The imports are free, for it would not pay the government to establish offices, and give servants salaries to collect duties upon the small amount of produce required for the island.
Wine, and in fact all colonial produce, are therefore much cheaper than in other countries.
The exports consist of fish, particularly salted cod, fish-roe, tallow, train-oil, eider-down, and feathers of other birds, almost equal to eider-down in softness, sheep's wool, and pickled or salted lamb.

With the exception of the articles just enumerated, the Icelanders possess nothing; thirteen years ago, when Herr Knudson established a bakehouse, {31} he was compelled to bring from Copenhagen, not only the builder, but even the materials for building, stones, lime, &c.; for although the island abounds with masses of stone, there are none which can be used for building an oven, or which can be burnt into lime: every thing is of lava.
Two or three cottages situated near each other are here dignified by the name of a "place." These places, as well as the separate cottages, are mostly built on little acclivities, surrounded by meadows.

The meadows are often fenced in with walls of stone or earth, two or three feet in height, to prevent the cows, sheep, and horses from trespassing upon them to graze.

The grass of these meadows is made into hay, and laid up as a winter provision for the cows.
I did not hear many complaints of the severity of the cold in winter; the temperature seldom sinks to twenty degrees below zero; the sea is sometimes frozen, but only a few feet from the shore.

The snowstorms and tempests, however, are often so violent, that it is almost impossible to leave the house.