The next few days were spent in making short expeditions in the neighbourhood,in preparing our baggage-train,and in paying visits.It would be too long for me to enumerate all the marks of kindness and hospitality Ireceived during this short period.Suffice it to say,that I had the satisfaction of making many very interesting acquaintances,of beholding a great number of very pretty faces,and of partaking of an innumerable quantity of luncheons.In fact,to break bread,or,more correctly speaking,to crack a bottle with the master of the house,is as essential an element of a morning call as the making a bow or shaking hands,and to refuse to take off your glass would be as great an incivility as to decline taking off your hat.From earliest times,as the grand old ballad of the King of Thule tells us,a beaker was considered the fittest token a lady could present to her true-love--Dem fterbend feine Buble Einen goldnen Becher gab.
And in one of the most ancient Eddaic songs it is written,"Drink,Runes,must thou know,if thou wilt maintain thy power over the maiden thou lovest.Thou shalt score them on the drinking-horn,on the back of thy hand,and the word NAUD"(NEED--necessity)"on thy nail."Moreover,when it is remembered that the ladies of the house themselves minister on these occasions,it will be easily understood that all flinching is out of the question.
What is a man to do,when a wicked little golden-haired maiden insists on pouring him out a bumper,and dumb show is his only means of remonstrance?Why,of course,if death were in the cup,he must make her a leg,and drain it to the bottom,as I did.In conclusion,I am bound to add that,notwithstanding the bacchanalian character prevailing in these visits,I derived from them much interesting and useful information,and I have invariably found the gentlemen to whom I have been presented persons of education and refinement,combined with a happy,healthy,jovial temperament,that invests their conversation with a peculiar charm.
At this moment people are in a great state of excitement at the expected arrival of H.I.H.Prince Napoleon,and two days ago a large full-rigged ship came in laden with coal for his use.The day after we left Stornaway,we had seen her scudding away before the gale on a due west course,and guessed she was bound for Iceland,and running down the longitude,but as we arrived here four days before her,our course seems to have been a better one.
The only other ship here is the French frigate "Artemise,"Commodore Dumas,by whom I have been treated with the greatest kindness and civility.
On Saturday we went to Vedey,a beautiful little green island where the eider ducks breed,and build nests with the soft under-down plucked from their own bosoms.After the little ones are hatched,and their birthplaces deserted,the nests are gathered,cleaned,and stuffed into pillow-cases,for pretty ladies in Europe to lay their soft,warm cheeks upon,and sleep the sleep of the innocent,while long-legged,broad-shouldered Englishmen protrude from between them at German inns,like the ham from a sandwich,and cannot sleep,however innocent.
The next day,being Sunday,I read prayers on board,and then went for a short time to the cathedral church,--the only stone building in Reykjavik.It is a moderate-sized,unpretending place,capable of holding three or four hundred persons,erected in very ancient times,but lately restored.The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion,and a Lutheran clergyman,in a black gown,etc.,with a ruff round his neck,such as our bishops are painted in about the time of James the First,was preaching a sermon.It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken continuously,and it struck me as a singularly sweet caressing language,although I disliked the particular cadence,amounting almost to a chant,with which each sentence ended.
As in every church where prayers have been offered up since the world began,the majority of the congregation were women,some few dressed in bonnets,and the rest in the national black silk skull-cap,set jauntily on one side of the head,with a long black tassel hanging down to the shoulder,or else in a quaint mitre of white linen,of which a drawing alone could give you an idea,the remainder of an Icelandic lady's costume,when not superseded by Paris fashions,consists of a black bodice fastened in front with silver clasps,over which is drawn a cloth jacket,ornamented with a multitude of silver buttons;round the neck goes a stiff ruff of velvet,figured with silver lace,and a silver belt,often beautifully chased,binds the long dark wadmal petticoat round the waist.Sometimes the ornaments are of gold instead of silver,and very costly.
Before dismissing his people,the preacher descended from the pulpit,and putting on a splendid cope of crimson velvet (in which some bishop had in ages past been murdered),turned his back to the congregation,and chanted some Latin sentences in good round Roman style.
