Our cruise carried us all round the island--the larger part of our time being spent off the Vestmann Islands and the mouth of Brede Bugt, the large bay in which Reikyavik lies. It was off these islands that Eric the Red threw his flaming sticks into the sea. The first brand which alighted on the land directed him where to locate his new headquarters. Reikyavik means "smoking village," so called from the vapours of the hot streams which come out of the ground near by. There is no night on the coast in summer; and even though we were a Mission ship we found it a real difficulty to keep tab of Sundays. The first afternoon that I went visiting aboard a large trawler, the extraordinary number of fish and the specimens of unfamiliar varieties kept me so interested that I lost all count of time, and when at last hunger prompted me to look at my watch I found that it was exactly 1.30 A.M. At that time so many plaice and flatfish were caught at every haul, and they were so much more valuable than cod and haddock, that it was customary not to burden the vessel on her long five days' journey to market with round fish at all. These were, however, hauled up so rapidly to the surface from great depths that they had no time to accommodate the tension in their swimming bladders to the diminished pressure, with the result that when thrown overboard they were all left swimming upside down. A pathetic wake of white-bellied fish would stretch away for half a mile behind the vessel, over which countless screaming gulls and other birds were fighting. A sympathy for their horribly unprotected helplessness always left an uneasy sinking feeling at the pit of my own stomach. The waste has, however, righted itself in the course of years by the simple process of an increasing scarcity of the species, making it pay to save all haddock, cod, hake, ling, and other fish good for food, formerly so ruthlessly cast away.