A Barren Land
We had started under a sky overcast but calm. There was no fear of heat, none of disastrous rain. It was just the weather for tourists.
The pleasure of riding on horseback over an unknown country made me easy to be pleased at our first start. I threw myself wholly into the pleasure of the trip, and enjoyed the feeling of freedom and satisfied desire. I was beginning to take a real share in the enterprise.
“Besides,” I said to myself, “where’s the risk? Here we are travelling all through a most interesting country! We are about to climb a very remarkable mountain; at the worst we are going to scramble down an extinct crater. It is evident that Saknussemm did nothing more than this. As for a passage leading to the centre of the globe, it is mere rubbish! Perfectly impossible! Very well, then; let us get all the good we can out of this expedition, and don’t let us haggle about the chances.”
This reasoning having settled my mind, we got out of Reykjavík.
Hans moved steadily on, keeping ahead of us at an even, smooth, and rapid pace. The baggage horses followed him without giving any trouble. Then came my uncle and myself, looking not so very ill-mounted on our small but hardy animals.
Iceland is one of the largest islands in Europe. Its surface is 14,000 square miles, and it contains but 16,000 inhabitants. Geographers have divided it into four quarters, and we were crossing diagonally the southwest quarter, called the “Sudvester Fjordùngr.”