THE GEYSERS. 
141 
and directing their course towards Haukardal, re¬ 
minded me that service was about to be per¬ 
formed at the church of that place this morning, 
and therefore, as I saw no probability of a second 
eruption of the new Geyser immediately taking 
place, I resolved to leave it, and hear an Icelandic 
sermon. Accompanied by Jacob and my guide, 
I crossed a swamp which lay between us and the 
church; but, previously to entering it, we called 
upon an old lady, a rich farmer, who lives in 
the immediate vicinity, and whose hospitality 
is celebrated by Sir John Stanley. She was 
eighty-five years of age, and still enjoyed good 
health, though her faculties were much impaired, 
so that she scarcely recollected the visit of my 
countryman. A young man, however, whom 
she had adopted as her son, remembered him 
well. Her house, at this time, scarcely deserves 
the praises which Sir John has given it; for it 
was as dirty as any 1 had yet entered, and the 
closeness of the bed room, into which we were 
ushered, was far from pleasant, and, I should 
suppose, equally far from wholesome. Yet in 
these confined rooms, where the external air is 
scarcely admitted, do the natives spend their 
time during the long winters, except, indeed, such 
of it as is necessarily employed in looking after 
their cattle; and here, too, by excluding the air. 
