204 
KREISEVIG. 
surable sensation, I doubt whether a traveller 
ever turned his back upon Etna with more re¬ 
gret than we felt when we quitted the strange 
but desert scenery of this place. To myself, 
indeed,, the regret was no more than the being 
deprived of the powers of beholding one of the 
most awfully impressive scenes that the world 
can furnish, or even imagination can conceive ; 
but not so with my companion, who had hoped 
that it might have been possible to have met in 
the sulphur-springs with an article of commerce 
that might at once have been highly advanta¬ 
geous to himself, and beneficial to his country, 
but who now found to his extreme vexation that, 
small as is the distance of Kreisevig from the sea, 
the obstacles interposed by the nature of the in¬ 
tervening country were such as forbade the idea 
of a commercial speculation. To have collected 
it in a place where the population is so thinly 
scattered, would have been attended with very 
great expence; and to have conveyed it on horse¬ 
back over so rocky a tract as lies between Krei¬ 
sevig and the nearest harbor, would have been 
almost impossible; and I therefore read with 
surprise, in Horrebow, that early in the last 
century the gathering and exporting of it were 
objects of considerable advantage to the natives. 
Myvatn, in the more northern part of the island, 
is said to be almost the only place, except 
