We found our way by following a zigzag line of cairns. It was rough travelling. Oftentimes the ponies were forced to raise their fore feet to the edge of a block of stone or lava shelf and then spring to the top like goats, again in descending these stone stairways they crouched like a cat for a spring, carefully lowered one foot into a niche, placed the other fore foot in a similar niche below it and then jumped to the lower level. Never did they slip or make a false step, left to their own guidance they picked the best places and brought us safely across a mass of fractured lava that seemed impossible for them to traverse. Certainly horses of other countries could not have accomplished this feat. Thus climbing and descending, fording shallows and circling tide pools to the annoyance of the birds we traversed ten miles of a wild and interesting country, absolutely primaeval as far as any trace of man’s presence is concerned save in the scattered cairns and the deep grooves of his horses hoofs in the lava. In one place I measured a trail ten rods long across the smooth ledge that had been worn to a depth of seven inches and a width of eight inches by the tiny feet of the ponies during a thousand years of travel along this shore. Leaving the sea we climbed a ridge of slag and ash debris of brilliant and variegated colors. Great masses of this material, shaped like ropes of molasses candy that has been pulled, were scattered beside the trail and mingled with thousands of volcanic bombs. From this summit we looked across a green valley to _Eldborg_, Burning-Dome, and beyond to the pleasant farm of _Krisuvik_. We were comfortably housed and more than the usual attention was given to our comfort. Here we met an old acquaintance of the _Laura_, M. phil. Carl Küchler from Varel in Oldenberg, Germany. We had found him a pleasant acquaintance, a man who had travelled widely in Iceland, speaking the Icelandic and an author of several books in German upon Iceland. We were pleased to renew the acquaintance. He has since been decorated by the King of Denmark for the work he has done in Iceland. The columns of steam rising from the hills beyond the meadow and the roar of the escaping gases attracted our attention and it was with impatience that we changed the riding habit for a lighter one and started across the fields to examine the spot which Hooker in 1813 described as, “One of the most awfully impressive scenes that the world can furnish, or even imagination can conceive.” This is strong language. Had Hooker visited the solfatara of _Krafla_ his description would have been of interest. We shall see that _Krafla_ is intensely more interesting than _Krisuvik_.