We stopped for lunch beside a singing brook flowing down from the ridge on our left and springing into the _Hörgá_. The grass was in excellent condition and the ponies grazed as if they had knowledge of the poor quality of this necessity and its scarcity during the following days. The cotton grass spread its sheets of pearly white around us, forget-me-nots and marguerites, the wild arnica and the violets reveled in the glory of their bloom. We ate our lunch and reclined upon the grass in full enjoyment of the scene and recalled the former importance of this valley. It is as beautiful to-day as when the Vikings first entered it. Since their time no blasting volcano with fiery breath has scorched its foliage nor poured its glinting lava in destructive streams over the meadows and humble homes. The days of feudal strife passed with the Christian education of that sturdy race and the peace of the Cross now rests upon the valley like the “shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” The time of its literary importance passed with the decline of its Abbey and the passing of Sira Jón Thorlakson, the Icelandic Milton. Across the river, and shaded by a noble clump of the mountain ash, stands the home of this venerable poet and priest, _Baegisá_. A century ago he translated Paradise Lost, Pope’s Essay on Man, portions of Shakespeare, masterpieces of German and Scandinavian literature into the Icelandic. Besides being a translator, he composed a large amount of Icelandic poetry in the _Eddic_ phraseology which competent judges say equalled and often surpassed the masterpieces of the ancient scalds. He was sorely fettered by poverty. When commenting upon the high morality of his race and the great freedom from the use of intoxicants by his people at that time he said,— “Our poverty is the bulwark of our happiness.” Again, speaking of poverty, the common lot of most poets of all lands, and in all ages, he says, literally from one of his poems,— “Ever since I came into this world, I have been wedded to poverty, who has hugged me to her bosom these seventy winters all but two; whether we shall ever be divorced here below, is only known to Him who joined us together.” From our vantage point we looked down upon three beautiful valleys with as many rivers joining to form the valley of the _Hörgá_ and its mighty stream. These are the _Hörgárdalr_, _Öxnadalr_ and _Baegisádalr_. The mountains rise to an elevation 4000 feet above the valley, capped with snow or perpetual ice, their slopes slashed into wild ravines and terraced with lava cliffs down which course numerous cascades from the melting snows. It is a fair and peaceful scene, this at our feet: it is a grand and awesome sight, that greets the lifted eye.