THINGEVALLE. 
83 
Egclosen, for Thingevalle, which was only at the 
opposite side of the head of the lake, and not 
more than five or six miles distant; yet, owing 
to the badness of the road, and to our stopping 
to look about us, it was eight o’clock before we 
reached it. Nearly our whole ride lay along the 
shores, on a ground as fatiguing for the horses as 
sand would have been, and composed entirely of 
small broken pieces of lava, in many places nearly 
as fine as sand itself. Among this, wherever the 
numerous streamlets, which ran into the lake, 
had deposited a small quantity of soil, the bright 
yellow green of Bartramia fontana , and the pink- 
colored flowers of Sedum villosum , were finely 
contrasted with the blackness of the ground. In 
some places, at a short distance from the shore, 
such of the rock as had been melted was in an 
entire state, and marked on the surface all over 
with numerous elevated semicircular lines, in a 
manner not unlike the shell of an oyster *, if 
such a comparison may be allowed. We passed 
a tolerably wide stream, just below a cascade of 
considerable size, which reminded me of the 
upper fall of the Clyde; but there were no trees, 
* As a figure will give a better idea of this appearance 
than words can possibly do, I will beg to refer for an excel¬ 
lent representation of this kind of unbroken lava, to plate 35 
of Bory de St. Vincent Voyage dans les quatre principales 
Isles des mers d'Afrique . 
