A fair broad bay, an arm of the Faxefjoth, rocky islands rising from the water and low hills all around, the heights of Esja straight in front of the ship that sails in, was the site chosen by the pagan gods. The city of Reykjavik stands on low hills at whose foot the porch-pillars were found. At the head of the little reeking bay is the white steam of the hot springs; away to the north, just visible across the choppy waves of Faxefjoth, towers, four thousand seven hundred feet above the sea, the huge volcanic mass of Snaefells Jökull. Thus Reykjavik, the present capital of Iceland, bordered landward by a little lake, is more than a thousand years old, yet it does not look fifteen! No new settlement in the American West has a rawer or more recent appearance. The building materials are wood, brick, cement, felt and galvanized iron. There are a few fair gardens with very stunted trees, and in the rough grass square is a metal statue to Thorwaldsen (p. 138). For ugly commonplaceness the broad and dusty streets are hardly rivalled even on the North American continent, and that is saying a good deal. Yet the glorious views of wild mountain and ever-changing sea, with air as fresh and pure as in mid-ocean, make it attractive in spite of all. The Norse settlement of the island, having prosperously begun on the grassy plains at the edge of which the city stands, soon spread all round the shore. At wide intervals were built, or dug, the half underground turf-covered dwellings where men sat under their smoky rafters by the fire, drinking wine or mead, telling or hearing the saga tales. Old buildings that still remain, including a few in the vicinity of Reykjavik, give a fair idea of what these primitive dwellings were like; sometimes they were partly excavated in the side of a hill. Their interiors are much more cosy and homelike than would be suspected from their desolate-looking outsides. Hangings round the walls must have greatly improved the appearance as a rule, though the _Laxdaela Saga_ says that the hall which Thurid Olaf built in Herd-holt, whose sides and roof were lined with noble histories carved on wainscotting, looked better when the hangings were down. Each large householder was chief and priest, lord of all within sight of his dwelling.