friends are now on the way to
Hamburg for the express purpose of witnessing the gyrations of the
celebrated wheeling girls. All I hope is, that when they meet with
those enterprising damsels they will follow my example, and behave
with honor and discretion.

Standing upon an eminence overlooking the valley, I was struck with
wonder at the vast field of lava outspread before me. Here is an area
at least eight miles square, all covered with a stony crust, varying
from fifty to a hundred feet in thickness, rent into gaping fissures
and tossed about in tremendous fragments; once a burning flood,
covering the earth with ruin and desolation wherever it flowed; now a
cold, weird desert, whose gloomy monotony is only relieved by stunted
patches of brushwood and dark pools of water--all wrapped in a
death-like silence. Where could this terrible flood have come from?
The mountains in the distance look so peaceful in their snowy robes,
so incapable of the rage from which all this desolation must have
sprung, that I could scarcely reconcile such terrible results with an
origin so apparently inadequate.

I questioned Zoega on this point, but not with much success. How was
it possible, I asked, that millions and billions of tons of lava could
be vomited forth from the crater of any mountain within sight? Here
was a solid bed of lava spread over the valley, and many miles beyond,
which, if piled up, shrunken and dried as it was, would of itself make
a mountain larger than the Skjaldbraid Jokul, from which it is
supposed to have been ejected.

"Now, Zoega," said I, "how do you make it out that this came from the
Skjaldbraid Jokul?"

"Well, sir, I don't know, but I think it came from the inside of the
world."

"Why, Zoega, the world is only a shell--a mere egg-shell in Iceland I
should fancy--filled with fiery gases."

"Is that possible, sir?" cried Zoega, in undisguised astonishment.

"Yes, quite possible--a mere egg-shell!"

"Dear me, I didn't know that! It is a wonderful world, sir."

"Very--especially in Iceland."

"Then, sir, I don't know how this could have happened, unless it was
done by spirits that live in the ground. Some people say they are
great monsters, and live on burnt stones."

"Do you believe in spirits, Zoega?"

"Oh yes, sir; and don't you? I've seen them many a time. I once saw a
spirit nearly as large as the Skjaldbraid. It came up out of the earth
directly before me where I was traveling, and shook