THE GEYSERS. 
127 
afforded me a very commanding prospect. Just 
beneath me, facing the south-east, was to be seen, 
at one view, the steam rising from upwards of a 
hundred boiling springs, among \yhich the great 
Geyser, from its regularly circular figure, looked 
like an artificial reservoir of .water. A little 
stream at the bottom of the hill formed the boun¬ 
dary to these, beyond which was an extensive mo¬ 
rass whose sameness was only interrupted by the 
rather wide course of the river Hvitaa , winding 
through it. The view was terminated, in that 
quarter of the compass, by a long range of flat 
and tame mountains, over which towered the 
three-pointed and snow-capped summit of Hecla , 
which rises far above the neighbouring hills, and 
is, in clear weather, plainly visible when standing 
by the Geyser. I11 the north-east was situated 
the church and farm of Haukardal, and a con¬ 
tinuation of the morass, bounded by some lofty 
jokuls of fantastic shapes. In the north-west, at 
a small distance from the place where I stood, 
and, indeed, only separated from it by a narrow 
portion of the morass, with a small river winding 
through it, rose another chain of mountains, 
thinly covered with vegetation, beyond which 
some jokuls showed their white summits. In 
the south the morass was extended almost to the 
coast, and looked like a great sea, having three 
or four rather lofty, but completely insulated 
3 
