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VON TROIL’s LETTERS ON ICELAND. 631
bathe in them here merely for their health, but they are likewife the occafion for a fcene
of gallantry. Poverty prevents here the lover from making prefents to his fair one,
and nature prefents no flowers of which elfewhere garlands are made: it is therefore
cuftomary, that inftead of all this, the fwain perfectly cleanfes one of thefe baths, which
is afterwards honoured with the vifits of his bride. The other kind of fprings men-
tioned above deferves more attention. I have feen a great number of them ; but will
only fay fomething of three of the moft remarkable. Near Laugervatn, a {mall lake of
about a mile in circumference, which is about two days journey diftant from Heckla,
I faw the firft hot jet d’eau; and I muft confefs that it was one of the moft beautiful
fights I ever beheld. ‘The morning was uncommonly clear, and the fun had already
begun to gild the tops of the neighbouring mountains; it was fo perfeét a calm, that
the lake on which fome fwans were fwimming was as fmooth as a looking-glafs ; and’
round about it arofe, in eight different places, the {team of the hot fprings, which loft
itfelf high in the air. :
Water was fpouting from all thefe fprings ; but one in particular continually threw up
a column from eighteen to twenty-four feet high, and from fix to eight feet diameter, the
water was extremely hot. A piece of mutton and fome falmon trouts we boiled init ; as
likewife a ptarmigan, which was almoft boiled to pieces in fix minutes, and tafted ex-
cellently. I wifh it was in my power, Sir, to give you fuch a defcription of this place
as it deferves ; but I fear mine would always remain inferior in point of expreflion. So
much is certain, at leaft, nature never drew from any one a more cheerful homage to
her great Creator than I here paid him.
At Reikum was another fpout of the fame fort, the water of which, I was affured, rofe
to fixty or feventy feet perpendicular height fome years ago ; but a fall of earth having
almoft covered the whole opening, it now only fpouted between fifty-four and fixty feet
fideways. We founda great many petrified leaves in this place, as likewife fome native
fulphur, of which too the water had a much f{tronger tafte than any where elfe.
I have referved the moft remarkable water-{fpout for the end; the defcription of
which will appear as incredible to you as it did to me, could -I not affure you that it is
all perfectly true, as I would not aver any thing but what I have feen myfelf. At Gey-
fer, not far from Skallholt, one of the epifcopal fees in Iceland, a moft extraordinary
large jet d’eau is to be feen, with which the celebrated water-works at Marly and St.
Cloud, and at Gaffel, and Herrenhaufen, near Hanover, can hardly be compared. One
fees here, within the circumference of half a mile*, forty or fifty boiling {prings together,
which, I believe, all proceed from one and the fame refervoir. In fome the water is
perfectly clear, in others thick and clayey; in fome, where it pafles through a fine
ochre, it is tinged red as fcarlet ; and in others, where it flows over a paler clay, it is
white as milk.
The water {pouts up from all, from fome continually, from others only at intervals,
The largeft fpring, which is in the middle, engaged our attention particularly the whole
day, which we {pent here from fix in the morning till feven at night. The aperture
through which the water arofe, and the depth of which I cannot determine, was nine-
teen feet in diameter ; round the top of it is a bafon, which, together with the pipe, has
the form of a cauldron ; the margin of the bafon is upwards of nine feet one inch higher
than the conduit, and its diameter is of fifty-fix feet. Here the water does not {pout
continually, but only by intervals feveral times a day; and asI was informed by the
people in the neighbourhood, in bad rainy weather, higher than at other times,
*® About three Englith miles.
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