugged, kissed, 
and nearly pulled off my horse by an enthusiastic and 
rather tipsy farmer, who mistook me for the Prince, we 
