209 
JOURNEY TO BORGAFIORD. 
to my usual custom, for some fuel to boil our 
kettle and some milk In the owner of this 
house, for the first and only time in the island, 
I met with a deviation from that genuine hos¬ 
pitality which so strongly characterises the in¬ 
habitants of Iceland. In all my other excursions 
I was furnished with milk, fuel, or whatever the 
house afforded, with the greatest cheerfulness, 
and with the strongest marks of welcome; and, 
even if I remained for some days in one spot, I 
never thought of making a return, except it was 
in the trifling articles of snuff and tobacco, until 
* For the convenience of having the milk brought down 
to me, I always sent bottles to the cottagers; but it never 
came into my mind to inquire what means were employed 
to convey the fluid into such a vessel from the large and shal¬ 
low dishes in which it is kept by the natives 3 in a country, 
too, where funnels cannot be supposed to be in use among 
the poorer class of people. I should, probably, to this day, 
have remained in ignorance of the method, had I not, a 
little previous to my leaving the country, been informed, as 
well by the Danes at Reikevig, as by some natives, (persons 
worthy of credit, and whose names if necessary I could now 
mention) that the milk is first taken into the mouths of 
the women, and then spirted into the bottle.—Let it be re¬ 
membered, that I do not mention this circumstance as one 
to which either Jacob or mj^self was a witness, neither could 
this well have been the case, for the bottles were always 
taken into the house by the women, and returned filled 3 but, 
from the respectability of my informers, and the simplicity of 
the mode, it really appears deserving of credit. 
P 
