With much difficulty I trotted after the others, for my horse would not be induced to break into a gallop.
At length, after a ride of an hour and a half, we reached a valley.

In the midst of a tolerably green meadow I descried what was, for Iceland, a farm of considerable dimensions, and not far from this farm was a very small lake.

I did not dare to ask if this was the _great_ lake Vatne, or if this was the delicious prospect I had been promised, for my question would have been taken for irony.

I could not refrain from wonder when Herr von H--- began praising the landscape as exquisite, and farther declaring the effect of the lake to be bewitching.

I was obliged, for politeness' sake, to acquiesce, and leave them in the supposition that I had never seen a larger lake nor a finer prospect.
We now made a halt, and the whole party encamped in the meadow.