BORGAFIORD. 
225 
the Tatsroed, and hastened forward, till we Came 
to the foot of Ahrarfiely a mountain of some 
height, which rose at no great distance from the 
Tatsroed’s house, but was separated from it by a 
morass* that was not to be crossed without much 
difficulty. In the worst places, sod and large 
pieces of rock had been procured from a con¬ 
siderable distance, but, although these prevented 
the horses from sinking deep in the mire, they 
by no means rendered the passage firm: yet did 
this trackless swamp lead to the very best house 
in the island, the residence of a man, at once a 
Danish counsellor of state, and the chief justice 
of Iceland; one, whose talents and acquirements 
would render him the ornament of any society, 
but who lived here shut out from all connexion 
with the literary world. In such of the out¬ 
buildings of the Tatsroed’s house, as first came 
in view, was evident a degree of elegance as 
* Let it not be regarded, as a proof of the indolence of 
the Icelanders, or as setting their characters in an unfavor¬ 
able light, that these morasses are to be seen, occasionally, 
in the neighborhood of the best of their houses, and that the 
roads, not unfrequently, lead over them. All this is, un¬ 
fortunately, ascribable to the country itself, which is little 
else than rock and bog; the latter, of so wet and spongy a 
texture, that no materials, however adapted to the purpose, 
and no quantity of them, however large, would be sufficient 
to overcome their stubborn nature, or to make them pro¬ 
perly passable. 
