Nothing, in fact, could astonish me after learning that the horses in Iceland are fed during the winter on dried fish. This is a literal fact. Owing to the absence of grain and the scarcity of grass, it becomes necessary to keep life in the poor animals during the severest months of the season by giving them the refuse of the fisheries; and, what is very surprising, they relish it in preference to any other species of food. Shade of Ceres! what an article of diet for horses! Only think of it-riding on the back of a horse partly constructed of fish! No wonder some of them blow like whales.

In one respect the traveler can not be cheated to any great extent; he can not well lose more than twelve specie dollars on any one horse, that being the average price. To do the animals justice, they are like singed cats a great deal better than they look. If they are not much for beauty, they are at least hardy, docile, and faithful; and, what is better, in a country where forage is sometimes difficult to find, will eat any thing on the face of the earth short of very hard lava or very indigestible trap-rock. Many of them, in consequence of these valuable qualities, are exported every year to Scotland and Copenhagen for breeding purposes. Two vessels were taking in cargoes of them during our stay at Reykjavik.

I was saved the trouble of bargaining for my animals by Geir Zöega, who agreed to furnish me with the necessary number at five Danish dollars apiece the round trip; that is, about two dollars and a half American, which was not at all unreasonable. For his own services he only charged a dollar a day, with whatever buono mano I might choose to give him. These items I mention for the benefit of my friends at home who may take a notion to make the trip.

I was anxious to get off at once, but the horses were in the country and had to be brought up. Two days were lost in consequence of the heavy rains, and the trail was said to be in very bad condition. On the morning

of the third day all was to be ready; and having purchased a few pounds of crackers, half a pound of tea, some 'sugar and cheese, I was prepared to encounter the perils of the wilderness. This was all the provision I took. Of other baggage I had none, save my overcoat and sketchbook, which, for a journey of five days, did not seem unreasonable. Zöega promised me any amount of suffering; but I told him Californians rather enjoyed that sort of thing than otherwise.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE ENGLISH TOURISTS.

My English friends were so well provided with funds and equipments that they found it impossible to get ready. They had patent tents, sheets, bedsteads, mattresses, and medicine-boxes. They had guns, too, in handsome gun-cases; and compasses, and chronometers, and pocket editions of the poets. They had portable kitchens packed in tin boxes, which they emptied out, but never could get in again, comprising a general assortment of pots, pans, kettles, skillets, frying-pans, knives and forks, and pepper-castors. They had demijohns of brandy and kegs of Port wine; baskets of bottled porter and a dozen of Champagne; vinegar by the gallon and French mustard in patent pots; likewise collodium for healing bruises, and musquito-nets for keeping out suakes. They had improved oil-lamps to assist the daylight which prevails in this latitude during the twentyfour hours, and shaving apparatus and nail-brushes, and cold cream for cracked lips, and dentifrice for the teeth, and patent preparations for the removal of dandruff from the hair; likewise lint and splints for mending broken legs. One of them carried a theodolite for drawing inaccessible mountains within a reasonable distance; another a photographic apparatus for taking likenesses of the natives and securing fac-similes of the wild beasts;

while a third was provided with a brass thief-defender for running under doors and keeping them shut against persons of evil character. They had bags, boxes, and bales of crackers, preserved meats, vegetables, and pickles; jellies and sweet-cake; concentrated coffee, and a small apparatus for the manufacture of ice-cream. In addition to all these, they had patent overcoats and undercoats, patent hats and patent boots, gum-elastic bedcovers, and portable gutta-percha floors for tents; ropes, cords, horse-shoes, bits, saddles and bridles, bags of oats, fancy packs for horses, and locomotive pegs for hanging guns on, besides many other articles commonly deemed useful in foreign countries by gentlemen of the British Islands who go abroad to rough it. This was roughing it with a vengeance! It would surely be rough work for me, an uncivilized Californian, to travel in Iceland or any other country under such a dreadful complication of conveniences.

When all these things were unpacked and scattered. over the beds and floors of the hotel, nothing could excel the enthusiasm of the whole party-including myself, for I really had seen nothing in the course of my travels half so amusing. As an old stager in the camping business, I was repeatedly appealed to for advice and assistance, which of course I gave with the natural politeness belonging to all Californians, suggesting many additions. Warming-pans for the sheets, pads of eiderdown to wear on the saddles, and bathing-tubs to sit in after a hard ride, would, I thought, be an improvement; but as such things were difficult to be had in Reykjavik, the hope of obtaining them was abandoned after some consideration. "In fact," said they, "we are merely roughing it, and, by Jove, a fellow must put up with some inconveniences in a country like this!"

To carry all these burdens, which, when tied up in packs, occupied an extra room, required exactly eighteen horses, inclusive of the riders, and to bargain for eighteen horses was no small job. The last I saw of the En

glishmen they were standing in the street surrounded by a large portion of the population of Reykjavik, who had every possible variety of horses to sell-horses shaggy and horses shaved, horses small and horses smaller, into the mouths of which the sagacious travelers were intently peering in search of teeth-occasionally punching the poor creatures on the ribs, probing their backs, pulling them up by the legs, or tickling them under the tail to ascertain if they kicked.

At the appointed hour, 6 A.M., Zöega was ready at the door of the hotel with his shaggy cavalcade, which surely was the most extraordinary spectacle I had ever witnessed. The horned horses of Africa would have been commonplace objects in comparison with these remarkable animals destined to carry me to the Geysers of Iceland. Each one of them looked at me through a stack of mane containing hair enough to have stuffed half a dozen chairs; and as for their tails, they hung about the poor creatures like huge bunches of wool. Some of them were piebald and had white eyes-others had no eyes at all. Seeing me look at them rather apprehensively, Zöega remarked,

“Oh, sir, you needn't be afraid. They are perfectly gentle !"

"Don't they bite?" said I.

"Oh no, sir, not at all."

"Nor kick?"

"No, sir, never."

"Nor lie down on the way ?" "No, sir, not at all."

"Answer me one more question, Zöega, and I'm done." [This I said with great earnestness.] "Do these horses ever eat cats or porcupines, or swallow heavy brooms with crooked handles ?"

"Oh no, sir!" answered my guide, with a look of some surprise; "they are too well trained for that."

"Then I suppose they subsist on train-oil as well as codfish ?"