VOLCANOES. 
397 
things that are reckoned most wonderful in Ice¬ 
land, I am unwilling to pass it in silence, but 
shall endeavor, by means of extracts from the 
less generally known publication of Povelsen and 
Olafsen, aided by some notes made from Sir 
Joseph Banks’ MSS., to compensate for what I 
have not in my power to relate in my own journal. 
Our Icelandic travellers, on their excursion to 
Hecla, stopped at the village of Selsund situated 
in the vicinity of the mountain, where the pro¬ 
prietor of the farm urged them to accept him for 
their guide, he being acquainted with the country 
all around the volcano, though he had never ac¬ 
tually reached even its foot. The whole of the in¬ 
habitants who reside in the neighborhood consider 
it as the height of temerity for any one to endeavor 
to climb the mountain: in order, therefore,to deter 
these gentlemen from being rash enough to make 
the attempt, they represented a variety of super¬ 
natural obstacles, which having, from time im¬ 
memorial, been handed down from father to son, 
were perhaps as devoutly believed as they were 
seriously related, telling, among other things that 
were also urged to me, how Hecla is guarded by 
a number of strange black birds resembling crows, 
but armed with beaks of iron, with which they 
would receive in a very ungracious manner any 
