ered Yes, and No to my uncle's questions as to the nature of the
road, and at last when asked where we were to pass the night was as
laconic as usual.

"Gardar!" was his one-worded reply.

I took occasion to consult the map, to see where Gardar was to be found.
After looking keenly I found a small town of that name on the borders of
the Hvalfjord, about four miles from Reykjavik. I pointed this out to my
uncle, who made a very energetic grimace.

"Only four miles out of twenty-two? Why it is only a little walk."

He was about to make some energetic observation to the guide, but Hans,
without taking the slightest notice of him, went in front of the horses,
and walked ahead with the same imperturbable phlegm he had always
exhibited.

Three hours later, still traveling over those apparently interminable
and sandy prairies, we were compelled to go round the Kollafjord, an
easier and shorter cut than crossing the gulfs. Shortly after we entered
a place of communal jurisdiction called Ejulberg, and the clock of which
would then have struck twelve, if any Icelandic church had been rich
enough to possess so valuable and useful an article. These sacred
edifices are, however, very much like these people, who do without
watches--and never miss them.

Here the horses were allowed to take some rest and refreshment, then
following a narrow strip of shore between high rocks and the sea, they
took us without further halt to the Aoalkirkja of Brantar, and after
another mile to Saurboer Annexia, a chapel of ease, situated on the
southern bank of the Hvalfjord.

It was four o'clock in the evening and we had traveled four Danish
miles, about equal to twenty English.

The fjord was in this place about half a mile in width. The sweeping and
broken waves came rolling in upon the pointed rocks; the gulf was
surrounded by rocky walls--a mighty cliff, three thousand feet in
height, remarkable for its brown strata, separated here and there by
beds of tufa of a reddish hue. Now, whatever may have been the
intelligence of our horses, I had not the slightest reliance upon them,
as a means of crossing a stormy arm of the sea. To ride over salt water
upon the back of a little horse seemed to me absurd.

"If they are really intelligent," I said to myself, "they will certainly
not make the attempt. In any case, I shall trust rather to my own
intelligence than theirs."

But my uncle was in no humor to wait. He dug his heels into the sides of