On the morrow we rode through the lava beds that fringe the eastern shore of _Mývatn_ just after a clearing shower and the sunlight upon the crater islands, the lichen-encrusted lava ridges and the play of light upon the water of the land-locked pools was of surprising beauty. As we neared _Kálfstrond_, Calf-Strand, an Icelandic shepherd dog ran out to meet us and gave a noisy welcome. For the size of the dog the Iceland variety has the strongest lungs of any member of the canine family. They will run for half a mile to meet the traveller yelping and crying and will often follow him for miles after leaving the farm. One of these fluffy balls of animation stayed with us for several days and resisted all our efforts to leave him behind. We left him in a stable with instructions to keep him till some one returned to the farm from whence he had run away but at noon as we were fording a river he joyously arrived. The cold stream was no obstacle, he was the first on the opposite shore and stayed with us until we arrived at _Reykjavik_. He lost no opportunity to get into our room at the hotel, invariably found us if we went for a walk and when we pushed from the landing in a small boat to go out into the stream to board our steamer for home, he jumped from the wharf into the boat and stuck to us till we ascended the gang plank and as the boat pulled ashore he gave one long and mournful cry. My heart has often turned towards the faithfulness and the attachment of this little fellow and often do I wonder if he is following the sheep over his native hills forgetful of the summer’s escapade when he ran away to associate with strangers. Beneath the lava ridges great streams of water from the neighboring mountains pour into the lake and around these inlets there is always excellent trout fishing. The trout are large and abundant. Between the lake and _Hverfjall_ the lava is rifted into deep ravines and mighty cliffs which, in their castellated and architectural forms, coated with lichens, present more the appearance of being the handiwork of man than that of subterranean powers assisted by the frosts of time. Little imagination is necessary to view in this mass of plutonic rock the Gothic arches of a long deserted cloister, and in that pile of ragged crust, the ramparts and bastions of a mediaeval fortress. Lofty piles stand side by side upon the plain suggestive of triumphal arches whose capstone has fallen to the ground.