Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve On the Way to Snaff

It was cloudy for a day, but it was still clear--a good day for travel, without heat or rain. Riding through an unknown country was fun and gave me a good start; I reveled in the joy of travelling, full of hope and freedom.I started this expedition. "Besides," I said to myself, "what kind of risk am I running? Is it going to be through some interesting country, up a very prominent mountain, and possibly into the mouth of an extinct volcano?" Apparently that's what Saconusan has done in the past. As for a tunnel leading to the center of the earth, it's a complete fantasy! Absolutely impossible! So I can make good use of this expedition without worrying."

Now we have left Reykjavik.Hans walked ahead, quick, even, and untiring.Two luggage ponies followed him, and after that my uncle and I, riding on short but strong horses, did not look too ridiculous. Iceland is one of the largest islands in Europe; it covers an area of ​​fourteen thousand square miles and has a population of only sixty thousand.The geographer divided it into four pieces, and we had to go diagonally along the southwest corner. As soon as Hannes left Reykjavik, he took a road along the coast; we rode through the barren pastures.It's a hassle to green these pastures - it's all yellow.The jagged tops of the trachyte hills projecting above the horizon seemed endless in the misty eastward-going clouds; The gray cloud-tops then reappeared among the moving vapours, like reefs in the sea of ​​heaven.

These tiers of bare rock walls jut out into the sea into the pastures, but there are enough gaps in between to get through.Also, our horses often instinctively choose the best path and don't slow down.Uncle never had to shout or saddle the horse to a gallop, and this time he had no chance of hurrying.When I saw how huge he looked on that pony, and with his feet touching the ground, he looked like a six-legged centaur. "A good horse! a good horse!" he said. "You see, Aksai, there is no wild animal more intelligent than the Icelandic horse; snow, storm, impassable road, rock face, glacier—none of them." It can be stopped. It is brave, calm and resolute. It never stumbles or suffers a sudden jerk. If there is a river or a fjord that must pass in front of it, it does not hesitate to go into the water and swim like an amphibian. Let it go. We needn't worry about it, let it go, we'll get thirty miles a day."

"Yes, I dare say," I replied, "but where is our guide?" "Oh, I don't worry about him. These people walk like machines and don't move much, so he doesn't get tired. Besides, I can lend him my horse if necessary. If my limbs don't work Playing sports, I'm going to cramp soon. The arms are all right, but the legs have to be taken care of." We were advancing rapidly; the country we passed was practically deserted.There is a field isolated from the surroundings everywhere, and several remote houses are built of wood, mud and lava. These houses and fields are like beggars huddled at the end of the alley.These dilapidated huts give the impression that they are waiting for alms from passers-by, and anyone would really like to give them some alms.In these places, where there are neither roads nor byways, the vegetation, however slowly it grows, has at least the simple task of eradicating the few traces of the traveller.

However, this part of the province close to the capital is already considered one of the most populated and cultivated places on Iceland.And what of a wilder place than this wasteland?We have not yet met a farmer at the door of the hut, or a shepherd boy with a flock more wild than ourselves; only a few cows and sheep are left there, unattended.What about places that have been shaken by eruptions, experienced volcanic eruptions and earthquakes? It is our fate that we shall know these places in the future; looking at Olson's map, I found that these places have avoided volcanic eruptions and earthquakes because of their proximity to the coastline; especially in the interior of this island, eruptions have indeed occurred; in these places On the surface of the ground level several layers of rock called igneous rock, trachyte, erupted basalt, tuff, all volcanic conglomerate and lava flows and fused porphyry formed incredible and terrible shapes.At this time I had no idea of ​​what we were about to see on the Snaefer peninsula, a spectacle of dreadful confusion of natural traces of change.

Two hours after leaving Reykjavik, we arrived at the small town of Kiefern called Oakega, where the main church is located.There are only a few houses in this place, which can only be called a small village in Germany. Hannes suggested stopping here for half an hour; he had a cheap meal with us, and when his uncle asked him the names of some roads, he only answered yes or no, and when asked where he was going to spend the night, he only answered Two words "Kadan". I consulted a map and found the name of this small village on the coast of Hvarfort, eighteen miles from Reykjavik.I showed the map to my uncle.

"Eighteen miles!" he cried, "eighteen miles out of a hundred! That's a little distance!" He began to discuss the matter with his guide, who made no answer, but set off at once with the horse. Three hours later we were still traveling on the pale pastures of the pastures, we sailed round the Kola Fjord, which was a little less troublesome to advance than to cross, and soon we entered the village called Fort Emir, if If the churches in Iceland were rich enough to have bells, the steeples of the churches here never sounded the bells. They were like the churchgoers who came here to worship, and although they didn't have watches, they were doing well.

Here we fed our horses; afterward we reached the pinnacle of Aoac at Breyte, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we reached the south side of the Hvar Gorge, which was only half a mile wide. The waves crashed loudly on the steep rocks, and the fjord was surrounded by walls of three hundred feet high, separated by layers of reddish tuff.I didn't want to ride across the bay on a quadruped, so I came back, but my uncle insisted on riding down to the sea on a pony instead.It barks, refuses to go into the water, and shakes its head.Then the uncle scolded and beat him, and the little pony jumped up and down, and finally escaped from the professor's crotch on all fours, and let him stand on two rocks.

"You bloody beast!" cried the rider, who by this time had become a walker. "Ferry," said the guide in Danish, touching him on the shoulder. "What! Ship?" "There." Hannes replied, pointing to a boat. "Yes," I cried, "there's a boat there." "You should have said it long ago. Well, let's go!" "Tidvatten," said the guide. "What do you mean?" I asked. "He meant the tide," said my uncle, translating the Danish word. "I suppose we must wait for the tide?" "Is it necessary to wait?" asked the uncle.

"Yes." Hannes replied. The uncle tapped his foot lightly, while all four horses walked towards the boat. I know very well that you must wait for the tide to reach a certain state before you can cross it, that is, you must wait until the tide is at its highest.There was neither high nor low tide, so our boat could neither carry us to the head of the canyon nor send us out to sea. The good hour did not come until six o'clock in the evening, when my uncle and I, the guide, the two boatmen, and the four horses all stepped into a strange-looking flat-boat.As I was used to the steamboats that ferried the Elbe, I thought the paddles used by our present boatmen were really stupid.The ferry took more than an hour, and finally got through safely.

Half an hour later, we arrived at Oakega in Kadan.

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