The country surrounding the city seems dreary enough until the intense fascination of the wildly desolate land and the extreme purity of the air grows more and more upon the mind. The jagged rock-hills all round are never quite free from snow, but they were thrown up by the earth fires too late to be planed down by ice. The well-known little ponies of Iceland in considerable numbers wander at will over the rough rolling pasture land, save that some are ridden by tourists from the south, and some by radiant Icelandic girls. These come jogging in from the country on their curious flat side-saddles, both feet resting on a wide hanging step. They wear their hair in four plaits, the ends of which are looped up under a little flat cap of black cloth. From the centre of the cap there hangs through a little silver cylinder a long black tassel which reaches to the shoulder. The ground is largely dug into hummocks so as to increase the area available for grass. A good road, fringed by telegraph poles each side and patronised by a fair number of cyclists, leads out of the town, and after a mile or two crosses the Ellidaar, which has cut a broad winding channel through the hard volcanic rock, and is famous for fishing. Nearer the sea are the hot springs whose waters send up steam that is visible from far, and gave the capital its name. The ponies are kept from burning their noses by stretches of barbed wire. In water heated by the fires that burn far down, beyond the reach of man, the people of Reykjavik have long been wont to wash their linen and their clothes. A constant procession of women bear soiled things to the spring and clean things to the town. Many Icelanders speak English, and they are often surprisingly well-informed, both concerning their own history and the affairs of foreign lands. Still read are the sagas in the land of their birth, and they were Englished largely by Icelandic minds. There are very good secondary schools in the towns, and a College at Reykjavik itself. Though no elementary schools exist, almost every one can read and write from the excellent teaching in the homes. Reykjavik, Akureyri and Isafjordr are fair-sized towns, the former has a population of about ten thousand souls, but the loneliness of life in many parts is evident from the fact that the rest of the nation, about fifty or sixty thousand in number, tending cattle and ponies, and fishing for whale and cod, is thinly sprinkled through some two hundred and eighty parishes. [Illustration: HOT SPRINGS NEAR REYKJAVIK] [_Face page 60_