On one spot curious tents {44} are erected, before which children play; on another drunken men stagger along, or gallop on horseback, so that one is terrified, and fears every moment to see them fall.
This unusual traffic unfortunately only lasts six or eight days.

The peasant hastens home to his hay-harvest; the merchant must quickly regulate the produce and manufactures he has purchased, and load his ships with them, so that they may sail and reach their destination before the storms of the autumnal equinox.
Miles.
From Reikjavik to Thingvalla is 45 From Thingvalla to the Geyser 36 From the Geyser to Skalholt 28 From Skalholt to Salsun 36 From Salsun to Struvellir 9 From Struvellir to Hjalmholm 28 From Hjalmholm to Reikum 32 From Reikum to Reikjavik 45 259 CHAPTER VII During my travels in Iceland I had of course the opportunity of becoming acquainted with its inhabitants, their manners and customs.

I must confess that I had formed a higher estimate of the peasants.

When we read in the history of that country that the first inhabitants had emigrated thither from civilised states; that they had brought knowledge and religion with them; when we hear of the simple good-hearted people, and their patriarchal mode of life in the accounts of former travellers, and which we know that nearly every peasant in Iceland can read and write, and that at least a Bible, but generally other religions books also, are found in every cot,--one feels inclined to consider this nation the best and most civilised in Europe.

I deemed their morality sufficiently secured by the absence of foreign intercourse, by their isolated position, and the poverty of the country.