SCENES AND SAGAS OF ICELAND.* WE readily distinguish in these

travels three sorts of components, which, like the materials of a volcanic soil, are intermingled but seldom found in intimate union, and which we may call the cyclopa3dio, the Pickwickian, and the romantic. We have uncle' the first head historical and statistical compilations, more than decently extensive, to form the introduction to a two months' tour, but not affording to the reader any topic of continuous or satis- fying interest. We have sketches of travelling casualties which are lively and dramatic, but in which the natives of Iceland, for the most part, figure less effectively than our fellow passengers from the Arcturus steamer, two of whom remind us strongly of Messrs. Tup man and Snodgrass. We have enthusiastic accounts of the national biographical sagas, and we have translations in a hybrid language, which are weakly garbled to suit the modem affectation of graphic particularity, and sometimes further dis- figured by a slangy, de haut en bas style. The actual achievements of Mr. Baring Gould as a tourist may be thought more respectable. He has penetrated further than most of his precursors into the deserts near the north-east coast of the island, and has dis- covered a magnificent waterfall on the Jekulisa. He has made numerous observations on the plants and birds of the island, and brought to England a collection of manuscript sagas of which he has sent several to the Museum library. The landscape sketches (some of them chromatypt) with which he has illustrated his handsome volume are by no means wanting in character and attractiveness.

In the introduction we soon perceive that conjunction of con- scientious endeavour with a limited stock of patience which English literary aspirants usually evince in availing themselves of the exhaustive investigations of the Germans. Thus, the third page brings us suddenly on a register of all the eruptions of Hecht and her sisters during the last thousand years; this is probably derived from Preyer and Zirkel (Reise nach Island, 1851); but the account of. those writers is so denuded of the varied details and original citations which they have collected, that it becomes no more readable than so many pages of a mere calendar. On the other hand, the early political history of Iceland gets epitomized with judicious brevity, until we reach the era of the Anglo-Danish war in the present century; and then we have a much more dilated account of the privateer Jorgensen's attempt to possess himself of the island, besides a full transcript of an Order in Council which was elicited from the English Government by the results of his proceedings. The episode is curious, and might have been entertaining ; but it has nothing to do with the author's professed object of visiting "scenes famous in saga."

• Iceland; Cs Scents and Sagas. By Sabine Baring Gould, M.A. With numerous Illustrations and a Map. London: Smith and Elder. 1862.

We may confess we have found a good deal of fun in the dramatic parts of the diary, though there is much in them that might have been as easily suggested by a holiday trip to Boulogne or Jersey. The opening scene of the book (showing how the Yankee won a wager by seeing land first) will be read with the more relish, because it hurries us beyond all tedious preliminaries, and guarantees to us that we are to escape our share in the troubles of the embarka- tion, the dangers of the gale that probably followed, and the horrors of the general sea-sickness, &c. In descriptions more characteristically local we are struck by continual traits of a good capacity for study, and of an utter aversion for common rough work, which appear perversely misplaced in the inhabitants of so niggardly a soil and climate as Iceland's. The theological student whom Mr. Baring Gould has the misfortune to hire as a guide, and who is too much of a fine gentleman to give any effective help in cooking or pitching a tent, while he declines catching a stray horse because it is " sure to run away again," is a continual object of the tourist's disdainful complaints. Still more remarkable is the account given in the following paragraphs of the horsedealers about Reykjavik and Thingvellir, the old Icelandic Washington. (We must observe, by the way, that our author has taken it into his head to write this name in as many forms in English as it has cases in its original language.)

"On the right of our course lay the lake of Thingvalla, in the grey of an overcast night, and beyond it we could distinguish the steam from the Hengill sulphur-springs. Clouds had been gathering rapidly over the sky, and hung big with rain over the mountain tops. We met an Icelander on horseback, who at once fell into conversation with Grimr, and presently let out that he had got a fine pony for sale. "'Where is he ? ' I asked.

"'At half an hour's ride from Thingvollum.'

" ' Then you had better bring him over to-morrow morning, and if he is as good as you say I will purchase him.' "'Do you doubt my word ? ' asked the man ; 'I shall not take the trouble of bringing the pony over on the chance of your rejecting him after all.'

" But you surely do not intend to suggest that I should buy the horse without ever casting an eye on him ?' I exclaimed, much amused at the fellow's coolness.

"Pay me the money, and I will send you the horse,' said the native. 'If you do not trust my word, good night!' and with a wave of the cap he galloped away. This trait of indolence is thoroughly characteristic of the Icelanders. At Reykjavik I offered the horsedealer a hundred dol- lars in paper, and he refused to take them, though they could be changed for cash four doors off. I mentioned this fact to him, and he stared with astonishment before he replied, You do not suppose I will take the trouble of going to get them changed ? You go, and I will stand here till you return.' ".

In the way of conversation our tourist does not appear to get much out of any of his Icelandic acquaintances, except from those who have some notion of speaking English. (The achievements of Thiggs in a Latin dialogue with a priest we consider a mere imitation of Lord Dufferin.) Having said this, we must give him due credit for a bit of gossip picked up respecting one of the earliest Icel andic travellers—time Bible Society delegate Henderson. We will quote first a passage of the latter's journal (Holum, 1814) :—

" When the hour of rest arrived I was conducted by my kind host and hostess into a back apartment, where was an ancient but excellent bed, on which I had every reason to conclude more than one of the Holum bishops had reposed. A ceremony now took place which exhibits in the strongest light the hospitality and innocent simplicity of the Icelandic character. Having wished me a good night's rest they retired, and left their eldest daughter to assist me in pulling off my pantaloons and stockings—a piece of kindness, however, which I would rather a thousand times have dispensed with, as it was so repugnant to those feelings of delicacy to which I had been accustomed. In vain I remonstrated against it as unnecessary. The young woman maintained it was the custom of the country and their duty to help the weary traveller. When I had got into bed she brought a long board, which she placed before me to prevent my falling out, and, depositing a basin of new milk on a table close to my head, bade me good night and re- tired. Such I afterwards found to be universally the custom in Ice- landic houses. Where there are no daughters in the family the ser- vice is performed by the landlady herself, who considers it a great honour to have it in her power to show this attention to a stranger. It Is also worthy of notice that the task of loosing the sandals of the men devolves on the female servants—a custom which elucidates the declara- tion of John the Baptist, Mark i., 7."

Whereon Mr. Baring Gould reflects :—

"Poor Ebenezer Henderson I the Icelanders still have a good laugh over his dismay when first the ladies of the house insisted on dismant- ling his legs. In his book he tells the story of his wild struggle to pre- serve his nether garments, but he neglects to mention the compromise which was effected, he coiling himself up in the coverlet and letting the ladies pull at the strap buttons. Henderson was a very good fellow, but he had no notion of a joke, and he only mentions the incident to found on it pious and moral reflections. Among themselves it is still a common practice for the women to peel the men after their day's work ; but the Icelanders have learned that strangers do not particularly relish this sort of attention, and they now seldom offer It" It is clear that no vestiges of the custom will survive much longer the monthly cruises of the Arcturus steamer. What a pity people should go among wolves when they cannot learn to howl! Why should tourists, in all corners of the earth, frighten away the well-working homely usages of mankind, and repeat the work of their Miltonian prototype, who so hardily roughed it through the wild scenery of Chaos, and brought shame into the first comfortable garden in which he rested himself? A few years more, and all the Easter kissings at Petersburg, and the

garden promenades for the choosing of brides, will have vanished before foreign ridicule, as that of France once drove from among ourselves the rite which attended an introduction to. a lady. - It will be imagined that our author's tales from the sagas are not picked up in the country, nor collated like those in Dr. Konrad Maurer's very entertaining collection, with the traditions still current among the oldest inhabitants: they are brought over in his own head or books from his own library in England, and related not in the antique style, which in poetry he finds too metaphorical and obscure to be managed, nor in the homely manner he might have heard them repeated by a well-read farmer ; but just as he is supposed to have retailed them for the benefit of his Cockney and Yankee fellow travellers at convenient

halting-places. The earlier tales are not improved by the affectation of colloquial phrases by which they are abundantly characterized. The author's partiality for Teutonic roots in his diction is singularly marked by the use of such words as byre for "farm," and bonder for "farmer," which he feels required formal explanation. So a man "preparing to remove" is in his phraseology "bushing to flit." Here one- would think that the superior pliancy with which the quasi- Latin forms lend themselves to etymologic variations like " pre- pal ation, preparatory removal," might have secured them the respect of even a purist, independently of their prevalence in established usage. The author's tales from the sagas have in general little point, though their details are striking and ro- mantic. To those who have not read Dr. Maurer, the fight or Grettir with the Vampire will afford a novel and ghastly illustration of a very peculiar national superstition. This is taken from a saga of the thirteenth century, of which Mr. Gould promises a complete translation, and on which he has already drawn largely for the principal incidents in the life of a cele- brated outlaw.

There is another fine and shrewd story from the saga of Egli, in which an old warrior, having beheld the shipwreck of his only son and buried him, is so overcome with grief that lie shuts himself up in his chamber and refuses to take either meat or- drink. His married daughter is called home to visit him, and gains admission by her pretended resolution to share his fate. She persuades him to divide some seaweed which she munches, under the pretence that itis poisonous; this makes him intolerably thirsty, and she then hands him a drinking-horn, from which he takes a draught of milk, having expected to find only water; whereat in his indignation he bites a large piece of the horn clean off. He is then persuaded to defer his abortive design for the present, till he has composed a funereal eulogium for his son. His verses come to him with difficulty, but he feels less miserable after he has accomplished the task ; lie recites them to his assembled household, celebrates the wake over his dead son, and returns to his former way of living after dismi-sing his daughter with liberal presents. The descriptive touches with which Mr. Baring Gould lengthens this story are less in harmony with its original character than suited to display his own familiarity with Icelandic scenery ; the reader will, however, have no difficulty in guessing which of the sentences he comes upon are of modern origin.