one crime had been committed in Iceland during the thirteen years that he
had resided there. This was the murder of an illegitimate child
immediately after its birth. The most frequently occurring crime is
cow-stealing.

I was much surprised to find that nearly all the Icelanders can read and
write. The latter quality only was somewhat rarer with the women.
Youths and men often wrote a firm, good hand. I also found books in
every cottage, the Bible always, and frequently poems and stories,
sometimes even in the Danish language.

They also comprehend very quickly; when I opened my map before them, they
soon understood its use and application. Their quickness is doubly
surprising, if we consider that every father instructs his own children,
and sometimes the neighbouring orphans. This is of course only done in
the winter; but as winter lasts eight months in Iceland, it is long
enough.

There is only one school in the whole island, which originally was in
Bessestadt, but has been removed to Reikjavik since 1846. In this school
only youths who can read and write are received, and they are either
educated for priests, and may complete their studies here, or for
doctors, apothecaries, or judges, when they must complete their studies
in Copenhagen.

Besides theology, geometry, geography, history, and several languages,
such as Latin, Danish, and, since 1846, German and also French, are
taught in the school of Reikjavik.

The chief occupation of the Icelandic peasants consists in fishing, which
is most industriously pursued in February, March, and April. Then the
inhabitants of the interior come to the coasting villages and hire
themselves to the dwellers on the beach, the real fishermen, as
assistants, taking a portion of the fish as their wages. Fishing is
attended to at other times also, but then exclusively by the real
fishermen. In the months of July and August many of the latter go into
the interior and assist in the hay-harvest, for which they receive
butter, sheep's wool, and salt lamb. Others ascend the mountains and
gather the Iceland moss, of which they make a decoction, which they drink
mixed with milk, or they grind it to flour, and bake flat cakes of it,
which serve them in place of bread.

The work of the women consists in the preparation of the fish for drying,
smoking, or salting; in tending the cattle, in knitting, sometimes in
gathering moss. In winter both men and women knit and weave.