and makes one regret when it is over that it has passed away so fast. Scenes such as these are the peculiar property, each of its own land; they are as national as its people, and cannot be found elsewhere: and he who should come to Iceland with the hope of meeting their fellows, would be sadly disappointed. But the feeling of disappointment would soon yield to the satisfaction and astonishment produced by the unexpected wonders which present themselves at every step. We have not the glories of other lands in all their fulness; but nature has borrowed from them with a lavish hand when heaving upwards this island from fathomless depths below the ocean. We have snow-clad mountains and glaciers from the Alps; fens and fiords and waterfalls from Norway; volcanoes and sulphur mines and earthquakes from Sicily. We have fisheries of salmon from Scotland, of herrings from the Dogger-bank, of whales from the Arctic seas, and of cod from Newfoundland. Occasionally, by way of variety, when the winter has been more than normally severe, the icebergs set free by the summer's thaw will bring fierce and unusual visitors in the shape. of white bears from Greenland or Spitzbergen. And, special property of Iceland's own, there are geysers and mud springs; there is a district into which no man dare venture, for volcano and earthquake have seized upon it for their chosen abode; and wherever we tread the crisp lava crackles beneath our feet, and discloses a sub-soil of layer upon layer of blighted moss and heather, that mark by their successive growth and decay the periodic ebb and flow of the fiery tide.

Iceland has been at different times visited by Englishmen. Latterly, indeed, these visits have been assuming the condition of a habit. Of course the number of Icelandic visitors is not one in a thousand compared with the crowd which annually throng the mountains and valleys of Switzerland. It is not even anything like the number that in the season is to be found rambling through Norway. But it is increasing, chiefly through the accommodation afforded by the steamers that carry the Danish mails, calling at Leith on their outward and homeward voyages, and making about four trips every summer. We have no doubt that when an interest in Icelandic scenes and attractions shall have been more widely diffused among those classes of our countrymen for whom a sum

mer excursion is almost a necessity, this number will be very considerably augmented. We cannot hope, indeed, that a trip to Hekla or the Geysers will ever be as popular as one to Chamouni or Monte Rosa. But we are satisfied that every one who has the good fortune of making himself personally acquainted with even a limited portion of Icelandic marvels, will be anxious to renew that acquaintance, and will spread among his friends a wish to share in the gratification he has himself enjoyed. There is abundant room, not only for rendering more accurate the information which we already possess, but for enlarging it almost indefinitely. The greater portion of the island has never been described or indeed explored. Most of the published accounts are limited to the south-west corner; and even there, an attentive investigator would be sure to light upon many novelties previously unobserved or at least unrecorded. It is a subject of mortification. that the books purporting to give us sketches or notes of Iceland, which have appeared within the last fifty years, add really nothing to the information contained in the Travels published by Sir George Mackenzie, in 1811; and in most respects fall far short of the elaborate and detailed descriptions contained in that most excellent work. This arises doubtless from the fact that later writers have not possessed the varied acquirements, the large scientific knowledge, and the trained habits of careful and minute observation possessed by the distinguished men who compiled those Travels.. But this deficiency only increases our desire to see the task undertaken by men of similar talents and attainments. How much would our stock of Icelandic knowledge be increased if men like the accomplished members of the Alpine Club would turn their steps northward, and visit the northern and eastern shores of this island, and penetrate into the district of Skaptar Yökul. Surely they who have explored all the Cols, and ascended every peak of Monte Rosa, who have climbed the Wetterhorn, and revelled in the horrors of the Saas Grat, would not shrink from perils that probably owe their dangerous reputation solely to the fact of never having been attempted? Putting other considerations aside, there are certain reasons of national importance which render a better acquaintance with the physical condition of this island eminently desirable. We yet hope to see the same attention, the same patient

research, and indomitable perseverance, brought to bear on its investigation, by which Forbes and Tyndall have familiarized us with the phenomena of the Alps.

The work before us is a record of the observations of two months, most busily employed, by Captain Forbes of the Royal Navy. It is written in a most easy flowing style, and abounds with anecdote and useful bits of information. Indeed we feel almost inclined to abate in its favour some of our remarks on the comparative meagreness of modern books, and the very little they add to our previous knowledge. For consistently with the main object of his visit, which was not scientific or geographical enquiry, but a pleasant trip, we do not think the author could have embraced more extended details, or proposed to himself more minute observation. Independently of this, the information which he does convey, if not as extended and full as we might expect in a larger and more pretentious work, is certainly given in a form more likely to attract the attention of most readers. The tale of his personal adventures is so well blended with descriptions of the natural scenery of the country and historical allusions, that it is almost impossible, once any one has taken up the book, to lay it down until it has been read through to the end. It certainly displays cultivated ability of no common order, and hence we have at the outset to offer one criticism with extreme regret. There is too evident a disposition to view every thing Catholic in a hostile and depreciating spirit; and this inclines the author, unintentionally no doubt, to misinterpret and misrepresent occurrences and events whose explanation depends upon or is intimately bound up with our religion. This hostility is a blot upon the frankness which breathes through the whole work; and which leads us to believe it is not naturally incidental to Captain Forbes's character. It may have been imbibed from others, unawares, and nursed by the prejudices unfortu nately too frequent in his profession. Perhaps it may have been transfused into his pages while they were passing through the press, and is but the reflection of the evil company in which he made the Sicilian campaign of Garibaldi.

Captain Forbes started from Leith on the 21st of July on board the Danish mail steamer Arcturus.

"She is clean and fast, and the Danish cheer provided is ample and wholesome. You will also find your bitter beer and Harvey sauce; but no luxurious man should make the trip, even if he can bespeak fine weather. Our cabin passengers are an intelligent Lothian farmer who has an apt quotation from Burus for any idea that may start; an American professor and an American physician-the former, although a martyr to sea-sickness, has come all the way from the States to examine the Geysers....... A Danish artillery officer, three of my countrymen, and myself; and we are all told. Forward, there are a few Icelanders returning to their native land, which they love like islanders, a common saying amongst them being 'Island er kinn besta land sem soliun skinnar uppá. Iceland is the best land on which the sun shines upon.' Abaft, all with the exception of myself say they are bent on doing the Geysers during the week's stay of the vessel in Iceland and returning; but from a subsequent regardless display of white kids and varnished boots on the part of the Dane, he was evidently bound to the far north on a love 'pigeon' and eventually was betrothed and returned without his bride, proving the existence of 'stern parients,' even in Reykjavik."-pp. 6-7.

On the third day out they reached the Faroes:

"A triangular group of lofty table-shaped rocks, cropping out of the Atlantic, about a third of the way between the Shetlands and Iceland, and composed entirely of old volcanic formations, which have been superimposed beneath the depths of the ocean, and by subsequent igneous convulsion driven up to, and far beyond, the surface of the water. The twenty-five islands of which this group consists are so intimately related in formation and appearance, that they evidently were once a compact mass, in which upheaval has caused the rents, or rather fiords, by which they are now divided. In general these fiords are very deep, and vary from one to two miles in width, and are parallel to each other. Here the lay of the trap-beds and alternating strata may be distinctly traced from island to island in the face of the abrupt cliffs which in most parts bound their shores. And as we pass within a few hundred yards of the southern extremity of Nalsoe, the screaming of our feathery friends is relieved by the low moaning of the Atlantic swell in the numerous caves and fissures which it has hollowed out in the softer portions of the trap. One of these caverns pierces the island from side to side, and forms a natural arch with nearly 1000 feet of superimposed rock, offering a passage for small craft in fine weather. Immediately above the clifts, nearly all of which are perpendicular, and averaging about 800 feet in height, stripes and patches of a vivid green form a pleasant relief to the eye, and pasture to a few sheep during the summer. These grassy holms are again capped with grey litchen-clothed terraces of the same trap formation." pp. 9-10.

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At Thorshaven, the seat of government, they anchored and stayed for the night. Here, the author and his companions de voyage landed, and ascending an eminence, obtained an extensive and panoramic view" of this strange group. One of the islets, Sandoe, attracts particular notice, its cliffs being so steep that no boat can be kept there. "Its sparse inhabitants live in entire seclusion, saving an annual visit from the clergyman, who is hoisted up by ropes.' Next morning his attention was called to a whaling smack, the master of which was in distress, four of his crew being in prison for theft. Outrages of this kind are, our author testifies, far too common on the part of whaling crews. The sheep, which are allowed to graze unheeded on the detached islets, are the chief object of their attentions; the rapidity of their operations and the remoteness of the scenes rendering detection impossible. In the case which came directly under Captain Forbes's notice, 'the rascals had actually had the audacity to plunder a village. The disrepute such unmitigated brutality entails on our national character is very great: and it seems a pity that we do not follow the French system in Iceland, and send a man-of-war to keep such scoundrels in order.

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On the sixth day out from Leith, the voyagers made Iceland. The first indication of land was the foam and the roar of heavy breakers in the vicinity of the dreaded Skaptar Yökul, which the calm rendered both audible and ominous, proclaiming the great perils that await navigators on these tempestuous and iron-bound coasts. Shortly afterwards a bold promontory loomed through the haze, known as Portland Head. It is the only high headland on the central portion of the southern coast, and is proposed as the first landing station of the projected North Atlantic telegraphic cable.

The dense fog began to lift and revealed the mysterious land of sagas and sayings. Immediately above the long line of foam were spread apparently interminable lava-fields, intersected with numerous rivers, and in many places covered with moraine and detritus, while here and there a gigantic glacier, quitting its native gorge, stalked out in abrupt relief upon the plain, on its march towards the sea, as if in chase of the uncontrollable white torrent debouching from its bowels. And as the fog ascends, the black and tormented flanks of mountain and yökul appear, each looking more grim than the last-rent and distracted by fire,