Skalholt-Reykjavik-The Fair-The Peasant and the Merchant-A Clergyman in his Cups-Hay-making-The Icelander's Hut-Churches-Poverty of the Clergy-Jon Thorlaksen-The Seminary of Reykjavik-Beneficial Influence of the Clergy-Home Education-The Icelander's Winter's Evening-Taste for Literature--The Language-The Public Library at Reykjavik-The Icelandic Literary Society-Icelandic Newspapers-Longevity-Leprosy-Travelling in Iceland-Fording the Rivers-Crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland-A Night's Bivouac.

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EXT to Thingvalla, there is no place in Iceland so replete with historical interest as Skalholt, its ancient capital. Here in the eleventh century was founded the first school in the island; here was the seat of its first bishops; here flourished a succession of great orators, historians, and poets; Isleif, the oldest chronicler of the North; Gissur, who in the beginning of the twelfth century had visited all the countries of Europe and spoke all their languages; the philologian Thorlak, and Finnur Johnson, the learned author of the Ecclesiastical History of Iceland.' The cathedral of Skalholt was renowned far and wide for its size,

and in the year 1100, Latin, poetry, music, and rhetoric, the four liberal arts, were taught in its school, more than they were at that time in many of the large European cities. As a proof how early the study of the ancients flourished in Skalholt, we find it recorded that in the twelfth century, a bishop once caught a scholar reading Ovid's Art of Love,' and as the story relates that the venerable pastor flew into a violent passion at the sight of the unholy book, we may without injustice conclude that he must have read it himself in some of his leisure hours, to know its character so well.

Of all its past glories, Skalholt has retained nothing but its name. The school and the bishopric have been removed, the old church has disappeared, and been replaced by a small wooden building, in which divine service is held once a month; three cottages contain all the inhabitants of the once celebrated city, and the extensive churchyard is the only memorial of its former importance. Close by are the ruins of the old schoolhouse, and on the spot where the bishop resided, a peasant has erected his miserable hovel.

But the ever-changing tide of human affairs has not bereft the now lonely place of its natural charms, for the meadow-lands of Skalholt are beautifully imbedded in an undulating range of hills, overlooking the junction of the Bruara and Huita, and backed by a magnificent theatre of mountains, amongst which Hecla and the Eyafyalla are the most prominent.

Reykjavik, the present capital of the island, has risen into importance at the expense both of Skalholt and Thingvalla. At the beginning of the present century the courts of justice were transferred from the ancient seat of legislature to the new metropolis, and in 1797 the bishoprics of Hoolum and Skalholt, united into one, had their seats likewise transferred to Reykjavik. The ancient school of Skalholt, after having first migrated to Bessestadt, has also been obliged to follow the centralising tendency, so powerful in our times, and now contributes to the rising fortunes of the small seaport town.

But in spite of all these accessions, the first aspect of Reykjavik by no means corresponds to our ideas of a

capital. 'The town,' says Lord Dufferin*, 'consists of a collection of wooden sheds, one story high-rising here and there into a gable end of greater pretensions-built along the lava track, and flanked at either end by a suburb of turf huts. On every side of it extends a desolate plain of lava, that once must have boiled up red-hot from some distant gateway of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. Νο tree or bush relieves the dreariness of the landscape, and the mountains are too distant to serve as a background to the buildings; but before the door of each merchant's house facing the sea, there flies a gay little pennon; and as you -walk along the silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out of the windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once convince you, that notwithstanding their unpretending appearance, within each dwelling reign the elegance and comfort of a woman-tended home.'

Twenty years since, Reykjavik was no better than a wretched fishing village, now it already numbers 1,400 inhabitants, and free-trade promises it a still greater increase for the future. It owes its prosperity chiefly to its excellent port, and to the abundance of fish-banks in its neighbourhood, which have induced the Danish merchants to make it their principal settlement. Most of them, however, merely visit it in summer like birds of passage, arriving in May with small cargoes of foreign goods, and leaving it again in August, after having disposed of their wares. Thus Reykjavik must be lonely and dreary enough in winter, when no trade animates its port, and no traveller stays at its solitary inn; but the joy of the inhabitants is all the greater, when the return of spring reopens their intercourse with the rest of the world, and the delight may be imagined, with which they hail the first ship that brings them the long-expected news from Europe, and perhaps some wealthy tourist, eager to admire the wonders of the Geysirs.

The most busy time of the town, is however the beginning of July, when the annual fair attracts a great number of fishermen and peasants within its walls. From a distance

Letters from High Latitudes,' p. 35.

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of forty and fifty leagues around, they come with long trains of pack-horses; their stock-fish slung freely across the animals' backs, their more damageable articles close pressed and packed in boxes or skin bags.

The greater part of the trade in this and other small seaports, such as Akreyri, Hafnafjord, Eyrarbacki, Berufjord, Vapnafjord, Isafjord, Grafaros, Budenstadt; which, taken all together, do not equal Reykjavik in traffic and population-is carried on by barter.*

Sometimes the Icelander desires to be paid in specie for part of his produce, but then he is obliged to bargain for a long time with the merchant, who of course derives a double profit by an exchange of goods, and is loth to part with his hard cash. The dollars thus acquired are either melted down, and worked into silver massive girdles, which in point of execution as well as design are said, on good authority,† to be equal to anything of the kind fashioned by English jewellers, or else deposited in a strong box, as taxes and wages are all paid in produce, and no Icelander ever thinks of investing his money in stocks, shares, or debentures.

He is, however, by no means so ignorant of mercantile affairs as to strike at once a bargain with the Danish traders. Pitching his tent before the town, he first pays a visit to all the merchants of the place. After carefully noting their several offers (for as each of them invariably treats him to a dram, he with some justice mistrusts his memory), he returns to his caravan and makes his calculations as well as his somewhat confused brain allows him. by his wife, her opinion of course is decisive, and the following If he is accompanied morning he repairs with all his goods to the merchant who has succeeded in gaining his confidence.

After the business has been concluded, the peasant empties one glass to the merchant's health, another to a happy

* In 1855, Iceland imported among others: 65,712 pieces of timber, 148,038 lbs. of iron, 37,700 lbs. hemp, 15,179 fishing lines, 20,342 lbs. salt, 6,539 tons of coal. The chief exportations of the same year were tallow 932,906 lbs., wool 1,569,323 lbs., 69,305 pairs of stockings, 27,109 pairs of gloves, 12,712 salted sheepskins, 4116 lbs. eiderdowns, 25,000 lbs. other feathers, 244 horses, and 24,079 ship's pounds (the ship's pound 320 lbs.) salt fish.

† Barrow, Visit to Iceland,' 1834.

THE EFFECTS OF RUM.

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meeting next year, a third to the king, a fourth because three have been drunk already. At length, after many embraces, and protestations of eternal friendship, he takes his leave of the merchant. Fortunately there is no thief to be found in all Iceland; but in consequence of these repeated libations, one parcel has not been well packed, another negligently attached to the horse, and thus it happens that the poor peasant's track is not unfrequently marked with sugar, coffee-beans, salt or flour, and that when he reaches home, he finds some valuable article or other missing.

It would, however, be doing the Icelanders an injustice to regard them as generally intemperate; for though within the last twelve years the population has increased only ten per cent., and the importation of brandy thirty, yet the whole quantity of spirits consumed in the island amounts to less than three bottles per annum for each individual, and, of this allowance, the people of Reykjavik and of the other small seaports have more than their share, while many of the clergy and peasantry in the remoter districts hardly ever taste spirituous liquors. Dr. Hooker mentions the extraordinary effect which a small portion of rum produced on the good old incumbent of Middalr, whose stomach had been accustomed only to a milk-diet and a little coffee. He begged me,' says the Doctor,* 'to give him some rum to bathe his wife's breast; but having applied a portion of it to that purpose, he drank the rest without being at all aware of its strength, which, however, had no other effect than in causing this clerical blacksmith† with his lame hip to dance in the most ridiculous manner in front of the house. The scene afforded a great source of merriment to all his family, except his old wife, who was very desirous of getting him to bed, while he was no less anxious that she should join him in the dance.'

Dr. Hooker justly remarks that this very circumstance is a convincing proof how unaccustomed this priest was to spirituous liquors, as the quantity taken could not have exceeded a wine-glass full.

After his visit to the fair, the peasant sets about hay*Journal of a Tour in Iceland,' p. 110.

All the clergymen are blacksmiths, for a reason that will be stated hereafter.