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THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
Here is one more letter dated June 27th, or part of it, which
well exemplifi es Lang’s habit of depreciating his own work:
I have been turning over “The World’s Desire,” and the
more I turn the more I dislike the idea of serial publication.
It is emphatically a book for educated people only, and
would lower your vogue with newspaper readers if it were
syndicated, to an extent beyond what the price the papers
pay would make up for. I am about as sure as possible of
this: it is a good deal my confounded style, which is more
or less pretty, but infernally slow and trailing.
Ultimately “The World’s Desire” was published serially in
the New Review. It appeared in book form in 1890, and I hope
to speak of it again when I come to that date.
331
CHAPTER 12
ICELAND
On June 14, 1888, in the company of a friend, Mr. A. G.
Ross, I sailed from Leith on my long contemplated visit to Iceland. The steamer was called the Copeland, a trading vessel of
about 1000 tons. What she carried on our outward voyages I
do not know, but her return cargoes consisted alternately of
emigrants to America, of whom, if I remember right, four or
fi ve hundred were packed in her hold, and of Iceland ponies.
On her last voyage she had brought emigrants, so this time it
was to be the turn of the ponies. Poor Copeland! As I shall tell
in due course, she was doomed never to see Leith again.
Before I started for Iceland I called upon the late Mr. William Morris, some of whose poetry I admire as much as any
that has been written in our time. Also I fi nd his archaic and
other-world kind of romances very pleasant and restful to
read. It was the only time that I ever saw Morris, and the visit
made an impression on me. My recollection is of a fair-haired
man with a large head and very pleasant manners. As will be
remembered, he was a great Socialist and lived up to it – to a
certain extent. Thus there was no cloth on the tea-table, but
that table itself was one of the most beautiful bits of old oak
furniture that I ever saw. The cups, I think, had no saucers
to them, but certainly they were very fi ne china. No servant
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THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
came into the room, but then ladies, most artistically arrayed,
handed the bread and butter. The walls were severely plain,
but on them hung priceless tapestries and pictures by Rosetti
and others. I remember that when I departed I rather wished
that Fate had made me a Socialist also.
Mr. Morris, who had visited Iceland many years before,
kindly gave me some letters of introduction, and as a result of
one of these we engaged a certain Thorgrimmer Gudmunson
as a guide. In winter time Mr. Gudmunson was a schoolmaster, but in summer he escorted travellers about the island, and
did so very satisfactorily. Two days later Gudmunson appeared
with a cortege of thin, shaggy ponies, which were to carry us
and our belongings. Here I will quote a home letter, written in
pencil, from Thingvellir.
We rode about ten hours to get here, over such a country,
desolate, dreary, set round with mountains fl ecked with snow.
At last, about ten o’clock at night, we came to Thingvellir Lake,
and then passed down All Man’s Drift to this most historic
spot. I only wish you were familiar with the Njal Saga, for then
you would understand the interest, the more than interest,
with which I look upon it. Every sod, every rock, every square
foot of Axe River, is eloquent of the deeds and deaths of great
men. Where are they all now? The raven croaks over where
they were, the whimbrel’s wild note echoes against the mountains, and that is the only answer given.
We have slept in a couple of rooms attached to the Parsonage. Our bedroom window opens on to the Three Man’s
Graveyard. They still bury in it. To-night we are going to sleep
in a church, and beastly cold it will be I expect. This is an in-
333
H. RIDER HAGGARD
teresting but God-forgotten country. How the dickens its inhabitants keep life and soul together is a mystery to me, for
there is scarcely anything to eat in it and their houses are the
merest wooden shanties, ill-fi tted to keep out the cold, which
even now is intense at night. We hope to get back to Rejkjavik
in about eleven days, having visited Hecla, the Geysers, Njal’s
country, etc. Then we are going to a farm where we have taken
some salmon fi shing for three weeks. We hope to return by the
boat leaving the 3rd of August, so if all goes well I count to be
home about the 10th.
Here is a brief description from my diary of the Golden
Falls, which served me as a model for those down which Eric
comes in my saga.
Reached Golden Falls at 12:30. A most splendid sight. The
yellow river, after tumbling down a cliff, bends a little to the
right and leaps in two mighty waterfalls, across which a rainbow streams, into a chasm a hundred feet deep, leaving a bare
space of cliff between. From the deep of this chasm the spray
boils up like steam, a glorious thing to see.... Passed Three Cor-
ner Ridge where Gunnar was attacked, and suddenly came on
a very fi ne view of the Njal country, a fl at and fertile expanse
of land stretching away as far as the eye can reach. Nothing
to eat since breakfast. Spent comfortable night at the priest’s
house. Had arctic tern’s eggs and “skier” for breakfast. Then
sent pack ponies to Bergthors Knoll and rode to Lithend. I am
writing this on the site of Gunnar’s hall, which I can distinctly
trace. The hall looked out over the great Markallfl ajot plain,
now nothing but a waste eaten up of the waters. To the north
is a large glacier-mountain – the hall was built on the side of
334
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
a hill – and to the left of the house is the fi ssure into which
the dog Sam was decoyed and killed. The lark now sings over
where Gunnar fought and fell, betrayed by Hallgerda.
7 P.M.: Bergthorsknoll. Arrived here after a long ride over
a desolate grassy fl at. The site of Njal’s hall is now for the most
part covered with hovels. It faces sou’west, partly on to the
plain and partly on to a river. To the left of the house is the
hollow where the burners tied up their horses as described in
the saga. In front appears the fi erce outline of the Westman
Islands.
29th: Dug last night and found various relics of the burning. The fl oor of the hall seems to have been sprinkled with
black sand (see the saga), but we had not the luck of the American who, when he dug, discovered a gold ring.
On the whole we enjoyed our fi shing very much, and I killed
a good number of salmon, though, because of the drought, not
so many as I ought to have done. Also there were multitudes
of trout. The trout stream ran out of a gloomy lake surrounded
by high mountains. The Icelanders vowed that there were no
trout in this lake. However we procured an old boat so leaky
that we could only row a little way from land and back again
before she fi lled. Ross, who had been an oar at College, rowed,
while I managed the two trolling rods. Before we had gone a
few yards they were both of them bent almost double. Never
before or since did I have such fi shing. To what size the trout
ran in that lake I had no idea, for the biggest ones invariably
tore the hooks off the Phantoms and brass “devils,” or smashed
the tackle, but we caught many up to about four pounds in
weight. Indeed, the sport was so easy that one grew weary of it.
335
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Very charming it was also to stand alone in the blue light at
midnight by the banks, or in the water of the wide and brawling salmon river, casting for and sometimes hooking the king
of fi sh. Never shall I forget the impression it produced upon
me. The mighty black mountains, the solitude, the song of the
river, and the whistling fl ight of the wild duck – by which the
silence alone was broken – and, over all, that low unearthly
light just strong enough to show my fl y upon the water and
the boiling rises of the salmon. It is an experience which I am
glad to have known.
At Rejkjavik, for some reason that I have forgotten, we
caught not the Danish mail steamer as we had expected, but
our old friend the Copeland, now laden with hundreds of ponies, among them that named Hecla, which I had bought near
the volcano, and I think another which I had also bought. We
went aboard the night of the 19th with General Bevan–Edwards and some other passengers, and I recall observing with
some anxiety the ship’s agent as he rowed round the bows of
the vessel, apparently inspecting her draught – also with some
anxiety.
I imagine that she had too many ponies in her holds. However, off we steamed, and soon the coast of Iceland vanished
behind us. It is a country to which I was very sorry to bid farewell, though I think one only to be appreciated (if we leave
fi shermen out of the question) by those who have made a
study of the sagas. I know not what may now be the case, but at
that time these were few indeed. I believe that the enterprising
American who found, or was said to have found, a gold ring
amid the ashes of Njal’s hall, was the only foreigner who had
336
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
journeyed to that spot for some years before my visit. I wonder
how many have been there since that time, and whether proper precautions are taken today in order to preserve these most
interesting historical relics of an unique and bygone age.
This is not the place to enter into the subject, so I will only
say that outside of the Bible and Homer there exists, perhaps,
no literature more truly interesting than that of the Icelandic
sagas. Also they have this merit: in the main they are records of
actual facts. Holding them in hand I have examined the places
that they describe, and therefore to this I can testify. Those
men and women lived; they did the things that are recorded, or most of them, and for the reasons that remain to us. Of
course certain circumstances have been added, namely those
which deal with the supernatural.
The entries in my diary for the fi rst fi ve days of that disastrous voyage are brief and emphatic.
20th: At sea. Bad weather. 21st: Gale. 22nd: Worse gale. 23rd:
Worse gale still. Lay to. 24th: Tried to go about four o’clock.
Strained the ship so much that we had to lay to again.
Indeed, with a single exception, that of a voyage I made
many years later in the P. & O. Macedonia, the weather was the
most terrible that I have ever experienced at sea. Moreover, in
our small vessel there is no doubt that we were in some peril
of foundering. The terrifi c seas swept her continually, and, in
order to keep the hundreds of ponies alive. it was necessary
that the hatches should remain open, since otherwise they
would have been stifl ed. Had any accident occurred to bring
the ship broadside on, such as the breaking of the steering
gear, it would seem that we must have fi lled and sunk at once.
337
H. RIDER HAGGARD
As it was we were greatly knocked about, and a good many of
the poor ponies died from the cold of the water that washed
over them.
At last the weather moderated, and about ten A.M. on the
25th we arrived off Thurso in a dead calm. Here we should
have stayed because of the fog, but this the captain could not
do, as owing to the prolongation of the voyage the ponies were
starving. So he took the risk and pushed on. About 11:30 I
was on deck, when suddenly the dense mist seemed to roll up
in front of us, like the drop-scene at a theatre, and there appeared immediately ahead black cliffs and all about us rocks
on which the breakers broke and the water boiled, as it can do
after a great gale in the Pentland Firth when the tide is running I know not how many knots an hour. There was a cry:
the engines were reversed, but the current and that terrible
tide caught the Copeland and dragged her forward. Then came
the sickening sensation that will be familiar to anyone who
has been aboard a vessel when she struck upon rocks. Scrape,
quiver! – scrape, quiver! and we were fast. Or rather our forepart was fast, for the stern still fl oated in deep water.
Almost immediately the fi remen rushed up from the engine-room, which had begun to fl ood, though I suppose that
the water did not reach the boilers at fi rst or they would have
exploded.
Orders were given to get out the boats, and it was attempted with the strangest results. My belief is that those boats had
never been in the water since the day the ship was built. Some
of them went down by the stern with their bows hanging in
the air; some of them went down by the bows with their stern
338
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
hanging in the air, or would not move. Also in certain instances the plugs could not be found. Not one of them was got into
the water: at any rate at that time.
Understanding that the position was serious I went to my
cabin, packed what things I could, then called the steward and
made him bring me a bottle of beer, as I did not know when I
should get another. He, such is the force of habit, wanted me
to sign a chit for the same, but I declined. Whilst I was drinking the beer I felt the vessel slip back several feet; it was a most
unpleasant sensation, one moreover that suggested to me that
I might be better on deck. Thither I went, to fi nd my fellow
passengers gathered in an anxious group staring at each other.
Presently I observed a large boat appear from the island and
lie to at a good distance from the ship, which she did not seem
to dare to approach because of the surrounding rocks.
We consulted. It was evident that we should never get off
in our own boats, so this one from the island seemed our only
chance. I went to the captain on the bridge and asked if we
might hail it.
“Aye, Mr. Haggard,” answered the distracted man, “do any-
thing you can to save your lives.”
Then I understood how imminent was our peril. I returned
and hailed.
“Can you take us off?”
My voice being very powerful I managed to make the boatmen hear me. They shouted back that they dared not approach
the ship.
“Have a try,” I suggested, and in the end those brave fellows did try and succeeded, knowing the tide and the current
339
H. RIDER HAGGARD
and where each rock was hidden beneath the surface. They got
aboard us, somewhere forward, or one of them did. Presently
he came running aft, a big blue-eyed man whose great beard
seemed to bristle with terror.
“For God’s sake get out of this,” he roared in his strange
dialect, “ye’ve fi ve feet of water in your hold and sixty fathom
under your stern! Ye’ll slip off the rock and sink!”
We did not need a second invitation, but when we were
all, or almost all of us in the boat, it was suddenly remembered
that an Icelandic woman occupied one of the cabins. She had
entered that cabin at Rejkjavik, and never having been seen
since, was not unnaturally overlooked. Well, she was fetched,
and came quite composed and smiling down the ladder. The
poor soul was not in the least aware that anything out of the
way had happened and imagined that this was the proper way
to leave the ship.
Then came another anxious time, for the question was
whether we could avoid a certain rock over which the surf was
boiling. Providentially those skilled men did avoid it, and soon
we stood upon the rocky shores of Stroma, which personally
I thought a very pleasant place. Had we overset there was no
chance that we could have lived a minute in that racing, seething tide.
By this time people on the island had seen what was happening and were running towards us. The fi rst to arrive was
a gentleman in a rusty black coat and a tall hat, a schoolmaster I believe. Somehow he had learned my identity, or perhaps
he recognised me from a photograph. At any rate he came up,
bowed politely, took off the tall hat with a fl ourish, and said, in
340
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