This farm is located on a high bank overlooking the broad expanse of rolling lava and grass lands through which the canyon of the _Thjórsá_ extends. A fine suspension bridge spans the flood and the view of the white water foaming down the rift is excellent. Beyond the river a good road, the post road, leads all the way to _Eyrarbakki_, Beach-Bank. The country is level and produces an abundance of grass. This section contains nearly all the made roads in Iceland. When we passed we noticed much activity in road construction and in the erection of telephone lines. These roads will be of great value to the farmers in this section who are just beginning to use carts with two wheels after transporting their produce on the backs of ponies for about twelve hundred years. The ponies do not enjoy the harness, but prefer the saddle. During these days we met many ponies hauling telephone poles and grading material. Every one of them had a dejected look much like that of a new convict. We fancied that the saddle ponies, as they called to the prisoners in the harness, realized the better condition of their own labor and that they looked down upon the plodders in the thills, much as the chauffeur looks upon the pedestrian as he envelopes that individual with dust. The made road is not liked by the pony, accustomed to travel the crooked trails, which in the lowlands are always soft, and he shuns the hard roads whenever he can. The trails are much easier for the rider as there is less pounding in the saddle. After a journey of a thousand miles on the lowland and upland trails, the following summer our last day’s ride was from _Thingvellir_ to _Reykjavik_ a distance of thirty-five miles over a hard macadamed road, and it was the hardest day’s ride of the two summers. We rode along the base of a lofty table land, a giant block of basalt shaped like a mesa, which is called _Ingölfsfjall_, _Ingölf’s_-Mountain. At the request of _Ingölfr_, who was the first real settler in Iceland, he was buried at the top of this mountain. He said,— “I wish to be buried there in order that I may behold my vast possessions from its summit at the last day.”