police-officers.

Commerce is also free; but the islanders possess so little commercial
spirit, that even if they had the necessary capital, they would never
embark in speculation.

The whole commerce of Iceland thus lies in the hands of Danish merchants,
who send their ships to the island every year, and have established
factories in the different ports where the retail trade is carried on.

These ships bring every thing to Iceland, corn, wood, wines, manufactured
goods, and colonial produce, &c. The imports are free, for it would not
pay the government to establish offices, and give servants salaries to
collect duties upon the small amount of produce required for the island.
Wine, and in fact all colonial produce, are therefore much cheaper than
in other countries.

The exports consist of fish, particularly salted cod, fish-roe, tallow,
train-oil, eider-down, and feathers of other birds, almost equal to
eider-down in softness, sheep's wool, and pickled or salted lamb. With
the exception of the articles just enumerated, the Icelanders possess
nothing; thirteen years ago, when Herr Knudson established a bakehouse,
{31} he was compelled to bring from Copenhagen, not only the builder, but
even the materials for building, stones, lime, &c.; for although the
island abounds with masses of stone, there are none which can be used for
building an oven, or which can be burnt into lime: every thing is of
lava.

Two or three cottages situated near each other are here dignified by the
name of a "place." These places, as well as the separate cottages, are
mostly built on little acclivities, surrounded by meadows. The meadows
are often fenced in with walls of stone or earth, two or three feet in
height, to prevent the cows, sheep, and horses from trespassing upon them
to graze. The grass of these meadows is made into hay, and laid up as a
winter provision for the cows.

I did not hear many complaints of the severity of the cold in winter; the
temperature seldom sinks to twenty degrees below zero; the sea is
sometimes frozen, but only a few feet from the shore. The snowstorms and
tempests, however, are often so violent, that it is almost impossible to
leave the house. Daylight lasts only for five or six hours, and to
supply its place the poor Icelanders have only the northern light, which
is said to illumine the long nights with a brilliancy truly marvellous.

The summer I passed in Iceland was one of the finest the inha