I found the greater part of the population busied in drying, salting,
and putting on board codfish, their chief export. The men looked like
robust but heavy, blond Germans with pensive eyes, conscious of being
far removed from their fellow creatures, poor exiles relegated to
this land of ice, poor creatures who should have been Esquimaux,
since nature had condemned them to live only just outside the arctic
circle! In vain did I try to detect a smile upon their lips;
sometimes by a spasmodic and involuntary contraction of the muscles
they seemed to laugh, but they never smiled.

Their costume consisted of a coarse jacket of black woollen cloth
called in Scandinavian lands a 'vadmel,' a hat with a very broad
brim, trousers with a narrow edge of red, and a bit of leather rolled
round the foot for shoes.

The women looked as sad and as resigned as the men; their faces were
agreeable but expressionless, and they wore gowns and petticoats of
dark 'vadmel'; as maidens, they wore over their braided hair a little
knitted brown cap; when married, they put around their heads a
coloured handkerchief, crowned with a peak of white linen.

After a good walk I returned to M. Fridrikssen's house, where I found
my uncle already in his host's company.



CHAPTER X.

INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS