XI

XI

IN THE EVENING I took a short walk along the Reykjavik shore and returned early to lie down in my bed made of big boards, where I slept deeply

When I awoke I heard my uncle talking at a great rate in the next room. I immediately got up and hurried to join him.

He was conversing in Danish with a tall man of robust build. This large fellow had to have great strength. His eyes, set in a crude and rather naive face, seemed intelligent to me. They were of a dreamy blue. Long hair, which would have been considered red even in England, fell on his athletic shoulders. The movements of this native were smooth, but he made little use of his arms in speaking, like a man who knew nothing or cared nothing about the language of gestures. His whole appearance bespoke perfect calm, not indolence but tranquility. One could tell that he would be beholden to nobody, that he worked at his convenience, and that nothing in this world could astonish him or disturb his philosophy.

I became aware of the nuances of this character by the way in which he listened to his interlocutor’s impassioned flow of words. He remained with his arms crossed, immobile in the face of my uncle’s multiple gesticulations; for a negative his head turned from left to right; it nodded for an affirmative, so slightly that his long hair scarcely moved. It was economy of motion carried to the point of avarice.

Certainly, in looking at this man, I would never have guessed that he was a hunter; he did not look likely to frighten his game, for sure, but how could he reach it?

Everything became clear when Mr. Fridriksson informed me that this calm individual was only a “hunter of the eider duck,” whose inner plumage constitutes the greatest wealth of the island. This is in fact what is called eider down, and gathering it requires no great energy of movement.

In the first days of summer the female, a kind of pretty duck, goes to build her nest among the rocks of the fjords that lie all along the coast. After building the nest she feathers it with down plucked from her breast. Immediately the hunter, or rather the trader, comes, robs the nest, and the female starts her work over. This goes on as long as she has any down left. When she has stripped herself bare the male takes his turn to pluck himself. But as the hard and coarse plumage of the male has no commercial value, the hunter does not take the trouble to steal the bedding for his brood; so the nest is completed; the female lays the eggs; the young are hatched, and the following year the down harvest begins again.

Now, since the eider duck does not choose steep cliffs for her nest, but rather the easy and horizontal rocks that slope to the sea, the Icelandic hunter could exercise his calling without any great exertion. He was a farmer who did not have to either sow or reap his harvest, but merely to gather it in.

This grave, phlegmatic, and silent individual was called Hans Bjelke; he came recommended by Mr. Fridriksson. He was our future guide. His manners contrasted strikingly with my uncle’s.

Nevertheless, they easily came to terms with each other. Neither one debated the amount of the payment: the one was ready to accept whatever was offered; the other was ready to give whatever was demanded. Never was a bargain struck more easily.

The outcome of the negotiations was that Hans committed himself to lead us to the village of Stapi, on the southern shore of the Snaefells peninsula, at the very foot of the volcano. By land this would be about twenty-two miles,ab a journey of about two days, according to my uncle’s opinion.

But when he found out that a Danish mile was 24,000 feet long, he was forced to modify his calculations and, given the poor condition of the roads, allow seven or eight days for the march.

Four horses were to be placed at his disposal—two to carry him and me, two for the luggage. Hans would walk, as was his custom. He knew that part of the coast perfectly, and promised to take us the shortest way.

His contract was not to terminate with our arrival at Stapi; he would continue in my uncle’s service for the whole period of his scientific excursions, for the price of three rix-dollarsac a week. But it was explicitly agreed that this sum would be paid to the guide every Saturday evening, a sine qua non condition of his contract.

The departure was set for June 16. My uncle wanted to pay the hunter a portion in advance, but the latter refused with one word:

“Efter,” he said.

“After,” said the professor for my edification.

The negotiations concluded, Hans promptly withdrew.

“An excellent man,” my uncle exclaimed, “but he doesn’t know the marvelous role that the future has in store for him.”

“So he goes with us as far as—”

“Yes, Axel, as far as the center of the earth.”

Forty-eight hours were left until our departure; to my great regret I had to use them for our preparations; all our intelligence was devoted to pack every item in the most convenient way, instruments on one side, weapons on the other, tools in this package, food supplies in that: four sets of packages in all.

The instruments included:

1. An Eigel centigrade thermometer, graduated up to 150 degrees, which seemed to me either too much or too little. Too much if the surrounding heat was to rise so high, in which case we would be cooked alive. Too little to measure the temperature of springs or any other melted substance;2. A manometer with compressed air, designed to indicate pressures above that of the atmosphere at sea level. Indeed, an ordinary barometer would not have served the purpose, as the pressure would increase proportionally with our descent below the earth’s surface;3. A chronometer, made by Boissonnas Jun. of Geneva, accurately set to the meridian of Hamburg;4. Two compasses to measure inclination and declination;5. A night glass; 6. Two Ruhmkorff devices, which, by means of an electric current, supplied a highly portable, reliable and unencumbering source of light.ad

The weapons consisted of two Purdley More and Co. rifles and two Colt revolvers. Why weapons? We had neither savages nor wild beasts to fear, I suppose. But my uncle seemed to rely on his arsenal as on his instruments, above all on a considerable quantity of gun cotton, which is unaffected by moisture, and whose explosive force far exceeds that of ordinary gunpowder.

The tools included two ice-picks, two pickaxes, a silk rope ladder, three iron-tipped walking sticks, an axe, a hammer, a dozen wedges and iron spikes, and long knotted ropes. Inevitably, this made for a large load, for the ladder was 300 feet long.

Finally there were the food supplies: this parcel was not large, but comforting, for I knew that it contained six months’ worth of dried meat and dry biscuits. Gin was the only liquid, and there was no water at all; but we had flasks, and my uncle counted on springs from which to fill them. Whatever objections I had raised as to their quality, their temperature, and even their absence had remained ineffectual.

To complete the exact inventory of all our travel supplies, I should mention a portable medical kit containing blunt scissors, splints for broken limbs, a piece of unbleached linen tape, bandages and compresses, band-aid, a bowl for bleeding, all frightful things; then there was a range of phials containing dextrin, pure alcohol, liquid acetate of lead, ether, vinegar, and ammonia, all drugs whose purpose was not reassuring; finally, all the articles necessary for the Ruhmkorff devices.

My uncle took care not to leave out a supply of tobacco, hunting powder, and tinder, nor a leather belt he wore around his waist, where he carried a sufficient quantity of gold, silver, and paper money. Six pairs of good shoes, made waterproof with a layer of tar and rubber, were packed among the tools.

“Clothed, shod, and equipped like this, there’s no telling how far we may go,” my uncle said to me.

The 14th was entirely spent in arranging all our different items. In the evening we dined at the Baron Trampe’s, in the company of the mayor of Reykjavik, and Dr. Hyaltalin, the great doctor of the country. Mr. Fridriksson was not present; I learned afterwards that he and the Governor disagreed on some administrative issue and did not speak to each other. I therefore could not understand a single word of what was said during this semi-official dinner. I only noticed that my uncle talked the whole time.

On the 15th, our preparations were complete. Our host gave the professor very great pleasure by providing him with an immeasurably more perfect map of Iceland than Handerson’s: the map of Mr. Olaf Nikolas Olsen, at a scale of 1 to 480,000, and published by the Icelandic Literary Society on the basis of Mr. Frisac Scheel’s geodesic works and Bjorn Gumlaugssonn’sae topographical survey. It was a precious document for a mineralogist.

Our last evening was spent in intimate conversation with Mr. Fridriksson, with whom I felt the most lively sympathy; the conversation was followed by rather restless sleep, on my part at least.

At five in the morning the neighing of four horses pawing under my window woke me up. I dressed in haste and went down to the street. Hans was finishing the loading of our luggage, as it were without moving a limb. Yet he executed his work with uncommon skill. My uncle generated more noise than effort, and the guide seemed to pay very little attention to his instructions.

All was ready by six o’clock. Mr. Fridriksson shook hands with us. My uncle thanked him in Icelandic for his kind hospitality, with much heartfelt sentiment. As for me, I sketched a cordial greeting in my best Latin; then we got into the saddle, and with his last farewell Mr. Fridriksson treated me to a line of Virgil that seemed to be made for us, travelers on an uncertain route:

Et quacumque viam dedent fortuna sequamur.af