How the horses are able to stand against such a stream is every traveller’s wonder; nor would they do so unless they were inured to the enterprise from their very youth. The Icelanders who live in the interior keep horses known for their qualities in fording difficult rivers, and never venture to cross a dangerous stream unless mounted on an experienced “water-horse.” The action of the Icelandic horses in crossing a swift river is very peculiar. They lean all their weight _against_ the current, so as to oppose it as much as possible, and move onwards with a characteristic side-step. This motion is not agreeable. It feels as if your horse were marking time, like soldiers at drill, without gaining ground, and as the progress made is really very slow, the shore from which you started seems to recede from you, while that to which you are bound does not seem to draw nearer. In the mid-stream the roar of the waters is frequently so great that the travellers cannot make their voices audible to one another. There is the swirl of the torrent, the seething of the spray, the crunching of the floating ice, the roll of stones and boulders against the bottom,--and all these sounds combine in one confused chaotic din. Up to this point, a diagonal line, rather down stream, is cautiously followed; but when the middle is reached, the horses’ heads are turned slightly _towards_ the current, and after much effort and many risks the opposite bank is reached in safety. Lord Dufferin says, with much truth, that the traveller in Iceland is constantly reminded of the East. From the earliest ages the Icelanders have been a people dwelling in tents. In the days of the ancient Althing, the legislators, during the entire session, lay encamped in movable booths around the place of council. There is something patriarchal in their domestic polity, and the very migration of their ancestors from Norway was a protest against the antagonistic principle of feudalism. No Arab could be prouder of his high-mettled steed than the Icelander of his little stalwart, sure-footed pony: no Oriental could pay greater attention to the duties of hospitality; while the solemn salutation exchanged between two companies of travellers, as they pass each other in what is universally called “the desert,” is not unworthy of the stately courtesy of the gravest of Arabian sheikhs.