SALMON-FISHERY. 
185 
sea, is held as a sort of annual festival by the 
natives for many miles around, and afforded a 
scene of gaiety and pleasure that I should scarcely 
have expected to witness in Iceland. At ten 
o’clock in the morning I repaired to the spot 
amidst hundreds of natives, some on foot, but 
more on horseback, all drest in their best apparel, 
and presenting a truly interesting spectacle, to 
which the unusual fineness of the day contributed 
not a little. On every side were to be seen the 
happy countenances of the natives, and there was 
visible among the different ranks of people a de¬ 
gree of familiarity that is, perhaps, scarcely to 
be met with in any other country; for men, 
women, and children, of all ages and conditions, 
the bishop, the tatsroed, the landfogued, ampt- 
man and sysselman, the midwife, the washer¬ 
woman, and the tailor, were all conversing with 
each other without restraint, and on terms of 
perfect equality. The individuals just enume¬ 
rated, male as well as female, were clad after the 
Danish fashion; but among the rest, especially 
of the females, the distinction of dress was more 
fish escaping to the sea on their return from spawning; 
besides which, early in the morning of the same day, for 
some considerable way up the river, other nets were extended 
croass from bank to bank, at intervals of a few yards, with 
the view of enabling those who are engaged in catching the 
fish to do it with the greater facility. 
