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PEOPLE AND CLIMATE.
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skirt also embroidered down the front. The head-dress, worn at
the same time, is known as the ‘Faldr,’ and is a high white cap,
fixed within a golden or silver coronet, which encircles the brow
of the wearer. A long white lace veil is usually worn with
the cap.
The population of the island at the present time is said to be
72,000 ; over nine-tenths of whom gain their living by breeding
sheep and ponies, and by fishing. The sole care of these pastoral
farmers is to garner in as much hay as possible ; as upon the
greater or lesser quantity secured depends the number of breeding
stock he will be able to keep through the winter. There are no
agricultural farmers or arable land, but a small patch of swede-
turnips and potatoes will be found close adjacent to most of the
best farms. The priest is invariably a farmer, and he usually
owns the best grass-land in the district. The farmer on the coast
is always a sea fisherman as well as a breeder of sheep and ponies.
A few lines must be devoted to the Icelander’s dwelling. Timber,
having to be imported, is dear, and difficult to transport; therefore
the Icelander makes use of as little as possible in building himself
a house. With less than a dozen exceptions, all the better class
farm-houses, whose interiors the author ventured to explore during
his rambles in the wilds of ‘Thule,’ were built on the following
plan. A long, low, dark passage, with walls built of rough slabs
of lava bedded in turfs by way of mortar, runs from front to back
the whole length of the house, a distance varying from fifty
to eighty feet, on each side of which at the rear of the two
front rooms, which are lighted by windows, are from two to four
cave-like apartments, built wholly of the same rude materials as
the walls of the passage, lighted only by a hole in the roof, which
also serves as chimney, and what little light the doorways admit
from the gloomy passage. These back rooms are utterly destitute
of wainscot or plaster, and also the passage; which invariably
terminates at the entrance to a large apartment quite at the rear
of the premises, called the ‘ Ba’Sstofa ’ ; wherein the farmer, his
family, and farm servants of both sexes, not only take their meals
together, but all sleep in bunks ranged round the walls, similar to
what one sees in the steerage of an emigrant ship. The two front
rooms are frequently not only very comfortable wainscotted apart-
ments, but are also fairly well furnished with a sofa, chairs, and
other articles. These rooms are seldom used by the farmer and
his family, save when festivities take place ; being reserved for
the accommodation of guests ; and are always placed wholly at
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