ver deserts of lava. A very agreeable and intelligent young man, Mr.
Jonasen, son of the governor, was also on board. I saw but little of
him during the passage--only his head over the side of his berth; but
I heard from him frequently after the weather became rough. If there
was any inside left in that young man by the time we arrived at
Reykjavik, it must have been badly strained. As a son of Iona he
completely reversed the scriptural order of things; for, instead of
being swallowed by a great fish, and remaining in the belly thereof
three days and nights, he swallowed numerous sprats and sardines
himself, yet would never allow them internal accommodations for the
space of three minutes. My room-mate was a young Icelandic student,
who had been to the college at Copenhagen, and was now returning to
his native land to die. There was something very sad in his case. He
had left home a few years before with the brightest prospects of
success. Ambitious and talented, he had devoted himself with unwearied
assiduity to his studies, but the activity of his mind was too much
for a naturally feeble constitution. Consumption set its seal upon
him. Given up by the physicians in Copenhagen, he was returning to
breathe his last in the arms of a loving mother.

On the second morning after leaving the Sound we passed close along
the Downs of Jutland, a barren shore, singularly diversified by great
mounds of sand. The wind sweeping in from the ocean casts up the loose
sands that lie upon this low peninsula, and drifts them against some
bush or other obstacle sufficiently firm to form a nucleus. In the
course of a few years, by constant accumulations, this becomes a vast
mound, sometimes over a hundred feet high. Nearly the whole of
Northern Jutland is diversified with sand-plains, heaths, and
ever-changing mounds, among which wandering bands of gipsies still
roam. The shores along the Skagen are surrounded by dangerous reefs of
quicksand, stretching for many miles out into the ocean. Navigation at
this point is very difficult, especially in the winter, when terrific
gales prevail from the northwest. The numerous stakes, buoys, and
other water-marks by which the channel is designated, the frequency of
light-houses and signal telegraphs, and the wrecks that lie strewn
along the beach, over which the surging foam breaks like a perpetual
dirge, afford striking indication of the dangers to which mariners are
subject in this wild region. Han