. Greatest wonders of the world . are certainly wonderful marvels of nature, butmore wonderful, more marvellous is Thingvalla; and if theone repay you for crossing the Spanish Sea, it would beworth while to go round the world to reach the other. Of the boiling fountains I think I can give you a goodidea, but whether I can contrive to draw for you anythinglike a comprehensible picture of the shape and nature ofthe Almanna Gja, the Hrafna Gja, and the lava vale, calledThingvalla, that lies between them, I am doubtful. Beforecoming to Iceland I had read every account that had beenwritten of Thing
. Greatest wonders of the world . are certainly wonderful marvels of nature, butmore wonderful, more marvellous is Thingvalla; and if theone repay you for crossing the Spanish Sea, it would beworth while to go round the world to reach the other. Of the boiling fountains I think I can give you a goodidea, but whether I can contrive to draw for you anythinglike a comprehensible picture of the shape and nature ofthe Almanna Gja, the Hrafna Gja, and the lava vale, calledThingvalla, that lies between them, I am doubtful. Beforecoming to Iceland I had read every account that had beenwritten of Thingvalla by any former traveller, and when Isaw it, it appeared to me a place of which I had neverheard; so I suppose I shall come to grief in as mel-ancholy a manner as my predecessors, whose ineffectualpages whiten the entrance to the valley they have failed todescribe. After an hours gradual ascent through a picturesqueravine, we emerged upon an immense desolate plateau oflava, that stretched away for miles and miles like a great. THINGVALLA I45 Stony sea. A more barren desert you cannot boulders, relics of the glacial period, encum-bered the track. We could only go at a foot-pace. Nota blade of grass, not a strip of green, enlivened the pros-pect, and the only sound vi^e heard vv^as the croak of thecurlev/ and the wail of the plover. Hour after hour weplodded on, but the grey waste seemed interminable,boundless: and the only consolation Sigurdr would vouch-safe was that our journeys end lay on this side of somepurple mountains that peeped like the tents of a demonleaguer above the stony horizon. As it was already eight oclock, and we had been told theentire distance from Reykjavik to Thingvalla was only five-and-thirty miles, I could not comprehend how so great aspace should still separate us from our destination. Con-cluding more time had been lost in shooting, lunching, etc.,by the way than we supposed, I put my pony into a canter,and determined to make
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