whisky, and German beer. Snuff-taking and tobacco-chewing are universal; smoking is less general. The smoked mutton, which is served at every meal, is often a very passable dish. Bread is less used than in almost any other country; if supplied, it is unattractive, badly prepared, and not at all equal in quality to that which is bought in open market at Gothenburg. The want is the more felt, as there is nothing else to compensate for the absence of fresh vegetables. The poorer people have preserved fish-cod or ling, split and hand-dried, never cooked, but sledge-hammered and pounded, and then the filaments torn apartplentifully smeared with sour butter; but it requires good teeth and great skill to extract the nutriment out of them. Like all Northern dwellers, the natives consume a great amount of fat, though not to the same extent, nor in the same gross manner as many others. Curds made from cows' and ewes' milk is a dish that is much in demand. Rye-cake, cooked over charcoal, is eatable when hot and crisp, but soon becomes damp and indigestible. A few potatoes, carrots, cabbages, and common vegetables are grown, with more than an equivalent of labour and cost; the total area (including gardens) under spade or arable culture, in nearly 40,000 square miles, does not amount to more than 200 acres. Hay forms the important summer crop, the small fields being mown with a short, stumpy scythe; and the 'making,' under the protective methods demanded by the climate, proceeds for not less than two months (Sundays often included) before the crop is saved. The variety of species in an Iceland meadow is limited, and cannot compare with what is produced under somewhat similar conditions in the Alps. Nor is the fine odoriferous result obtained which a richer vegetation affords. Limited as Iceland is in respect to its fuel supply, the people have not yet utilized what Steenstrup has shown them to have ready to hand, in the shape of a rather poor kind of bastard coal known as 'Surturbrand.' It gives little heat, it is true, as compared with steam coal, being composed chiefly of the carbonised stems of trees, pressed flat by the mass of tufa. It is the product of a vegetation very different to that which now prevails, and includes pines, oak, elm, plane, vine, walnut, and smaller plants. These must have existed in geologic epochs of the distant past, and under conditions of a semi-tropical character. But this deposit is generally found only on the most inaccessible parts of the mountains, perhaps most abundantly in the north-west, and is very limited in extent. It is embedded in rocks which cannot be profitably blasted for the acquisition of the carbonised lignite. The great want, in fact, next to a succession of genial seasons is a better supply of fuel; for the turf that is used compares unfavourably with Irish or Scottish peat. Dried cow-dung (as with the Bedouins and their camels), or dried sea-fowl of the uneatable sorts, can do little to compensate for the comforts of an American wood-stove, or an English open fire-grate. Even fish-bones and similar rubbish have to be carefully treasured for burning. Perhaps they are better off in the Westmann Islands, which lie on the coast, due south of Hecla, where the bodies of the petrel and of the sea-parrot are dried and used as fuel; the breast of the latter bird being alone used as food. The fuel subject is indeed a 'burning' one. But we cannot help thinking that in her illimitable water-power (not to speak of wind-power) Iceland possesses stores of light and heat, that the electrical key of an Edison could unlock. No doubt the scarcity of winter-heating material accounts for the terrible overcrowding that occurs, and the consequent mortality among children and stationary if not retrograde rate of population. The work of fleecing the wool from the sheep (instead of clipping) is an operation performed with great dexterity, and without any of the cruelty which might be supposed to accompany it. The wool is allowed to remain on till it becomes so loose as to be readily stripped; but with badly conditioned or illthriving stock the trouble is much greater-it only comes off in places, and the animal has to be caught again and again, as the remaining patches become fit for removal. It is best to keep at a safe distance from the wool gathering (which is chiefly done by women) and from the wool stores generally; for the Icelanders have no notion of applying tobacco-juice or other washes to the poor creatures, which carry a load of insect life on their backs. Neither is there any preliminary operation of sheep-washing before the wool is removed. At least 60,000 sheep are exported annually (a considerable proportion coming to our shores), and there appears to be no decrease in the perennial supply. In an important case before the Scotch courts, a merchant of Reykjavik pursues a Glasgow live-stock agent for 4,000l., for loss on a cargo of sheep sent south last autumn. He chartered a steamer at Hamburg for the voyage, and the agent was to sell to the best advantage, at a commission of 18. 7d. per head, which was to include customs and landing dues. Before they left Reykjavik, however, the agent discovered that they would not be allowed, under existing restrictions, to land at Glasgow, and advised that the destination be changed to Leith. The same regulations against landing live sheep were in force at the latter port; the vessel encountered bad weather, and many of the sheep died. The rest had to be killed on board, and landed as carcase mutton, the whole proceeds only coming to three or four hundred pounds. Judgment has not yet been given, though the record is closed, and it is likely, under any circumstances, that Icelandic dealers will be careful in future to ascertain that a landing is possible before their consignments are made. Winter deals hardly with the woolly creatures, who instinctively flee to the huts or caves that are provided for them, where they are fed, on rather a starvation scale, with the hay saved in summer. Each man has his own brand for the flocks that mingle promiscuously on what may be called the common grazings; and unmarked animals are usually given, by an unwritten law, to the widows of the district. Winter finds the farmhouse loom busily at 'work-clickclack-click! and the antique spinning-wheel is also in vigorous motion. The coarse tweed which the farmer produces from his loom is called Wadmal; it has a vast amount of wear in it, but it has, unfortunately, the bad quality of being hard to dry when soaked, and on a December morning it is not agreeable to draw on a garment which is as stiff as board, even though the heat of the body speedily renders it limp and pliant again. At the Danish Exhibition at South Kensington, a few years since, there was a stand with good samples of this cloth, both in the web and as manufactured fabrics. Of course the wool has a more hairy texture than our Cheviot goods produced at Galashiels or Hawick. Better wool would no doubt be produced, if better keep were available for the sheep in winter; as it is, it seems to consist of one-third hair to two-thirds wool. The same cloth is worn by the priests, the members of the Althing, the merchant, and the labourer; but feminine taste claims a wider scope, and the latest fashions from Copenhagen or from Regent Street are eagerly demanded. Living as the natives do in many cases almost on the verge of the possibilities of human existence, it were hard to grudge them the fancies of the dwellers in more favourable climes. It is pleasant to know that the eider-down collectors had a successful season last year. As this product is necessarily collected in exceedingly small quantities, rigid rules exist against unlimited killing of the goose that lays the golden egg. No nest is allowed to be rifled of its eggs and down (the latter being plucked off by the duck from her own breast) more than twice in a season, and the quantity obtained at each birdnesting does not exceed from two to three ounces in all. The down down is worth from twelve to fifteen shillings a pound at Reykjavik, and three or four pounds are required to fill a suitable coverlet (ladies will note, not quilted), so that the profits of the industry are considerable. The laws relating to the eider duck are most stringently carried out, and the scientific sportsman who shoots one of them out of season, even for the sake of a museum specimen, is inevitably fined. At low tide the duck leaves her nest, having first carefully covered her eggs with down, to grub for the shellfish that are then found in abundance. The eider duck usually lays from four to six eggs at the first sitting, and when these (with the down) are taken away, she lays three or four more, and plucks fresh down from her breast. When these are in turn removed, she may lay about three eggs more; but this time her mate has to supply the down that forms so splendid a non-conductor as to keep the contents of the nest at an even temperature when the female goes a-hunting for herself. The industry of cleansing the eider-down and fitting it for market is managed by the wife at home, and she is well pleased when a full price is commanded. Mr. C. W. Shepperd, M.A., F.Z.S., who explored parts of the North-West peninsula in 1867, and who devoted much attention to ornithology, tells us of colonies of ducks that are more than half domesticated, and are treated with almost as much familiarity as the cottagers of the Vale of Aylesbury show to their famous ducks at home. On the banks some twenty miles off the south-west coast, the basking shark (Selache maxima), often running to twenty feet in length, swarms in great abundance, and its capture is not unattended with danger, while it is a source of interest and excitement, especially to the younger class of fishermen. Nor does shark-oil, horridly smelling stuff as it is, form an unimportant article of commerce; when highly rectified, it even takes the place of cod-liver oil, and is quite its equal in therapeutical value. The voracity of this creature is unbounded; in the stomach of one was found a reindeer, no doubt washed down by one of the rivers, eight codfish, four haddocks, and several pieces of whale blubber-surely enough to have satisfied him without gorging at the eight or ten pounds of horseflesh with which the 12-inch hook was baited. This food is the favourite shark-bait, and an old pony frequently gets a knock on the head before the fishermen leave for the fishingground. Most parts of the shark are useful: its hide as shoes and shagreen; its liver as oil; and its dried fins as a marketable delicacy. In fishing for the Greenland whale, which unfortunately is being sent nearer the Pole year by year through the the agency of the Dundee and Hull steam whalers, the Icelander has got as far as the use of the deadly harpoon gun, but this implement 'only helps him the sooner to send them from his fishing-ground. Sharks, on the other hand, give more sport, and seem to hold their own in a reproductive aspect; the vast shoals of codfish, among which they do such destruction, form a happy hunting-ground, only to be matched by the track of the cattleboats across the Atlantic in bad weather, when scores of carcases have been shot overboard. The Governor-General, who receives the modest stipend of 6007. a year, is appointed by the King of Denmark; his house, built of stone and of extreme plainness, is the largest on the island. The Althing sits every second year for six weeks; the members receiving a small payment, and their travelling expenses. The Upper House consists of twelve members, half elected by the Althing, and the remainder nominated by the king; while the Lower (thirty-six members), which has the controlling power, is elected by what is equivalent to universal suffrage. Wealthy men, in our sense of the wordthat is, relatively much richer than their neighbours-do not exist; yet the influence of a well-to-do farmer counts for something, though he enjoys no great amount of political power or patronage. The men take a healthy interest in the management of national affairs, and evidently recognize that they have the heritage of fully ten centuries of history to sustain. Although a Danish war vessel always patrols the coast in summer, no attempt at arbitrary measures would be tolerated for a moment. It might be supposed that Christian IX. had experienced enough trouble in the early part of his reign to know that his Icelanders are in the end so certain of having their own way in all matters of Home Rule as to make him hesitate to cross their path again. But the latest intelligence reports that the King, who in person submitted to the confirmation of a comparatively free Constitution at Thingvellir in 1874, is setting his back stiffly against the amendments to the Constitution which are now demanded. He says that he will concede nothing to the Althing in this direction. But the will of the Islanders must necessarily prevail. Coercion is out of the question. Denmark, with her army of 14,000 soldiers and reserve forces, could do no more than annoy the people, and prepare the way for early and complete separation. One thing is certain, the Icelanders, while offering loyal allegiance to the King, totally disown any subordination to the Danish Rigsdag; and in this view they are supported by Danish lawyers of high standing, |