We left the bulk of our provisions at the house of the farmer, since we would not require them in the region we were about to visit and it was necessary to return to _Akureyri_ to set out upon our long journey across the country. We ascended the bluff and turned northwards to climb the mountain along a diagonal. [Illustration: _Goðafoss, the Icelandic Niagara, on the Skjalfandafljöt._ _Island Craters in the Mývatn from Skútustaðir._] Once more in the saddle, with the length of the summer and the width of Iceland between us and the steamer that would bear us from _Reykjavik_ to Denmark. Our trip up the east coast and the stops at the trading posts had been pleasant and full of interest but the real work, and the enjoyment that is born of it, was before us. It was with a spirit of exultation that we turned the ponies into the narrow trail that winds up the mountain side and, after a year of absence, felt the motion of our little steeds. Step by step we climbed the gradient; little by little the fiord below narrowed and lengthened; the sounds of the fishermen and the bustle of the shipping diminished and finally disappeared altogether. The mountain rose in a wild tumble of treeless ridges and ice-crowned escarpments, scored with shining glaciers and coursed by numberless waterfalls and trickling rivulets that resolved the great silence into a musical cadence. We “knew the land of smiling face,” we understood from experience that there were bridgeless and troublesome rivers to cross, morasses to negotiate or in which to founder, smoking solfataras and trackless wastes of lava, deserts of sand and glacial moraines to cross between the northern and southern coasts. But the spell of Viking Land was upon us and we realized that for the summer it was all our own,—free to anyone who would take the trouble to explore,—to roam when and where we willed, unfettered by time tables, with no porters, cabbies nor waiters to break the spell, no fences to obstruct, no “trespass forbidden” to turn us aside, no man to say us nay. The roar of the locomotive and the purr of the motor had been left far behind as also the jostling of ubiquitous tourists with their satellites the guides. A day of delight in the saddle was to be followed each day by a better one: an evening welcome at a humble farm and a heartfelt God-speed in the morning. Our only limitation, the ponies. These promised well at the start. They had been carefully chosen and at the end of the long and difficult journey proved their worth.