150 RETURN FROM THE GEYSERS. 
prospect of visiting Hecla, and I determined, at 
all events, to proceed to Skalholt, as the only 
place where I should have a chance of obtaining 
more certain tidings, and guides to accompany 
me. Near this house I met with an itinerant 
beggar, of which there are many in Iceland; 
some of whom adopt this mode of life through 
idleness, and others through actual inability to 
do any sort of labor that might support them. 
The scanty supply of food which they necessarily 
procure by such means, in a country where even 
the most industrious are often reduced to a 
state bordering on starvation, renders these poor 
wretches real objects of pity and deserving of 
relief from travellers. I was surprised and mor¬ 
tified to find that this wretched being, who could 
scarcely crawl along, but who kept company with 
us some way on one of our relay horses, was not 
able to eat a morsel of the ship-bread and meat 
which I gave him; so accustomed had he been 
to a milk and fish diet, and such a stranger was 
he to a kind of food essentially different both in 
flavor and hardness. Our way lay over a great part 
of the same morass that we had previously crossed 
in a contrary direction after leaving the river 
Brueraa, of which stream we again came in sight 
during the course of this day’s journey. We 
went only a little more circuitous route to see the 
hot spring of Reykum, which I before mentioned. 
