pole is laid down by Gerard Mercator, and attested by no less a man than Master John Dee, touched at Iceland, it excited much less of his attention than the Nigra Rupes, the huge black rock of many miles in circuit, which was the point of his discovery; and though he furnished King Edward III. with his Inventio Fortunata, qui liber incipit a gradu 54 usque ad polum, the people of England and of Germany were still ignorant of the real state of Iceland, and the Icelanders were in bad repute for a very singular reason. Hecla was supposed to be the mouth of hell; a fact which could not be doubted after the report of certain credible mariners, who in the mid sea between Germany and that island, when they were going right before the breeze with all sails set, met the soul of the Bishop of Bremen in a ship sailing against wind and weather as swiftly, as themselves, bound for the burning mountain. Hecla therefore was concluded to be the shortest way to Pandemonium, and it could hardly be expected that people would live so near the devil without having dealings with him. This was the opinion of all the early cosmographists, and even so late a writer as Peter Heylyn, though he says that to judicious men the natural reason of these flames is plain and obvious, assures us, nevertheless, that 'few of the people but have some familiar spirit to do them service; and notwithstanding the endeavours of the ministers to purge them from their impiety, yet it is so grafted in them, that they cannot leave it.' Peter Heylyn ought to have known better, because Hakluyt had published Arngrim Jonas's account of the country threescore years before this senseless calumny was repeated. Arngrim Jonas's treatise owed its birth to a feeling of patriotic indignation at the misrepresentations which were at that time current in Europe. The particular cause of provocation was a description, or rather a lampoon in verse, which made the good Bishop of Olen exceedingly angry. There came to light,' says he, at Hamburgh about the year of Christ 1561, a very deformed imp, begotten by a certain pedlar of Germany; namely, a book of German rhymes, of all that ever were read the most filthy and slanderous against the nation of Iceland. Neither did it suffice the base printer once to send abroad that base brat, but he must publish it also three or four times over, that he might hereby, what lay in him, more deeply disgrace our innocent nation :-so great was the malice of this printer, and his desire so greedy to get lucre by a thing unlawful. His name is Joachim Lion, a man worthy to become lion's food.' Bishop Thorlak, when he made this bitter jest, must have been in a disposition to pass rigorous laws against libelling; but as it was impossible to make a second Daniel of the printer, first, because he was not in Iceland, and secondly, because if he had been there, there was no lion's den belonging to the episcopal court, the bishop had re course course to a much better mode of proceeding; that of employing Arngrim Jonas to write a true account of the country, in confutation of this false one. Bishop Thorlak was as zealous for the welfare, as for the honour of his country, and his memory is deservedly reverenced. He first established a printing office there, and by his means the Bible was published in the Icelandic tongue,-for the Reformation, after a short struggle, had obtained a complete victory in Iceland. The press, had it existed in earlier ages, might have saved some of the old Icelandic heroes considerable trouble in recording their achievements. Olof of Hiardarbult carved the history of his adventures upon the rafters of his house; and Thorkil Hake did the same thing upon his chair and his bedstead. But the golden days of the Icelanders were over before they received these blessings. Their houses,' says Jonas, 'were built from ancient time stately and sumptuously enough, according to the condition of the country, with timber, stones, and turf, until such time as traffic and exchange of wares began to cease between them and the Norwegians, who were wont to supply them with timber, and for that cause now our houses begin to decay; when neither we have woods convenient for building, nor yet there are now a-days, as there were in old times, trees cast upon our shores by the benefit of the sea, which may in any sort relieve us; whereupon many of our country villages are much decayed from their ancient integrity-some whereof be fallen to the ground, and others be very ruinous.' The Norwegians were themselves a declining people, for the same cause as the Icelanders, because they had ceased to be independent, and because they had not yet recovered the havoc made by the black pestilence, and felt the effects of the increased rigour of the climate. The failure of the drift wood which is thus mentioned is curious, because Horrebow 150 years afterwards says, that great quantities of fine large timber every year came floating ashore, and that the people not having means of transporting it to their countrymen in other parts of the island who are in want of fuel, nor able to consume the whole themselves, let it lie in heaps and rot. Mr. Hooker also tells us, that much timber is cast upon the northern and eastern coasts. The inference therefore seems to be, that when Jonas wrote, some chance accumulation of ice had diverted the current which set in for these shores. The Greenlanders are supplied in the same manner, and owe to this provision their sole means of subsistence; their houses, their boats, even their arrows are made of the wood which the sea wafts to them; and if their necessities were not thus provided for, the country would be uninhabitable. This drift wood consists chiefly of fir: aspins, willow, alder and birch are also found, and larch and cedar; whence it comes seems not yet to have been ascertained. certained. Iceland itself at one time abounded with forests. The first settlers are said to have cut their way through the thickets; this however may possibly mean nothing more than the brushwood which still exists there; but the bog-wood, and the roots of trees which are sometimes found, prove beyond all doubt that there was a time when the climate of Iceland was not too severe for the growth of forest trees. Von Troil supposes that the surturbrand has been formed by lava, which sweeping away whole woods, charred them by burning and smothering them at the same time: but he forgets that trees, if swept away by the lava, would have floated upon it like straws upon a stream; and by Horrebow's account it is found in layers between the rocks. Sir G. Mackenzie did not visit that part of the country where this remarkable substance is procured. Jonas complains of the want of foreign trade in those days Iceland had little to offer to the merchant. There was its eyder-down, which is still one of its main commodities; its ling, which in the 17th century was accounted in England a fit dish for a nobleman's table; and its falcons, which were worthy to take flight from a prince's hand. They are remarkable for a greater variety of plumage than is found on any other of the tribe. The white falcon is the rarest variety: all that are taken of this colour are still reserved for the King of Denmark, who, according to Mr. Hooker, sets so high a value upon them, and so little upon the lives of his oppressed subjects, that a law has been enacted, declaring it death to any one who shall destroy one of these birds.' The sentence should not have begun in the present tense, for the law is in the spirit of our old forest laws, and cannot be of much later date. Old writers relate an odd custom of the hawks of Norway the last bird which they caught on a winter's day, they took home alive, that he might keep their feet warm at night; and in the morning when they let him go, they noticed which way he filed, and went out themselves to prey in a different direction, being unwilling to do their bed-fellow any injury, because of the comfort which they had derived from him. If the Iceland falcon had the same custom, he would certainly chuse an eyder-duck for his footwarmer. The dogs of this island also were in fashion among us for a full century. Massinger mentions them 'Would I might lie Like a dog under her table, and serve for a footstool, Her Iceland cur refuses.' Peter Heylyn calls them the delight of ladies;-but they were not Lupton tells the same story of the English merlin. Siugila, 1584. all all thus nursed in the lap of luxury; for Sir Roger L'Estrange, speaking of what he calls Jack Pudding Smell-Feasts, says they 'make fooling their business and their livelihood, and live like Iceland shocks, by shewing tricks for bread.' But shock dogs and falcons were but poor articles to invite the merchant; and it was found better to fetch ling from the banks of Newfoundland than from the stormy seas of the remotest North. Few persons therefore visiting Iceland for business, and none for ́ curiosity, we had no account of it in England from Hakluyt's time, till, about fifty years ago, a translation appeared from the Danish of Horrebow's natural history of the country. This is the book which contains the two remarkable chapters concerning owls and snakes, to which we alluded on a former* occasion. It is likewise remarkable for a nost extraordinary exaggeration; the author makes the country seven hundred and twenty miles longits actual length is about two hundred and sixty. This, however, though the work is meant as an eulogium upon Iceland, seems to have proceeded more from ignorance than design. For Horrebow did not travel over the island himself, but took the report of others. But though this enormous error stares us in the face in the very front of the book, the book itself must not be estimated by such a sample: it is, indeed, so methodical as to be sometimes dull and sometimes ludicrous, but there is plain matter of fact sufficient to atone for greater faults. The English translation is remarkable for its ridiculous form-we complain, and with good reason, of our travellers in quarto, who make a two guinea commodity of what a century ago would have cost but half-a-crown: the English Horrebow is even more unreasonable; matter which, if the meteorological tables were omitted, would not exceed the limits of an article in this journal, is spread over a folio. Iceland became an object of interest to naturalists after it was visited in 1772, by Sir Joseph Banks; but the short account of this voyage which was published by Von Troil, served rather to excite curiosity than to gratify it. Sir John Stanley's communications to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, were confined to one of the wonders of the island; and of the minute and ample work of Olafsen and Povelsen, a short abridgment in Phillips's collection of voyages and travels, is all that has appeared in our language. At length however we have a rich harvest of information. Mr. Hooker's journal, notwithstanding the grievous misfortune by which his papers and collections of every kind were destroyed, still forms a most interesting and valuable volume; and though much yet remains for the researches of the geologist, yet a full No. VIII. p. 540. and and satisfactory knowledge of the physical appearance, and the moral and political state of the island, may be obtained from his travels, and from the more extensive work of Sir George Mackenzie. Reikiavik, the capital of the island, is but a miserable place, containing about 500 inhabitants. The houses are in two streets or rather rows, which form a right angle; the longest range extending along the beach. One house and only one is built of brick, the rest are made of planks, and appear at a little distance like so many granaries. The merchants' houses are only to be distinguished from the rest, by one or two wooden chimnies, and by a few glass windows. The want of glass in the other houses is supplied by the chorion and amnios of the sheep, stretched upon a hoop and laid over an opening in the roof, with a wooden shutter to protect it in stormy weather; for smaller windows at the side of the door, bladders are used. These merchants houses, being the best in Iceland, are made in Norway. The warehouses serve for shops, where the merchants retail their foreign commodities, and receive in exchange such articles as the island produces for exportation. The most conspicuous building is the House of Correction; the Cathedral is of considerable size, has large glass windows, a little square wooden tower with two bells, and is roofed with tiles; but it is sadly dilapidated. This is the only stone building in Reikiavik, and yet the main street is so obstructed with rocks, that a cart, if there were such a thing in Iceland, could not proceed half a dozen yards. There are a few miserable huts raised but little above the level of the ground, in the neighbourhood of the town; each of them has two or three machines near it on which the inhabitants hang their fishing dresses to dry. The dress of the men consists of a woollen shirt, a short waistcoat and jacket of coarse cloth, and still coarser trowsers. Their hats resemble those of our coal heavers. Their cloth they manufacture themselves: for the art of weaving they are indebted to Denmark, and it is almost the only benefit which Denmark has bestowed upon them. Some weaving frames were set up at the King's expence almost threescore years ago, and workmen sent over to instruct the natives in their use. It would have been well if his Danish Majesty had taken measures for instructing them in another part of the process through which cloth passes. As hitherto,' says Horrebow, they have had no fulling mills, it must imagined that they have a deal of trouble in fulling and milling their woollen goods, and indeed it is so; for they have no other instrument for this purpose than a barrel with both ends struck out; into this they put the goods which require milling, two persons then place themselves on the ground over against each other, and with their feet go through the operation, in the barrel. Small things |