第24章 LETTER VII(6)

All criminals,men and women,were tried by juries;and that the accused had the power of challenging the jurymen empannelled to try them,appears from the following extract from the Book of Laws:--"The judges shall go out on Washday,i.e.,Saturday,and continue out for challenges,until the sun comes on Thingvalla on the Lord's-day."And again,"The power of challenging shall cease as soon as the sun can no longer be seen above the western brink of the chasm,from the Logberg."Turning aside from what,I dare say,was the scene of many an unrecorded tragedy,we descended the gorge of the Almanna Gja,towards the lake;and I took advantage of the opportunity again to examine its marvellous construction.The perpendicular walls of rock rose on either hand from the flat greensward that carpeted its bottom,pretty much as the waters of the Red Sea must have risen on each side of the fugitive Israelites.Ablaze of light smote the face of one cliff,while the other lay in the deepest shadow;and on the rugged surface of each might still be traced corresponding articulations,that once had dovetailed into each other,ere the igneous mass was rent asunder.So unchanged,so recent seemed the vestiges of this convulsion,that I felt as if I had been admitted to witness one of nature's grandest and most violent operations,almost in the very act of its execution.A walk of about twenty minutes brought us to the borders of the lake--a glorious expanse of water,fifteen miles long,by eight miles broad,occupying a basin formed by the same hills,which must also,I imagine,have arrested the further progress of the lava torrent.

A lovelier scene I have seldom witnessed.In the foreground lay huge masses of rock and lava,tossed about like the ruins of a world;and washed by waters as bright and green as polished malachite.Beyond,a bevy of distant mountains,robed by the transparent atmosphere in tints unknown to Europe,peeped over each other's shoulders into the silver mirror at their feet,while here and there from among their purple ridges columns of white vapour rose like altar smoke toward the tranquil heaven.

On returning home we found dinner waiting for us.I had invited the clergyman,and a German gentleman who was lodging with him,to give us the pleasure of their company;and in ten minutes we had all become the best of friends.

It is true the conversation was carried on in rather a wild jargon,made up of six different languages--Icelandic,English,German,Latin,Danish,French--but in spite of the difficulty with which he expressed himself,it was impossible not to be struck with the simple earnest character of my German convive.He was about five-and-twenty,a "doctor philosophiae,"and had come to Iceland to catch gnats.After having caught gnats in Iceland,he intended,he said,to spend some years in catching gnats in Spain.--the privacy of Spanish gnats,as it appears,not having been hitherto invaded.The truth is,my guest was an entomologist,and in the pursuit of the objects of his study was evidently prepared to approach hardships and danger with a serenity that would not have been unworthy of the apostle of a new religion.

It was almost touching to hear him describe the intensity of his joy when perhaps days and nights of fruitless labours were at last rewarded by the discovery of some hitherto unknown little fly;and it was with my whole heart that,at parting,I wished him success in his career,and the fame that so much conscientious labour merited.From my allusion to this last reward,however,he seemed almost to shrink,and,with a sincerity it was impossible to doubt,disclaimed as ignoble so poor a motive as a thirst for fame.His was one of those calm laborious minds,seldom found but among the Teutonic race,that--pursuing day by day with single-minded energy some special object--live in a noble obscurity,and die at last content with the consciousness of having added one other stone to that tower of knowledge men are building up toward heaven,even though the world should never learn what strong and patient hands have placed it there.

The next morning we started for the Geysirs:this time dividing the baggage-train,and sending on the cook in light marching order,with the materials for dinner.The weather still remained unclouded,and each mile we advanced disclosed some new wonder in the unearthly landscape.Athree hours'ride brought us to the Rabna Gja,the eastern boundary of Thingvalla,and,winding up its rugged face,we took our last look over the lovely plain beneath us,and then manfully set forward across the same kind of arid lava plateau as that which we had already traversed before arriving at the Almanna Gja.But instead of the boundless immensity which had then so much disheartened us,the present prospect was terminated by a range of quaint parti-coloured hills,which rose before us in such fantastic shapes that I could not take my eyes off them.

I do not know whether it was the strong coffee or the invigorating air that stimulated my imagination;but Icertainly felt convinced I was coming to some mystical spot--out of space,out of time--where I should suddenly light upon a green-scaled griffin,or golden-haired princess,or other bonnie fortune of the olden days.