In spite of their ill-ventilated dwellings and the hardships entailed upon them by the severity of the climate, the Icelanders frequently attain a good old age. Of the 2019 persons who died in 1858, 25 had passed the age of ninety, and of these 20 belonged to the fair sex. The mortality among the children is, however, very considerable; 993, or nearly one-half of the entire number having died before the age of five in the year above-mentioned. Cutaneous affections are very common among Icelanders, as may easily be supposed from their sordid woollen apparel and the uncleanliness of their huts; and the northern leprosy, or “likthra,” is constantly seeking out its victims among them. This dreadful disease, which is also found among the fishermen in Norway, in Greenland, in the Faeroes, in Lapland, and, in short, wherever the same mode of life exists, begins with a swelling of the hands and feet. The hair falls off; the senses become obtuse. Tumors appear on the arms and legs, and on the face, which soon loses the semblance of humanity. Severe pains shoot through the joints, an eruption covers the whole body, and finally changes into open sores, ending with death. He whom the leprosy has once attacked is doomed, for it mocks all the efforts of medical art. Fortunately the victims of this shocking complaint are rather objects of pity than of disgust, and as it is not supposed to be contagious, they are not so cruelly forsaken by their relations as their fellow-sufferers in the East. In the hut of the priest of Thingvalla, Marmier saw a leper busy grinding corn. Some of the poorest and most helpless of these unfortunate creatures find a refuge in four small hospitals, where they are provided for at the public expense.