lii 
INTRODUCTION. 
land are scattered in small quantities over the 
island. 
The principal exports of Iceland are dried fish* 
mutton, lamb and beef, butter, tallow, train-oil, 
coarse woollen cloth, stockings, gloves, raw wool, 
sheep-skins, lamb-skins, fox-skins, eider-down, 
and feathers, to which in former times was added 
sulphur. They import timber, fishing-tackle, 
various implements of iron, tobacco, bread, spi¬ 
rituous liquors, wine, salt, linen, with other ne¬ 
cessaries of life for the people in general, and a 
very few superfluities for the richer class of 
inhabitants. At its earliest period Iceland ap¬ 
pears to have been the rendezvous for all the 
disaffected and discontented among the Nor¬ 
wegians and Danes, and was little more than a 
nest of pirates, but after the island had sub¬ 
mitted to the Kings of Norway, a security was 
afforded to commerce, and the vast quantities of 
wool, tallow, oil, and other products that were 
exported, brought back so large a return of the 
precious metals, that it was reckoned a desirable 
situation for adventurers to make their fortunes 
in. Many concurrent circumstances afterwards 
occasioned the decay of this trade, but nothing 
so much as the king’s usurping the whole com¬ 
merce of the island, and affixing certain prices to 
all the produce; so that no man dared to sell any 
