166 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
been twice as bad, what we have seen would have 
more than repaid us, though it has been no child’s 
play to get to see it. 
But I must begin where I left off in my last 
letter,—-just, I think, as we were getting under 
way, to be towed by the “ Heine Hortense ” out of 
Reykjavik Harbour. Having been up all night,—as 
soon as we were well clear of the land, and that 
it was evident the towing business was doing well, 
—I turned in for a few hours. When I came on 
deck again we had crossed the Faxe Fiord on our 
way north, and were sweeping round the base of 
Snaefell—-an extinct volcano which rises from the 
sea in an icy cone to the height of 5,000 feet, and 
grimly looks across to Greenland. The day was 
beautiful; the mountain’s summit beamed down upon 
us in unclouded splendour, and everything seemed 
to promise an uninterrupted view of the west coast of 
Iceland, along whose rugged cliffs few mariners have 
ever sailed. Indeed, until within these last few years, 
the passage, I believe, was altogether impracticable, in 
consequence of the continuous fields of ice which used to 
drift down the narrow channel between the frozen con- 
