That evening, after having forded two rivers full of trout and pike,
called Alfa and Heta, we were obliged to spend the night in a
deserted building worthy to be haunted by all the elfins of
Scandinavia. The ice king certainly held court here, and gave us all
night long samples of what he could do.

No particular event marked the next day. Bogs, dead levels,
melancholy desert tracks, wherever we travelled. By nightfall we had
accomplished half our journey, and we lay at Krosolbt.

On the 19th of June, for about a mile, that is an Icelandic mile, we
walked upon hardened lava; this ground is called in the country
'hraun'; the writhen surface presented the appearance of distorted,
twisted cables, sometimes stretched in length, sometimes contorted
together; an immense torrent, once liquid, now solid, ran from the
nearest mountains, now extinct volcanoes, but the ruins around
revealed the violence of the past eruptions. Yet here and there were
a few jets of steam from hot springs.

We had no time to watch these phenomena; we had to proceed on our
way. Soon at the foot of the mountains the boggy land reappeared,
intersected by little lakes. Our route now lay westward; we had
turned the great bay of Faxa, and the twin peaks of Snaefell rose
white into the cloudy sky at the distance of at least five miles.

The horses did their duty well, no difficulties stopped them in their
steady career. I was getting tired; but my uncle was as firm and
straight as he was at our first start. I could not help admiring his
persistency, as well as the hunter's, who treated our expedition like