At last all was in readiness, and the morning set for the departure arrived. It was dreary, wet, and chilly; but in spite of all that, an enthusiastic and curious crowd of towns-people had assembled to see them start. They were principally attracted by the sight of Nimbus, who had become quite a celebrity among them, and whom they regarded as by far the most important personage of the party. Breeze had found it hard to persuade his black dory mate to leave behind the white cap, jacket, and apron, which were his robes of office. Nimbus had finally yielded, and in their place now wore a fisherman’s sou’wester, with ear-tabs to it, tied firmly on his head, a monkey-jacket the sleeves of which were several inches too short for his long arms, white duck trousers, and a pair of the carpet slippers, run down at the heel, without which no sea cook is happy. The moment he found himself on the pony’s back, from which his short legs stuck out almost at right angles, Nimbus leaned down over the animal’s neck, twined both hands into its shaggy mane, and resigned himself to his fate. He could not be induced to hold the bridle, and would not have known what to do with it if he had. All the pack-ponies and spare animals were fastened, each to the tail of the one in front, to keep them from straying. As Nimbus was evidently incapable of steering his, it was made fast to the tail of the last pack-pony, and thus the unhappy cook brought up the rear of the procession. At last, with much cracking of his leathern whip and shoutings of “Hur-r-r! hur-r-r!” and “Ga, ga!” (go on), the guide succeeded in getting the long line of ponies started. As Nimbus clung for dear life to his, the comical workings of his face aroused the spectators to yells of applause and shouts of laughter. It was more like a circus than anything they had ever before seen. So amid the cheers of the multitude, the barking of dogs, the cracking of whips, and the squealing of the ponies, the party clattered through the rough streets of the fishy, evil-smelling town into the rougher roads of the black, desolate-looking country beyond, and were fairly off for the geysers. These are about sixty miles inland, and nearly due east from Reykjavik. They are the largest and most famous objects of their kind in the world, even surpassing in size and the wildness of their surroundings those of our own Yellowstone Park, or the valley of the Russian River in California. The road for the first day’s journey led over rugged lava plains, up and down the foot-hills of the snow-capped Jökulls, and most of the time through a country so barren as to contain no trace of human occupation. It often skirted dark lagoons and quaking bogs dotted with queer head-like tussocks of grass. In one of these poor Nimbus came to grief.