o leave his
comfortable fireside? We tourists who are ambitious to see the world
in an easy way need but sit in our cushioned chair, cosily smoking our
cigar, while some enterprising lady puts a girdle round about the
earth; for we may depend upon it she will reappear ere leviathan can
swim a league, and present us with a bouquet of wonderful
experiences, neatly pressed between the pages of an entertaining
volume. The icebergs of the Arctic, the bananas of the tropics, the
camels of the East, the buffaloes of the West, and the cannibals of
the South, are equally at our service. We can hold the mountains,
rivers, seas, and human races between our finger and thumb, and thus,
as we gently dally with care, we may see the wonders of the world as
in a pleasant dream. Thus may we enjoy the perils and hardships of
travel at a very small sacrifice of personal comfort.

[Illustration: THE GREAT GEYSER.]

It was somewhat in this style that I reasoned when the idea occurred
to me of making a trip to Iceland. From all accounts it was a very
uncomfortable country, deficient in roads, destitute of hotels, and
subject to various eccentricities of climate. Neither fame nor money
was to be gained by such a trip--unless, indeed, I succeeded in
catching the great auk, for which, it is said, the directors of the
British Museum have offered a reward of a hundred pounds. This was a
chance, to be sure. I might possibly be able to get hold of the auk,
and thereby secure money enough to pay expenses, and make certain a
niche in the temple of fame. It would be something to rank with the
great men who had devoted their lives to the pursuit of the dodo and
the roc. But there was a deplorable lack of information about the
haunts and habits of the auk. I was not even satisfied of its
existence, by the fact that two Englishmen visited Iceland a few years
ago for the purpose of securing a specimen of this wonderful bird,
and, after six weeks of unavailing search, wrote a book to prove that
there was still reason to hope for success.

Upon the whole, I thought it would not do to depend upon the auk.
There was but one opening left--to visit Iceland, sketch-book in hand,
and faithfully do what others had left undone--make accurate sketches
of the mountains, rivers, lava-fjelds, geysers, people, and costumes.
In nothing is Iceland so deficient as in pictorial representation. It
has been very minutely surveyed by the Danes, and Olsen has left
nothing