40 THE GEYSERS. “ Where the caldron of the North Spouts its boiling waters forth, From the caverns far beneath Where they ever lie and seethe— In that place I stood and saw Things that filled my soul with awe.” “ Five o’clock, sir, and eleven hours’ journey ! ” Such was Ericson’s morning greeting, and, an hour after, we had crossed a rushing river three times, and were winding along a plain by a narrow, rough path which seemed to grow wilder and drearier every minute. At length, crossing a mighty chasm by a natural bridge of lava, we turned to the east and commenced climbing a sharp and steep mountain. Then we were all expectation, for our guide announced one of the natural curiosities of Iceland—“the forest.” Soon we stood in the midst of it and found we could see over the tops of all the trees, for the birches and willows of which it consists are all dwarfs, few of them attaining a height of four or five feet. Some of them are but a few inches high and when our ponies could snatch at a stray bit of grass as they passed along they would often at the same time take up a tree by the roots and carry it off in their mouths At length, vegetation disappeared and we had once more to find our way amongst cracks and fissures some hundred feet deep and 10 to 20 wide. One of these, the Raven’s chasm, is a deep, broad, irregular abyss, several miles in length and elevated on the farther side like a ram part. We crossed it and rode up to the level of the plateau by picking our way over the ridge of an avalanche of rock and stones. Up this perilous way, steeper than a stair, winding, doubling, leaping from block to block, or standing for a second like goats with four feet on one stone to consider the next move, our plucky and clever ponies toiled upwards and took us safely across. The hills and slopes were now covered with dark volcanic sand, pulverised ashes and slag, out of which rose irregular masses of rock. One of these we examined ; it is an extinct crater of curious

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