154 
SKALHOLT. 
the school of Besestedr, the lector of which place, 
who was brother to Madame Joneson, frequently 
consulted it. The collection contained many of 
the classics, but consisted chiefly of Icelandic 
books and manuscripts, relating to the political 
and ecclesiastical history of the country, mixed 
with extracts from such works as are most scarce 
in the island; among which I noticed several 
pages copied from the Linnaean Amoenitates Aca- 
demicce. The farm, belonging to this house, was 
reckoned a considerable one, and had several 
buildings appropriated to the use of cattle; but 
of these, the floors are never covered with any sort 
of litter, so that the poor animals must have but 
a sorry bed on the bare rock. From the exceed¬ 
ing filthiness of the place, it seemed as if a dung¬ 
hill near the outside of the building, was but 
seldom replenished. At Skalholt, for the first 
time, I saw people cutting hay; which they do 
by means of a scythe with a straight stem, about 
six feet long, from which project, at right angles, 
two handies, and, as the ground producing their 
crop of hay is broken into innumerable hillocks, 
they find it advantageous to use a blade of not 
more than two feet in length, with which they 
perform the operation more in the manner of chop¬ 
ping up the grass than mowing it. In the evening, 
I met with a truly wretched object, a woman, who 
was afflicted with the malady called among the 
