burn them, feathers and all. From the accounts given of this novel sort of firewood, the odour rising from it must be "most tolerable, and not to be endured!" The birds most used for food are young puffins-the Fratercula arctica-a rather small seabird, with a bill shaped like a short, thick plough-coulter. In England and Scotland, they are called the coulter-neb puffin. This beak is a most wonderful one, large to deformity-nearly as bulky as all the rest of the bird's head. There are several circular marks entirely round it, making it look like a small barrel with the hoops on it. But do not these hardy islanders show skill and daring in the pursuit of birds and eggs for subsistence? Wonder how the Yankees would take the birds? Shoot them with rifles, I suppose, "knocking their day-lights out," one at a time. But these islanders do not take this slow method-not they. In the egg season they go to the top of the cliffs, and, putting a rope round a man's waist, let him down the side of the perpendicular rock, one, two, or three hundred feet; and on arriving at the long, narrow, horizontal shelves, he proceeds to fill a large bag with the brittle treasures deposited by the birds. Getting his bag full, he and his eggs are drawn to the top by his companions. If the rope breaks, or is cut off by the sharp corners of the rocks, the luckless duck-egging fowler is precipitated to the bottom, perhaps two thousand feet into the sea, or is dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Accidents happen but rarely, and here these hardy men glean a scanty subsistence. At a later period in the season, they go and get the young birds. If the old birds object, they are ready for them, and serve them sailor fashion, knocking them down with a handspike. The old often fight desperately for their young, and will not give up till their necks are broken, or their brains knocked out with a club. Where the cliffs are not accessible from the top, they go round the bottom in boats, and show a wonderful agility and daring in climbing the most terrible precipices. They furnish nothing for export on these islands, except dried and DISEASE AMONG CHILDREN. 121 salted codfish and feathers. With these they procure their few necessaries and luxuries, consisting principally of clothing, tobacco and snuff, spirits, fish-hooks and lines, and salt. The habit of living entirely on fish and seafowl produces a disease among them, that carries off all their children before they are seven years of age. I am told that unless they are taken to the main shore to be brought up, not one single one would live through childhood. Some well-informed Icelanders have told me that the inhabitants of the Westmann Islands would live as well, and be as free from disease, as the natives of Iceland, were it not for their intemperance. Give a people few or no luxuries-bread and vegetables as food being almost unknown-and expose them to great fatigue, wet, cold, and danger; and would we not suppose ardent spirits would be acceptable? The inhabitants of the far-off St. Kilda, the most western of the Western Isles of Scotland, are said to lose all their children that are kept on the island, and from the same causes that occasion the mortality on the Westmann Islands. These islands form a separate Syssel or county, and they have a church, and usually two clergymen. Their church was rebuilt of stone, at the expense of the Danish government, in 1774, and is said to be one of the best in Iceland, It is supported by tithes, still raised here according to the Norwegian mode. Christianity was brought here with the first settlers from Ireland, and here it still remains; and I have sometimes wondered if, during the changes of a thousand years, any of the brogue of the Tipperary boys, or the lads of Connaught, could be discerned in their conversation. Probably it has all been frozen up, or exchanged for the more mellifluous tones of the followers of Odin and Thor. Doubly secure as these inhabitants are, by their poverty and their almost inaccessible cliffs, one would suppose that they would be secure from any warlike or piratical depredations. Notwithstanding this, they have twice been attacked and pillaged by sea-rovers. As early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, piratical cruisers-many of them fitted out in the English and French ports-came north; and plunder, rapine, and murder desolated all the western and southern coasts of Iceland. One English pirate, named John, was noted for his success and daring. He was called "Gentleman John," being probably, like the Greek cruiser, "the mildest manner'd man That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat This courteous corsair came to the Westmann Islands in 1614, pillaged the church, and carried off their sacred relics. He probably knew the inhabitants were descendants of the Hibernians, and only showed the spirit of an Englishman towards the Irish. He also plundered their houses, and no doubt from the contents of their beds managed to feather his own nest considerably. He returned to Great Britain, but King James I. caught and punished him, and, with the true honesty of a Scotchman, returned their church ornaments. In 1627, a vessel of Turkish or Algerine pirates, after plundering several places on the eastern and southern coasts of Iceland, landed on the Westmann Islands. They murdered between forty and fifty of the inhabitants, plundered the church and set it on fire, robbed the houses, carried off all the food, clothing, and valuables, and then burnt their habitations. They took near four hundred men, women, and children prisoners, bound them in fetters, put them on board their vessel, and carried them in captivity to Algiers. There were two clergymen among them, one of whom, Jon Thorsteinson, was murdered at the time. He was the first translator of the Psalms of David into Icelandic He also translated the Book of Genesis, and some other parts of the Bible, in a similar manner. He is spoken of in Icelandic history as the "martyr." The other clergyman, Olaf Egilson, with his wife and children, and the rest of the prisoners, were sold into slavery in Algiers. verse. Egilson got away two years after, and wrote an account of DISAPPEARANCE OF FISH. 123 their sufferings and privations, which was afterwards published in Danish. It was not until 1636, nine years after their capture, that the unfortunate Icelanders were released, and then only by being ransomed by the king of Denmark. Their treatment and sufferings can be imagined; only thirty-seven of the whole number survived, and of these but thirteen persons lived to regain their native island. Notwithstanding the sufferings, calamities, and hardships of the people, the Westmann Islands continue to be inhabited. Since the earthquakes and great volcanic eruptions of 1783, the fish in the neighbourhood of the Westmann Islands, and all along the south coast of Iceland, have nearly all disappeared, so that the principal dependence of the inhabitants is on the seafowl. Besides the puffin, they use for food the fulmar-Procellaria glacialis. For their winter supply, they salt them very slightly, and pack them down in barrels. I wonder how one of these poor mortals, accustomed to so little variety, would relish such a dinner as they serve up at the London Tavern, the Astor, or the Revere House! Thor and Epicurus! He would probably surfeit himself, unless it so happened that he could relish none of their dishes, and refused to eat. But my pony's head is turned towards the west, and I am probably as near the Westmann Islands as I ever shall be. The disappearing spray of the "Driving Cascade" shows a rough and stormy coast; so good-by to the contented islanders, their seagirt cliffs, and their seabird food. CHAPTER XIV. A merrier man, Within the limits of becoming mirth, SHAKSPEARE. My ride along the banks of the Thiorsá, before my detour to the south coast, near the Westmann Islands, was a pleasant one. The little green, turf-covered hillocks—not appearing much like houses, though they were so-gave an air of solitude to the landscape, that but few civilized countries possess. The air was vocal with birds, that constantly flew about us. The mournful note of the plover, and the wild scream of the curlew, were constantly heard, as they rested on the signal-cairns by the way-side, or flew away towards a thicket. These birds, as well as the ptarmigan, are very plentiful in Iceland, and are all reckoned as game-birds. A man could travel through Iceland in the summer, carrying a gun, a few loaves of bread, some tea, coffee, and sugar, get plenty of milk and cream at the farmers' houses, and shoot game enough for his meat, without once leaving his horse. Some might not consider it a great luxury, after a hard day's ride, to sit down to a banquet of roasted raven, a fricasseed hawk, or a broiled seagull; but it would be quite as good as the buzzard soup that Prince Achille Murat used to get in Florida. Some nice ptarmigan or plover, with a piece of a loaf, tea or coffee, and butter, would make a feast that many a traveller would be glad to have. Then, too, in the interior are large herds of wild reindeer, where a good marksman could select a nice piece of |