Marquis of Frederick Temple Blackwood Dufferin and Ava

“ We had killed nothing as yet, except a few eider ducks, and one or two ice-birds—the most graceful winged creatures I have ever seen, with immensely long pinions, and plumage of spotless white. Although enormous seals from time to time used to lift their wise, grave faces above the water, with the dignity of sea-gods, none of us had any very great inclination to slay such rational human-looking creatures, and—with the exception of these and a white fish, a species of whale—no other living thing had been visible. ”

“ To add to our disgust, the wind flew right round into the North, and increasing to a gale, brought down upon us—not one of the usual thick arctic mists to which we were accustomed, but a dark, yellowish brown fog, that rolled along the surface of the water in twisted columns, and irregular masses of vapour, as dense as coal smoke. We had now almost reached the eightieth parallel of north latitude, and still an impenetrable sheet of ice, extending fifty or sixty miles westward from the shore, rendered all hopes of reaching the land out of the question. ”

“ The panorama of the bay of Faxa Fiord is magnificent, —with a width of fifty miles from horn to horn, the one running down into a rocky ridge of pumice, the other towering to the height of five thousand feet in a pyramid of eternal snow, while round the intervening semicircle crowd the peaks of a hundred noble mountains. As you approach the shore, you are very much reminded of the west coast of Scotland, except that everything is more INTENSE—the atmosphere clearer, the light more vivid, the air more bracing, the hills steeper, loftier, more tormented, as the French say, and more gaunt ”

“ Two or three times the cannonading we had heard immediately after our arrival recommenced,—and once an eruption to the height of about ten feet occurred; but so brief was its duration, that by the time we were on the spot, although the tent was not eighty yards distant, all was over. As after every effort of the fountain the water in the basin mysteriously ebbs back into the funnel, this performance, though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down into its scalded gullet. In an hour afterwards, the basin was brimful as ever. ”

“ A few minutes later the fog clears up suddenly; a ray of sunshine gilds the surface of the sea; lighting up millions of patches of sparkling white, extending to the farthest limit of the horizon. These are the detached hummocks which precede and announce the field ice; they increase in size and in number as we proceed. At three o'clock in the afternoon we find ourselves in front of a large pack which blocks up the sea before us. We are obliged to change our course to extricate ourselves from the ice that surrounds us. ”

“ Stones crack with the noise of thunder; in a crowded hut the breath of its occupants will fall in flakes of snow; wine and spirits turn to ice; the snow burns like caustic; if iron touches the flesh, it brings the skin away with it; the soles of your stockings may be burnt off your feet, before you feel the slightest warmth from the fire; linen taken out of boiling water, instantly stiffens to the consistency of a wooden board ”

“ Moreover, scarcely any stranger has ever penetrated to any distance in this direction; and we shall have an opportunity of traversing a slice of that tremendous desert—piled up for thirty thousand square miles in disordered pyramids of ice and lava over the centre of the country, and periodically devastated by deluges of molten stone and boiling mud, or overwhelmed with whirlwinds of intermingled snow and cinders,—an unfinished corner of the universe, where the elements of chaos are still allowed to rage with unbridled fury. ”

“ By the evening, the gale, which had been blowing all day, had increased to a perfect hurricane. At nine o'clock we let go a second anchor; and I confess, as we sat comfortably round the fire in the bright cheerful little cabin, and listened to the wind whistling and shrieking through the cordage, that none of us were sorry to find ourselves in port on such a night, instead of tossing on the wild Atlantic—though we little knew that even then the destroying angel was busy with the fleet of fishing-boats which had put to sea so gallantly on the evening of our arrival. ”

“ After passing the cape, away we went across the spacious Brieda Fiord, at the rate of nine or ten knots an hour, reeling and bounding at the heels of the steamer, which seemed scarcely to feel how uneven was the surface across which we were speeding. Down dropped Snaefell beneath the sea, and dim before us, clad in evening haze, rose the shadowy steeps of Bardestrand. The north-west division of Iceland consists of one huge peninsula, spread out upon the sea like a human hand, the fingers just reaching over the Arctic circle ”

“ Acting on these considerations, we all three turned in; and for the next half-dozen hours I lay dreaming of a great funeral among barren mountains, where white bears in peers' robes were the pall-bearers, and a sea-dragon chief-mourner. When we came on deck again, the northern extremity of Iceland lay leagues away on our starboard quarter, faintly swimming through the haze; up overhead blazed the white sun, and below glittered the level sea, like a pale blue disc netted in silver lace. I seldom remember a brighter day ”

“ Let the setting be these very hills,—flooded by this same cold, steely sunshine. In the midst stands a stalwart form, in quaint but regal attire. Hot blood deepens the colour of his sun-bronzed cheek; an iron purpose gleams in his earnest eyes, like the flash of a drawn sword; a circlet of gold binds the massive brow, and from beneath it stream to below his waist thick masses of hair, of that dusky red which glows like the heart of a furnace in the sunlight, but deepens earth-brown in the shadow. By his side stands a fair woman ”

“ The vessel herself remains very steady; when you are below you scarcely know you are not in port. But on raising your head above the companion the first sight which meets your eye is an upright wall of black water, towering, you hardly know how many feet, into the air over the stern. Like a lion walking on its hind legs, it comes straight at you, roaring and shaking its white mane with fury-it overtakes the vessel—the upright shiny face curves inwards—the white mane seems to hang above your very head; but ere it topples over, the nimble little ship has already slipped from underneath. ”

“ Here at all events was honest blue saltwater frozen solid, and when, as we proceeded, the scattered fragments thickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, until at last we found oumelves enveloped in an innumerable fleet of bergs,—it seemed as if we could never be weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was rather in form and colour than in size that these ice islets were remarkable; anything approaching to a real iceberg we neither saw, nor are we likely to see. ”

“ Thought follows across the space. It is a ship. Its sides are long, and black, and low; but high in front rises the prow, fashioned into the semblance of a gigantic golden dragon, against whose gleaming breast the divided waters angrily flash and gurgle. Along the top sides of the deck are hung a row of shining shields, in alternate breadths of red and white, like the variegated scales of a sea-monster, whilst its gilded tail curls aft over the head of the steersman. ”

“ On Saturday we went to Vedey, a beautiful little green island where the eider ducks breed, and build nests with the soft under-down plucked from their own bosoms. After the little ones are hatched, and their birthplaces deserted, the nests are gathered, cleaned, and stuffed into pillow-cases, for pretty ladies in Europe to lay their soft, warm cheeks upon, and sleep the sleep of the innocent, while long-legged, broad-shouldered Englishmen protrude from between them at German inns, like the ham from a sandwich, and cannot sleep, however innocent. ”

“ These signs of a modern humdrum prosperity seemed to melt away before my eyes as I gazed from the schooner's deck, and the accessories of an elder time came to furnish the landscape,—the clumsy merchantmen lazily swaying with the tide, darkened into armed galleys with their rows of glittering shields,—the snug, bourgeois-looking town shrank into the quaint proportions of the huddled ancient Nidaros,—and the old marauding days, with their shadowy line of grand old pirate kings, rose up with welcome vividness before my mind. ”

“ If within the domain of nature such another region is to be found, it can only be in the heart of those awful solitudes which science has unveiled to us amid the untrodden fastnesses of the lunar mountains. An hour before reaching our old camping-ground at Thingvalla, as if summoned by enchantment, a dull grey mist closed around us, and suddenly confounded in undistinguishable ruin the glory and the terror of the panorama we had traversed; sky, mountains, horizon, all had disappeared ”

“ The yards were suddenly manned with red devils, black monkeys, and every kind of grotesque monster, while the whole ship's company, officers and men promiscuously mingled, danced the cancan upon deck. In order that the warmth of the day should not make us forget that we had arrived in his dominions, the Arctic father had stationed certain of his familiars in the tops, who at stated intervals flung down showers of hard peas, as typical of hail, while the powdering of each other's faces with handfuls of flour could not fail to remind everybody on board that we had reached the latitude of snow. ”

“ But Olaf's hour is come. Many slain lie around him, many that have fallen by his hand, more that have fallen at his side. The thinned ranks on board the "Iron Beard" are constantly replenished by fresh combatants from other vessels, even by the Swedes and soft Danes, now "strong, upon the stronger side,"—while Olaf, cut off from succour, stands almost alone upon the "Serpent's" deck, made slippery by his people's blood. The jarl had laid out boats to intercept all who might escape from the ship; but escape is not in the King's thoughts. ”

“ The steed Sigurdr had purchased for me was a long-tailed, hog-maned, shaggy, cow-houghed creature, thirteen hands high, of a bright yellow colour, with admirable action, and sure-footed enough to walk downstairs backwards. The Doctor was not less well mounted; in fact, the Icelandic pony is quite a peculiar race, much stronger, faster, and better bred than the Highland shelty, and descended probably from pure-blooded sires that scoured the steppes of Asia, long before Odin and his paladins had peopled the valleys of Scandinavia. ”

“ For the whole of that night did we continue beating up along the edge of the ice, in the teeth of a whole gale of wind; at last, about nine o'clock in the morning,—but two short hours before the moment at which it had been agreed we should bear up, and abandon the attempt,—we came up with a long low point of ice, that had stretched further to the Westward than any we had yet doubled; and there, beyond, lay an open sea!—open not only to the Northward and Westward, but also to the Eastward! ”

“ DISAPPEARS—MIST—A PARTING IN A LONELY SPOT—JAN MAYEN—MOUNT BEERENBERG—AN UNPLEASANT POSITION—SHIFT OF WIND AND EXTRICATION—"TO NORROWAY OVER THE FAEM"—A NASTY COAST—HAMMERFEST. Hammerfest, July.
Back in Europe again,—within reach of posts! The glad sun shining, the soft winds blowing, and roses on the cabin table,—as if the region of fog and ice we have just fled forth from were indeed the dream-land these summer sights would make it seem. I cannot tell you how gay and joyous it all appears to us, fresh from a climate that would not have been unworthy of Dante's Inferno. ”

“ At midnight, seawards again began to swirl the tide, and we rose to go,—not without having first paid a visit to the room where the little daughters of the house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes waved to us by white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, we rowed on board; up went the napping sails, and dipping her ensign in token of adieu—the schooner glided swiftly on between the walls of rock, until an intervening crag shut out from our sight the friendly group that had come forth to bid us "Good speed." ”

“ If only my Hull skipper were as good a draughtsman as he seemed to be a seaman, we should now be on our way to one of the wonders of the world. Most people here hold out rather a doleful prospect, and say that, in the first place, it is probable the whole island will be imprisoned within the eternal fields of ice, that lie out for upwards of a hundred and fifty miles along the eastern coast of Greenland; and next, that if even the sea should be clear in its vicinity, the fogs up there are so dense and constant that the chances are very much against our hitting the land. ”

“ After the usual hour's rest and change of horses, we galloped away to the other side of the plain, and, doubling the further horn of the semicircle, suddenly found ourselves in a district as unlike the cinder mountains we had quitted as they had differed from the volcanic scenery of the day before. On the left lay a long rampart of green hills, opening up every now and then into Scottish glens and gorges, while from their roots to the horizon stretched a vast breadth of meadowland, watered by two or three rivers, that wound, and twisted, and coiled about, like blue serpents. ”

“ The effects of light and shadow are the purest I ever saw, the contrasts of colour most astonishing,—one square front of a mountain jutting out in a blaze of gold against the flank of another, dyed of the darkest purple, while up against the azure sky beyond, rise peaks of glittering snow and ice. ”

“ Hunting and fishing are the principal employments of the Lapp tribes; and to slay a bear is the most honourable exploit a Lapp hero can achieve. The flesh of the slaughtered beast becomes the property—not of the man who killed him, but of him who discovered his trail, and the skin is hung up on a pole, for the wives of all who took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes bandaged. Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the trophy,—not only does it become her prize, but, in the eyes of the whole settlement, her husband is looked upon thence forth as the most fortunate of men. ”

“ But the occasion justified our eagerness. A smooth silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four feet deep, with a hole at the bottom as in a washing-basin on board a steamer, stood before us brimful of water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapour, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground about the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica, like the outside of an oyster, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of the basin. ”

“ In about half an hour Sigurdr gave the signal for a start; and having caught, saddled, and bridled three unridden ponies, we drove Snorro and his companions to the front, and proceeded on our way rejoicing. After an hour's gradual ascent through a picturesque ravine, we emerged upon an immense desolate plateau of lava, that stretched away for miles and miles like a great stony sea. A more barren desert you cannot conceive. ”