To Some Of The Houses In Reikjavik Pieces Of Garden Are Attached.
These Gardens Are Small Plots Of Ground Where, With Great Trouble
And Expense, Salad, Spinach, Parsley, Potatoes, And A Few Varieties
Of Edible Roots, Are Cultivated.
The beds are separated from each
other by strips of turf a foot broad, seldom boasting even a few
field-flowers.
The inhabitants of Iceland are generally of middle stature, and
strongly built, with light hair, frequently inclining to red, and
blue eyes. The men are for the most part ugly; the women are better
favoured, and among the girls I noticed some very sweet faces. To
attain the age of seventy or eighty years is here considered an
extraordinary circumstance. {29} The peasants have many children,
and yet few; many are born, but few survive the first year. The
mothers do not nurse them, and rear them on very bad food. 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 36 of 170
Words from 18270 to 18784
of 87606
