a bed three feet wide and the customary scantiness of length, a table and several chairs, numerous boxes in which clothing and valuables are stored, photographs in albums and in wire racks on the walls, and an organ made in Brattleboro, Vermont. We found these organs in every home save one during our two summers of travelling among the farms, no matter how humble the home. The music most in evidence is sacred with numerous selections from the German and Italian masters and much of the minor lyrical music of the Icelandic school. The people are fond of music and most of them are fine singers, a few of them excellent. We will never forget the quartett and the congregational singing in the Cathedral at _Reykjavik_ which we heard a year later. There are numerous composers, the best known being Sveinbjórn Sveinbjónsson, well known in the musical circles of Europe, who now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. A large amount of the music has been composed for the love-songs, idyls and pastoral hymns written by the local poets. The themes of the song writers are mostly pastoral, or, they are an appreciation of the charming scenery which inspired such writers as Jonas Hallgrimson and Matthias Jochumsson. The subtlety of the Icelandic language does not permit of accurate translation of the fine meaning into English. To illustrate one of these appreciations combined with ardent love of country, I have rendered into English, without any attempt at alliteration, one stanza from Jonas Hallgrimson,— You know the land with smiling face Which many blue-ridged mountains grace, The song of swan on quiet stream Where meads with joyous flowers teem, The glacier’s broad and shining wall, The glint of sea, the roar of fall,— God’s blessing rest on thee, I pray, Throughout the everlasting day. There are songs of the meadow and the sheep-tending, of fishing and of the hay-harvest, of returning spring and dying summer, of the happiness of home-life, of sorrow and joy and love and the whole scale of human emotions. In the midst of their poverty and toil they are a cheerful and happy race, singing at their occupations or writing songs in the saddle or at the sheep-tending. The children are taught to appreciate poetry and to write it and the result is that nearly every one makes verses and out of the many attempts there is much that is excellent. Much of the poetry is spontaneous as in the _Saga_ days. The _Sagas_ are replete with impromptu verses witty, ironical, boastful and descriptive. Thus _Kari_, when _Skapti_ accuses him of “sneaking out of this atonement” after the famous trial of 1112 at the _Althing_ for the burning of _Njal_, retorts, in part,—