I can only say, may Heaven requite them a thousand-fold for their kindness and friendship! I had even an opportunity of hearing my native language spoken by Herr Bernhoft, who was a Holsteiner by birth, and had not quite forgotten our dear German tongue, though he had lived for many years partly in Denmark, partly in Iceland.
So behold me now in the only town in Iceland, {27} the seat of the so-called cultivated classes, whose customs and mode of life I will now lay before my honoured readers.
Nothing was more disagreeable to me than a certain air of dignity assumed by the ladies here; an air which, except when it is natural, or has become so from long habit, is apt to degenerate into stiffness and incivility.

On meeting an acquaintance, the ladies of Reikjavik would bend their heads with so stately and yet so careless an air as we should scarcely assume towards the humblest stranger.

At the conclusion of a visit, the lady of the house only accompanies the guest as far as the chamber-door.

If the husband be present, this civility is carried a little further; but when this does not happen to be the case, a stranger who does not know exactly through which door he can make his exit, may chance to feel not a little embarrassed.

Excepting in the house of the "Stiftsamtmann" (the principal official on the island), one does not find a footman who can shew the way.