In Extenuation Of My Conduct, I Must Be Allowed To Add, That The Newcomer Was Not A Fellow-Countryman, But Of The French Tongue, And Of The Naval Profession.

Occupying then the door of my tent - by way of vantage ground, as soon as the stranger was come

Within earshot, I lifted up my voice, and cried in a style of Arabian familiarity, "O thou that ridest so furiously, - weary and disappointed one, - turn in, I pray thee, into the tent of thy servant, and eat bread, and drink wine, that thy soul may becomforted." To which he answered and said, "Man, - dweller in sulphureous places, - I will not eat bread, nor drink wine, neither will I enter into thy tent, until I have measured out a resting-place for my Lord the Prince."

At this interesting moment our acquaintance was interrupted by the appearance of two other horsemen - the one a painter, the other a geologist - attached to the expedition of Prince Napoleon. They informed us that His Imperial Highness had reached Reykjavik two days after we had left, that he had encamped last night at Thingvalla, and might be expected here in about four hours: they themselves having come on in advance to prepare for his arrival. My first care was to order coffee for the tired Frenchmen; and then - feeling that long residence having given us a kind of proprietorship in the Geysirs, we were bound to do the honours of the place to the approaching band of travellers, - I summoned the cook, and enlarging in a long speech on the gravity of the occasion, gave orders that he should make a holocaust of all the remaining game, and get under way a plum-pudding, whose dimensions should do himself and England credit. A long table having been erected within the tent, Sigurdr started on a plundering expedition to the neighbouring farm, Fitzgerald undertook the ordering of the feast, while I rode on my pony across the morass, in hopes of being able to shoot a few additional plover. In a couple of hours afterwards, just as I was stalking a duck that lay innocently basking on the bosom of the river, a cloud of horsemen swept round the base of the distant mountain, and returning home, I found the encampment I had left so deserted - alive and populous with as merry a group of Frenchmen as it might ever be one's fortune to fall in with. Of course they were dressed in every variety of costumes, long boots, picturesque brigand-looking hats, with here and there a sprinkling of Scotch caps from Aberdeen; but - whatever might be the head-dress, underneath you might be sure to find a kindly, cheery face. My old friend Count Trampe, who had accompanied the expedition, at once presented me to the Prince, who was engaged in sounding the depth of the pipe of the Great Geysir, - and encouraged by the gracious reception which His Imperial Highness accorded me, I ventured to inform him that "there was a poor banquet toward," of which I trusted he - and as many of his officers as the table could hold - would condescend to partake.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 49 of 151
Words from 25620 to 26149 of 79667