ALMANNEGIAA. 
172 
dashing its foaming waters with tremendous roar 
over the highest part of the precipice, whence 
they fell in an unbroken sheet upon the rocky base, 
composed of immense masses of most uncertain 
sizes, all rounded and rendered perfectly smooth 
by the force of the current, which, after crossing 
the chasm in an obliquely winding course, makes 
its boisterous way through a most romantic open¬ 
ing in the eastern cliff, and then soon unites with 
the more quiet stream of the Oxeraa* ** , at about 
half a mile from its confluence with Thingevalle- 
vatn. At the distance of a few hundred yards 
from this cascade lay some pieces of rock, which 
had fallen from the cliff*, in such a manner as to 
enable me, though not without considerable diffi- 
* I have, on my first Visit to T hinge vail e, mentioned that 
it was the spot where the court of justice was held, and that 
near it was the place of execution for criminals. Since that 
was written, I am informed by Sir Joseph Banks of a peculiar 
punishment formerly inflicted upon women for the murder of 
their illegitimate children. They are drowned,” says Sir 
Joseph in his journal, in a pool in the river, under a cas- 
ee cade 3 examples of which are very scarce, but one happen- 
ec ed in the youth of the clergyman of Thingevalle, who was 
" (in 1772) fifty years of age. The criminal was tied up in 
<s a sack which came over her head, and reached as far down 
i( as the middle of her legs; a rope was then fastened to her, 
(S and held by an executioner on the opposite bank: after 
standing an hour in that situation she was pulled into the 
** water, and kept under with a pole till she was dead,” 
