Since a regular steam-boat communication has been opened between Iceland, Denmark, and Scotland, the number of tourists desirous of viewing the matchless natural wonders of the island has considerably increased. But travelling in the island itself is still attended with considerable difficulties and no trifling expense, to say nothing of the want of all comforts; so that most of its visitors are content with a trip to Thingvalla and the Geysir, which are but a couple of days’ journey from Reykjavik, and very few, like Mr. Holland, make the entire circuit of the island, or, like Mr. Shepherd, plunge into the _terra incognita_ of its north-western peninsula. The only mode of travelling is on horseback, as there are no roads, and therefore no carriages in Iceland. The distances between the places are too great, the rivers are too furious, and the bogs too extensive to allow of a walking tour being made. Even the tourist with the most modest pretensions requires at least two riding horses for himself, two for his guide, and two packhorses; and when a larger company travels, it always forms a cavalcade of from twenty to thirty horses, tied head to tail, the chief guide mounted on the first and leading the string, the other accelerating its motions by gesticulation, sundry oaths, and the timely application of the whip. The way, or the path, lies either over beds of lava, so rugged that the horses are allowed to pick their way, or over boggy ground, where it is equally necessary to avoid those places into which the animals might sink up to their belly, but which, when left to themselves, they are remarkably skillful in detecting. With the solitary exception of a few planks thrown across the Bruera, and a kind of swing bridge, or _kláfr_, contrived for passing the rapid Jökulsa, there are no bridges over the rivers, so that the only way to get across is to ride through them--a feat which, considering the usual velocity of their current, is not seldom attended with considerable danger, as will be seen by the following account of the crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland. [Illustration: 60. BRIDGE RIVER, ICELAND.]