57 through many generations, resisting in its essence and main features the penetrating influence of the Norman conquest, defying alike monarch, court and statesman, having little or nothing to say to Latin or French importations which have so strongly impressed their indelible mark on the Queen’s English, holding its own, so to say, against all comers, and to this day retaining in clearly- marked lines, the unmistakable lineaments of its Norse birth.” The old language in its pristine beauty is still spoken in Iceland, the remoteness of the island and its little intercourse with the outside world have effectually secured its purity and originality, and it is a curious fact that whilst our ablest antiquarians are often puzzled in endeavouring todecipher certain words and phrases in writings which date their origin only a few centuries back, there is not a peasant, nor indeed scarcely a servant girl in Iceland who is not capable of reading with ease the most ancient documents in the Island. When we first approached Iceland and looked upon its rugged, lava shore, we heard the excla- mations of our fellow-passengers “A burnt out cinder,” ‘‘ A God-forsaken place. ” But experience has taught us differently. Iceland is peopled by 70,000 of our fellow-creatures : brave, simple, honest, and descendents of the Norsemen of old, who were once the only free people when Europe was degraded by slavery. They have ratified the choice of their ancestors. But it seems wonderful that they dare to stay in that far off volcanic waste, north of the forests, north of the corn, where the whole of the community literally depends for existence upon the fish it catches in a stormy sea and the grass yielded by its untilled pastures. They are a little handful of people in constant battle with the elements. How can they face the solitude of the winter, the darkness, the cruel frosts, and the terrible tempests. In spite of all they love their island, in short there is not a native Icelander in the whole country, be he priest or peasant, who does not; though he be— “ The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone, Boldly proclaim that happiest spot his own.” l’ envoi. Reader, our ride is a thing of the past, but its memories remain. We can now in our mind’s eye

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