Those
who get over the first year look healthy enough; but they have
strangely red cheeks, almost as though they had an eruption.
Whether this appearance is to be ascribed to the sharp air, to which
the delicate skin is not yet accustomed, or to the food, I know not.
In some places on the coast, when the violent storms prevent the
poor fishermen for whole weeks from launching their boats, they live
almost entirely on dried fishes' heads. {30} The fishes themselves
have been salted down and sold, partly to pay the fishermen's taxes,
and partly to liquidate debts for the necessaries of the past
season, among which brandy and snuff unfortunately play far too
prominent a part.
Another reason why the population does not increase is to be found
in the numerous catastrophes attending the fisheries during the
stormy season of the year. The fishermen leave the shore with songs
and mirth, for a bright sky and a calm sea promise them good
fortune. But, alas, tempests and snow-storms too often overtake the
unfortunate boatmen! The sea is lashed into foam, and mighty waves
overwhelm boats and fishermen together, and they perish inevitably.
It is seldom that the father of a family embarks in the same boat
with his sons. They divide themselves among different parties, in
order that, if one boat founder, the whole family may not be
destroyed.
I found the cottages of the peasants at Reikjavik smaller, and in
every respect worse provided, than those at Havenfiord. This seems,
however, to be entirely owing to the indolence of the peasants
themselves; for stones are to be had in abundance, and every man is
his own builder. The cows and sheep live through the winter in a
wretched den, built either in the cottage itself or in its immediate
neighbourhood. The horses pass the whole year under the canopy of
heaven, and must find their own provender. Occasionally only the
peasant will shovel away the snow from a little spot, to assist the
poor animals in searching for the grass or moss concealed beneath.
It is then left to the horses to finish clearing away the snow with
their feet. It may easily be imagined that this mode of treatment
tends to render them very hardy; but the wonder is, how the poor
creatures manage to exist through the winter on such spare diet, and
to be strong and fit for work late in the spring and in summer.
These horses are so entirely unused to being fed with oats, that
they will refuse them when offered; they are not even fond of hay.
As I arrived in Iceland during the early spring, I had an
opportunity of seeing the horses and sheep in their winter garments.
The horses seemed to be covered, not with hair, but with a thick
woolly coat; their manes and tails are very long, and of surprising
thickness. At the end of May or the beginning of June the tail and
mane are docked and thinned, their woolly coat falls of itself, and
they then look smooth enough. The sheep have also a very thick coat
during the winter. It is not the custom to shear them, but at the
beginning of June the wool is picked off piece by piece with the
hand. A sheep treated in this way sometimes presents a very comical
appearance, being perfectly naked on one side, while on the other it
is still covered with wool.
The horses and cows are considerably smaller than those of our
country. No one need journey so far north, however, to see stunted
cattle. Already, in Galicia, the cows and horses of the peasants
are not a whit larger or stronger than those in Iceland. The
Icelandic cows are further remarkable only for their peculiarly
small horns; the sheep are also smaller than ours.
Every peasant keeps horses. The mode of feeding them is, as already
shewn, very simple; the distances are long, the roads bad, and large
rivers, moorlands, and swamps must frequently be passed; so every
one rides, both men, women, and children. The use of carriages is
as totally unknown throughout the island as in Syria.
The immediate vicinity of Reikjavik is pretty enough. Some of the
townspeople go to much trouble and expense in sometimes collecting
and sometimes breaking the stones around their dwellings. With the
little ground thus obtained they mix turf, ashes, and manure, until
at length a soil is formed on which something will grow. But this
is such a gigantic undertaking, that the little culture bestowed on
the spots wholly neglected by nature cannot be wondered at. Herr
Bernhoft shewed me a small meadow which he had leased for thirty
years, at an annual rent of thirty kreutzers. In order, however, to
transform the land he bought into a meadow, which yields winter
fodder for only one cow, it was necessary to expend more than 150
florins, besides much personal labour and pains. The rate of wages
for peasants is very high when compared with the limited wants of
these people: they receive thirty or forty kreutzers per diem, and
during the hay-harvest as much as a florin.
For a long distance round the town the ground consists of stones,
turf, and swamps. The latter are mostly covered with hundreds upon
hundreds of great and small mounds of firm ground. By jumping from
one of these mounds to the next, the entire swamp may be crossed,
not only without danger, but dry-footed.
In spite of all this, one of these swamps put me in a position of
much difficulty and embarrassment during one of my solitary
excursions. I was sauntering quietly along, when suddenly a little
butterfly fluttered past me. It was the first I had seen in this
country, and my eagerness to catch it was proportionately great.
