Читать книгу Across the Vatna Jökull; or, Scenes in Iceland. Being a Description of Hitherto Unkown Regions онлайн

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The farm is a poor one, though the good folks make the best of it. Their lives, like that of all the poorer Icelanders, must be one continuous struggle against poverty, inclement weather, and a fruitless soil. Yet they have a few sheep and cows upon the hillside; plenty of fish in the lake; and withal are contented. But their contentment is evidently of a very different kind to that which we noticed at Lœkjarbotn; it manifestly results from a hope that their circumstances may be improved by domestic thrift, and good fortune with their flocks. Hopeful contentment differs from the contentment of despair in this respect, the one is cheerful and open to improvement, the other is sullen and so sunken in the slough of despondency as to have given up all hope of a change for the better, and thus to be incapable of availing itself of any propitious opportunity, if such should occur. One day’s rest at Heiði, and we mount again, directing our course eastward; riding swiftly over the arid waste of Myrdals Sandr, we reached the banks of the river Kuða-fljót. We find that this river, which we forded with considerable difficulty last year, could now only be crossed in boats. This shows how the unstable beds of Icelandic rivers shift and change about, transforming shallows into deep water, and creating sand-banks amid the deepest river channels.