Mute and anxious, we crept along in breathless haste, scarcely
venturing to raise our eyes, much less to give vent to the least
expression of alarm, for fear of starting the avalanche of stone, of the
impetuous force of which we could form some idea by the shattered rocks
around us. The echo is very remarkable, and gives back the faintest
whisper with perfect distinctness."
* * * * *
Every traveller to Iceland feels bound to visit its Geysirs, and Madame
Pfeiffer did as others did. From Thingvalla she rode for some distance
along the side of the lakes, and then struck through a rocky pass of a
very difficult character, into a series of valleys of widely different
aspect. At last she came to a stream which flowed over a bed of lava,
and between banks of lava, with great rapidity and a rushing, roaring
sound. At one point the river-bed was cleft through its centre, to the
depth of eighteen or twenty feet, by a chasm from fifteen to eighteen
feet wide, into which the waters pour with considerable violence. A
bridge in the middle of the river spans this rift, and the stranger who
reaches the banks feels unable to account for its appearance among the
cloud of spray which entirely conceals the chasm in the bed of the
stream.
Into her description of the passage of the river it is to be feared that
Madame Pfeiffer introduces a little exaggeration.
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