lava,--sometimes
involuntarily, when I fell; sometimes voluntarily, to find a hot or at
least a warm place. I was unfortunate enough only to find cold ones.
The falling snow was therefore most welcome, and I looked anxiously
around to see a place where the subterranean heat would melt it. I
should then have hastened thither and found what I sought. But
unfortunately the snow remained unmelted every where. I could neither
see any clouds of smoke, although I gazed steadily at the mountain for
hours, and could from my post survey it far down the sides.

As we descended we found the snow melting at a depth of 500 to 600 feet;
lower down, the whole mountain smoked, which I thought was the
consequence of the returning warmth of the sun, for my thermometer now
stood at nine degrees of heat. I have noticed the same circumstance
often on unvolcanic mountains. The spots from which the smoke rose were
also cold.

The smooth jet-black, bright, and dense lava is only found on the
mountain itself and in its immediate vicinity. But all lava is not the
same: there is jagged, glassy, and porous lava; the former is black, and
so is the sand which covers one side of Hecla. The farther the lava and
sand are from the mountain, the more they lose this blackness, and their
colour plays into iron-colour and even into light-grey; but the
lighter-coloured lava generally retains the brightness and smoothness of
the black lava.

After a troublesome descent, having spent twelve hours on this excursion,
we arrived safely at Salsun; and I was on the point of returning to my
lodging, somewhat annoyed at the prospect of spending another night in
such a hole, when my guide surprised me agreeably by the proposition to
return to Struvellir at once. The horses, he said, were sufficiently
rested, and I could get a good room there in the priest's house. I soon
packed, and in a short time we were again on horseback. The second time
I came to the deep Rangaa, I rode across fearlessly, and needed no
protection at any side. Such is man: danger only alarms him the first
time; when he has safely surmounted it once, he scarcely thinks of it the
second time, and wonders how he can have felt any fear.

I saw five little trees standing in a field near the stream. The stems
of these, which, considering the scarcity of trees in Iceland, may be
called remarkable phenomena, were crooked and knotty, but yet six or
seven feet high, and about four or five i