The Westmans.—Their extreme Difficulty of Access.—How they became peopled.—Heimaey.—Kaufstathir and Ofanleyte.—Sheep-hoisting.—Egg-gathering.—Dreadful Mortality among the Children.—The Ginklofi.—Gentleman John.—The Algerine Pirates.—Dreadful Sufferings of the Islanders.

Rising abruptly from the sea to a height of 916 feet, the small Westman Islands are no less picturesque than difficult of access. Many a traveller while sailing along the south coast of Iceland has admired their towering rock-walls, but no modern tourist has ever landed there. For so stormy a sea rolls between them and the mainland, and so violent are the currents, which the slightest wind brings forth in the narrow channels of the archipelago, that a landing can be effected only when the weather is perfectly calm. The Drifanda foss, a cascade on the opposite mainland, rushing from the brow of the Eyafyalla range in a column of some 800 or 900 feet in height, is a sort of barometer, which decides whether a boat can put off with a prospect of gaining the Westmans. In stormy weather the wind eddying among the cliffs converts the fall, though considerable, into a cloud of spray, which is dissipated in the atmosphere, so that no cascade is visible from the beach. In calm weather the column is intact, and if it remains so two days in succession, then the sea is usually calm enough to allow boats to land, and they venture out. As the Icelanders, through stormy weather, are frequently cut off from Europe, so the inhabitants of the Westmans are still more frequently cut off from Iceland, and it is seldom more than once a year that the mails are landed direct. The few letters from Denmark (for the correspondence is in all probability not very active) are landed in Iceland at Reykjavik, and thence forwarded to the islands by boat, as chance may offer, for, during the whole winter and the greater part115 of the summer, communication is impossible. It will now be understood why tourists are so little inclined to visit the Westmans, despite the magnificence of their coast scenery, for who has the patience to tarry in a miserable hut on the opposite mainland till the cascade informs him that they are accessible, or is inclined to run the risk of being detained by a sudden change of the weather for weeks or even months on these solitary rocks?

Mr. Ross Browne thus describes the general aspect of the coast of Iceland: “Nothing could surpass the desolate grandeur of the coast as we approached the point of Reykjaness. It was of an almost infernal blackness. The whole country seemed uptorn, rifted, shattered, and scattered about in a vast chaos of ruin. Huge cliffs of lava split down to their bases toppled over the surf. Rocks of every conceivable shape, scorched and blasted with fire, wrested from the main and hurled into the sea, battled with the waves, their black scraggy points piercing the mist like giant hands upthrown to smite or sink in a fierce death-struggle. The wild havoc wrought in the conflict of elements was appalling. Birds screamed over the fearful wreck of matter. The surf from the inrolling waves broke against the charred and shattered desert of ruin with a terrific roar. Columns of spray shot up over the blackened fragments of lava, while in every opening the lashed waters, discolored by the collision, seethed and surged as in a huge caldron.”
63. WESTMAN ISLES.

Of the Westman Islands, he says: “Towards noon we made the Westman Isles, a small rocky group some ten miles distant from the main island. A fishing and trading establishment, owned by a company of Danes, is located116 on one of these islands. The Arcturus touches twice a year to deliver and receive a mail. On the occasion of our visit, a boat came out with a hardy-looking crew of Danes to receive the mail-bag. It was doubtless a matter of great rejoicing to them to obtain news from home. I had barely time to make a rough outline of the islands as we lay off the settlement. The chief interest attached to the Westman group is, that it is supposed to have been visited by Columbus in 1477, fifteen years prior to his voyage of discovery to the shores of America.”

The puffin, or the screeching sea-mew, seem the only inhabitants for which nature has fitted the Westmans, and yet they have a history which leads us back to the times when Iceland itself first became known to man.

About 875, a few years after Ingolfr followed his household gods to Reykjavik, a Norwegian pirate, perchance one of the associates of that historical personage, landed on the coast of Ireland, attacked with fire and sword the defenseless population, captured forty or fifty persons, men, women, and children, and carried them off as slaves. The passage must have been any thing but pleasant, for it gave the Hibernians such a foretaste of the wretchedness that awaited them in Iceland, their future abode, that, taking courage from despair, they rose on their captors, threw them overboard, and went ashore on the first land they met with.

A day of rare serenity must have witnessed their arrival on the Westmans, a spot which of all others seemed most unlikely to become their home. Why they remained there, is a secret of the past; most likely they had no other alternative, and freedom on a rock was, at all events, better than slavery under a cruel viking.

Thus these weather-beaten islets were first peopled by men from the west, whence they derive their name, and it is supposed that the present inhabitants are the descendants of those children of Erin. No one will be inclined to envy them the heritage bequeathed to them by their fathers.

The Westmans are fourteen in number; but of these only one, called Heimaey, or Home Island, is inhabited. It is fifteen miles from the coast of Iceland, and forty-five from Hecla. Though larger than all the others put together, its entire surface is not more than ten square miles. It is almost surrounded with high basaltic cliffs, and an otherwise iron-bound shore; its interior is covered with black ashy-looking cones, bearing undoubted evidence of volcanic action; in fact, the harbor, which lies on its north-east side, and is only accessible to small craft, is formed out of an old crater, into which the sea has worn an entrance. The inhabitants are located in two villages; Kaufstathir, on a little grassy knoll near the landing-place, and Ofanleyte, on the grassy platform of the island. Only three of the............