visions, boxes of clothing, dried fish, &c., in the church; and strangers in the country often sleep in the churches. Some travelers have made a great outcry about the desecration of turning a church into a hotel, but with all their squeamishness have usually fallen into the general custom. Surely if their tender consciences went against it, they had “all out doors" for a lodging place. I have not yet arrived at the honor of sleeping in a church, though I have slept out of doors; and when I have tried both, I will tell which I like best. A tent has been presented to the important "town" of Thingvalla, by the liberality of the French officers who visit the coast; and this was pitched for our use. The clergyman here--who is also farmer and fisherman- -a pale, spare, intellectual-looking young man, received us very kindly. It was the haying season, and the ground was covered with the new-mown hay. Two of the working-men of the farm had that day been out on the lake, fishing in a small boat. They came to the shore as we rode up, and I had the curiosity to go and see what they had caught. And what had they? Who can guess? No one. Over two hundred and fifty fresh-water trout, all alive “and kicking." They were large, handsome fellows, and would weigh from one to three pounds each. Not a fish that wouldn't weigh over a pound. But didn't I scream? "Oh, Captain Laborde! Rector Johnson! I say; come and see the fish. Speckled trout, more than two barrels-full." Well, hang up my fish-hooks; I'll never troll another line in Sandy Creek. The tent pitched, some trout dressed, and a fire built in the smithy, and we soon had a dinner cooking,

And such a dinner! Well, say French naval officers on shore, Icelanders, Yankees, and Cosmopolites, can not enjoy life" in the tented field"! But this chapter is long enough, and I'll tell about the dinner in my next.

CHAPTER V.

"he was a bachelor,

and, though a lad,

Had seen the world, which is a curious sight,

And very much unlike what people write."

HAD that celebrated Pope whose Christian name was Alexander, believed that his immortal Essay would have been translated into Icelandic verse by a native Icelander, and read throughout the country, he would not have vaulted clear over the volcanic isle in his enumeration of places at "the North." And then, too, our poetical Pope is the only pontiff who has any admirers in this northern land. The last Catholic bishop of the country left few believers of that faith in the island.

Yesterday, under the canvas of an Iceland tent, a party was seated at dinner. It was on the bank of the Thingvalla vatn. The hospitable clergyman furnished us trout, and a good sportsman among the French officers produced several fine birds, plovers and curlews that he had shot on the way, often without leaving his horse. We had excellent milk and cream from the farm, and the packing-cases of the party furnished the balance of as good a dinner as hungry travelers ever sat down to. The Frenchmen-like those in the Peninsular war, who gathered vegetables to

boil with their beef, rather than roast it alone as the English soldiers did theirs-our Frenchmen-gathered some plants, that looked to me very like dandelions, and dressed them with oil and vinegar for salad. Though it was rather a failure, it showed that an eye was open to the productions of the country, albeit it was not a perfect garden. I picked a bird for my share of the work-picked him clean, too, and his bones afterwards—and found it as good as a grouse or pheasant. With fine Iceland brushwood from a "forest" hard by, a fire was made in the blacksmith shop, and there we roasted fish, flesh, and fowl. As the rest of the party were to return the next day to Reykjavik, and as I had a long tour before me, they would not allow me to produce any thing towards the feast, but insisted on my dining with them. I was too old a traveler to refuse a good invitation, and accepted at once. The tent was pitched on a smooth plat of grass before the lake, and a quantity of newmown hay, with our traveling blankets and saddles, made first-rate seats. I know not when I have enjoyed a dinner more than I did this. The Frenchmen conversed with their own tongues in their own language; some of the party spoke Danish, and several Icelandic; I gave them English -and every other language that I knew-the modest Iceland clergyman expressed himself in Latin, and Rector Johnson talked them all. Time flew by-as he always flies, the old bird!-while the big white loaves, the trout, the game-birds, the sardines, ham, and bottles of wine, disappeared rapidly. We drank, not deeply, to all the people in the world-kings and rulers excepted, for they always

have enough to drink to their good health and long life; and we toasted, among others, "all travelers of every nation, and in all climes," whether on land or sea," and hoped that none were "seeing the elephant" more extensively than we were. So passed our dinner. The clergyman was with us; and he appeared to enjoy the foreign luxuries, as we all enjoyed everything about us, viands, company, scenery, &c.

Touching the fish that swim hereabouts, and the socalled "sport" of angling, I am told that the Iceland trout and salmon show a most barbarous indifference to the attractive colors of all artificial flies that are ever thrown them by scientific piscators. Our clerical farmer-fisherman who hauls up the finny tribes in the Thingvalla vatn, uses no barbed piece of steel to tear their innocent gills-“ a pole and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other"—but pulls them up in crowds with a net. He seems to think as some others do of the barbarous old angler,

"Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says;

The quaint old cruel coxcomb, in his gullet

Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."

After dinner, the clergyman took us about to show us the "lions" of the place. Thingvalla, in a historical point of view, is by far the most celebrated and interesting locality in Iceland. An. account of their republican congress or Althing, that met here, has been given in a former chapter. The meeting of courts and legislative bodies, among all the Scandinavian tribes, was in the open air. The word Thingvalla is from thing, a court of justice, and