appearance bespoke perfect calmness and self-possession, not
indolence but tranquillity. It was felt at once that he would be
beholden to nobody, that he worked for his own convenience, and that
nothing in this world could astonish or disturb his philosophic
calmness.

I caught the shades of this Icelander's character by the way in which
he listened to the impassioned flow of words which fell from the
Professor. He stood with arms crossed, perfectly unmoved by my
uncle's incessant gesticulations. A negative was expressed by a slow
movement of the head from left to right, an affirmative by a slight
bend, so slight that his long hair scarcely moved. He carried economy
of motion even to parsimony.

Certainly I should never have dreamt in looking at this man that he
was a hunter; he did not look likely to frighten his game, nor did he
seem as if he would even get near it. But the mystery was explained
when M. Fridrikssen informed me that this tranquil personage was only
a hunter of the eider duck, whose under plumage constitutes the chief
wealth of the island. This is the celebrated eider down, and it
requires no great rapidity of movement to get it.

Early in summer the female, a very pretty bird, goes to build her
nest among the rocks of the fiords with which the coast is fringed.
After building the nest she feathers it with down plucked from her
own breast. Immediately the hunter, or rather the trader, comes and
robs the nest, and the female recommences her work. This goes on as
long as she has any down left. When she has stripped herself bare the
male takes his turn to pluck himself. But as the coarse and hard
plumage of the male has no commercial value, the hunter does not take