with fire and brimstone in incessant action beneath his feet and clouds of stifling and vile smelling gases enveloping him and his ears are closed to all other sounds by the thundering of the exploding steam. The beauty of the lakes and fells, the peacefulness of the little farm and the kindness of its owners make the traveller disposed to linger till the margin of time between the present and the sailing of the steamer from _Reykjavik_ has been reduced to a minimum. It was a smiling Sunday morning when we reluctantly packed for the last day of Icelandic travel and turned our faithful steeds towards their home pastures for a much needed rest, little thinking that we would return the following season for a more extended tour and then again on the succeeding summer. On our way towards _Reykjavik_ we turned aside for one more gaze at the alluring solfatara, for one more plunge into the viscid sulfur, for one more sniff of its putrid air, then, swinging around the shoulder of the smoking bluffs we wound our tortuous way to the heights above, dismounted and looked down for the last time upon that scene so fair and yet so terrible. Upon the rim of a great crater we held the ponies by the bridle rein and silently absorbed the glories of the panorama. Below,—thousands of tons of yellow sulfur sublimed in Nature’s furnace sloped downward to the grassy fields awaiting the coming of some genius of industry to transmute it into the precious metal,—from the yellow mounds rose the never ending columns of odorous steam filling the air with quivering spirals and vibrating with a weird incessant roar,—beyond, the lazy sea in azure blue mirrored ten thousand waterfowl on its burnished surface,—to the west, _Hengill_, arrests the eye, its slopes wreathed in a hazy mantle of vapor issuing from the encircling springs and fumaroles,—nearer, the deep cerulean waters of the crater lakes, the home of the wild swan and golden-eyed duck, throw back the smiles of heaven,—southwest, _Reykjavik_ stands white against the black and ponderous cliffs of _Esja_,—southward, _Faxafjörðr_ cradles a hundred sailing craft upon its bosom and beyond the fiord, great _Snaefells Jökull_ projects its cone of sparkling ice six thousand feet where the north Atlantic mingles with the icy waters of the Arctic Sea.