Daylight lasts only for five or six hours, and to supply its place the poor Icelanders have only the northern light, which is said to illumine the long nights with a brilliancy truly marvellous.
The summer I passed in Iceland was one of the finest the inhabitants had known for years.

During the month of June the thermometer often rose at noon to twenty degrees.

The inhabitants found this heat so insupportable, that they complained of being unable to work or to go on messages during the day-time.

On such warm days they would only begin their hay-making in the evening, and continued their work half the night.
The changes in the weather are very remarkable.

Twenty degrees of heat on one day would be followed by rain on the next, with a temperature of only five degrees; and on the 5th of June, at eight o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at one degree below zero.