The rich
inhabitants have it brought from Norway or Denmark; the poor burn
turf, to which they frequently add bones and other offal of fish,
which naturally engender a most disagreeable smoke.
On entering one of these cottages, the visitor is at a loss to
determine which of the two is the more obnoxious - the suffocating
smoke in the passage or the poisoned air of the dwelling-room,
rendered almost insufferable by the crowding together of so many
persons. I could almost venture to assert, that the dreadful
eruption called Lepra, which is universal throughout Iceland, owes
its existence rather to the total want of cleanliness than to the
climate of the country or to the food.
Throughout my subsequent journeys into the interior, I found the
cottages of the peasants every where alike squalid and filthy. Of
course I speak of the majority, and not of the exceptions; for here
I found a few rich peasants, whose dwellings looked cleaner and more
habitable, in proportion to the superior wealth or sense of decency
of the owners. My idea is, that the traveller's estimate of a
country should be formed according to the habits and customs of the
generality of its inhabitants, and not according to the doings of a
few individuals, as is often the case. Alas, how seldom did I meet
with these creditable exceptions!
