"Yes, sir; you see the exact spot down there below."

And, in good truth, there it was, some hundreds of feet below, in a
beautiful little green valley that lay at the bottom of the gap. Never
had my eyes witnessed so strange and wild a sight. A great fissure in
the earth nearly a hundred feet deep, walled up with prodigious
fragments of lava, dark and perpendicular, the bases strewn with
molten masses, scattered about in the strangest disorder; a valley of
the brightest green, over a hundred feet wide, stretching like a river
between the fire-blasted cliffs; the trail winding through it in
snake-like undulation--all now silent as death under the grim leaden
sky, yet eloquent of terrible convulsions in by-gone centuries and of
the voices of men long since mingled with the dust. Upon entering the
gorge between the shattered walls of lava on either side, the trail
makes a rapid descent of a few hundred yards till it strikes into the
valley. I waited till my guide had descended with the horses, and then
took a position a little below the entrance, so as to command a view
out through the gorge and up the entire range of the Almannajau.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE ALMANNAJAU.]

The appended sketch, imperfect as it is, will convey some idea of
the scene; yet to comprise within the brief compass of a sheet of
paper the varied wonders of this terrible gap, the wild disorder of
the fragments cast loose over the earth, the utter desolation of the
whole place would be simply impossible. No artist has ever yet done
justice to the scene, and certainly no mere amateur can hope to attain
better success.

[Illustration: THE ALMANNAJAU.]

Looking up the range of the fissure, it resembles an immense walled
alley, high on one side, and low, broken, and irregular on the other.
The main or left side forms a fearful precipice of more than eighty
feet, and runs in a direct line toward the mountains, a distance of
four or five miles. On the right, toward the plain of Thingvalla, the
inferior side forms nearly a parallel line of rifted and irregular
masses of lava, perpendicular in front and receding behind. The
greater wall presents a dark, rugged face, composed of immense pillars
and blocks of lava, defined by horizontal and vertical fissures,
strangely irregular in detail, but showing a dark, compact, and solid
front. In places it is not unlike a vast library of books, shaken into
the wildest confusion by some resistless pow