The museum has been much enlarged, and is now located in the House of Parliament.
There is a new hospital, and very good public washing sheds have been erected for the town at the hot springs about a mile distant.
There are now several shops, perhaps a dozen, and among them an excellent sporting outfitters, where English cartridges and salmon flies can be procured.
Most of the pony track from Meijkjavik to Akureyri has been marked by stone cairns which show black against the winter's snow; and as there is now a post for nine months of the year (the boats running occasionally in the winter), letters are carried on horseback across from the capital to Akureyri every four weeks.
The "Camöens" runs no longer, but the Danish boats stop at Leith once a fortnight (excepting during January, February, and March, when the island is ice-bound), and after calling at three places in the Faroës and at Westmann Islands (weather permitting) go straight to Reykjavik.
The road from the capital to the Geysers is as rough as ever, but at Thingvalla Parsonage two or three little cabin bed-rooms have been put up, beds being very preferable to the floor in the opinion of weary travellers.
Tents are still necessary at the Geysers, although a two-roomed shed is in process of erection for the accommodation of visitors.
The Stroker Geyser, which stopped for some time, is now working again, and is kept covered with a little lattice wood lid.
Mr. Jeaffreson told me that at Yellowstone Park, in America, visitors are carefully watched to see that they do not make the geysers work artificially by means of soap. (Hardly explicable in such small quantities by chemistry or physics.) Remembering this experience the last time he went to Iceland, he packed some 2lb. bars of common soap among his luggage.
"When I got to the Geysers," he continued, "the dirty old Icelander guarding them asked me for 5 kroner to make the Stroker play. When I refused his request he became most abusive, but, seeing I was inexorable, finally went away, declaring the geyser would never play unless I paid him, and I declaring as emphatically that it would, and directly too.
"As soon as he was at a safe distance I looked up my bars of soap, and dropping a couple of them under the lid, awaited the result. Very shortly a hiss and a groan were heard, and up went the boiling water, sending the wooden grating into the air.
"Back rushed the dirty man, not knowing whether to abuse or worship me as a worker of miracles. He was profoundly impressed, and finally declared he had never seen Stroker play so well before, but – 'Was it the Devil who had worked the game?'
"I had not enough soap left to try the big geyser, so waited a couple of days to see it play. Fortunately it did so in the end."
If the story of Stroker spread, which it is sure to do in such a very superstitious country, Mr. Jeaffreson will be regarded with a certain amount of awe when he starts on his ski (snow-shoes) expedition next winter.
Although his proposed trip is somewhat dangerous, I hope he may return as happily as Dr. Nansen did from Greenland, and extract as much pleasure out of his skilöbning as we contrived to do by visiting Norway when that glorious land was covered with snow and bound by ice.
When I pen these last lines, on July 12, 1894, I have just returned from seeing Frederick Jackson and his gallant followers steam away down Thames in their quest of the North Pole. A party of friends and several leading Arctic explorers assembled at Cannon-street Station this morning to see the English Polar Expedition off. Five minutes before the train left, Frederick Jackson, who having discarded the frock coat and top hat which had earned for him the reputation of "resembling a smart guardsman with handsome bronzed features," appeared upon the scene with his favourite brother. To-day the leader of the expedition looked like an English yachtsman in blue serge; but he did not personally provoke so much comment as his luggage. All the heavy things were already on board the "Windward," anchored off Greenhithe. When the hero of the hour arrived, a large Inverness cape on his arm, carrying a bundle of fur rugs, his only article of luggage was a large tin bath!
"A bath," we cried.
"Yes," he laughingly replied, "I've had a small bath-room built on the ship, and when we get into our winter quarters on Bell Island I shall use my 'baby's bath.' I can rough it, and I have roughed it for years, but there is one thing I can't go without – a good tub."
What a true Englishman!
Frederick Jackson was in the best of spirits, and never gave way for a moment, although those many, many good-byes exchanged with intimate friends must have been a sore trial. In spite of his tremendous self-control, he is strangely tenderhearted and affectionate by nature.
When we reached Greenhithe it was raining; but the boats from the "Worcester," manned by smart lads, were waiting for us, and with hard pulling – for the tide was running fast – we were all soon clambering up a rope ladder to the "Windward's" decks. There was not much room. Food at full rations (6½ lb. per man per diem) for eight men for four years fills a good space, and five or six tons of cod liver oil biscuits for the dogs, twelve tons of compressed hay for the ponies, sledges, tents, boats, clothing, &c., was more than the hold could accommodate, and some of the things strewed the deck.
There was considerable fun getting the shaggy black retrievers on board, for they could not walk up a rope ladder, and were almost too big to carry.
Just as we were all leaving to go on board the "Worcester" and watch the final start, it was discovered that one of the picked eight of the land party had never turned up!
Had he lost heart, or made a mistake as to the time of departure?
Great was the consternation, and eagerly all eyes were turned to the shore; but still he came not. As it afterwards transpired, he had missed his train; and, far from his courage having failed at the last moment, so eager was he to be off, he travelled on to Gravesend, where, thanks to the courtesy of an official of high rank, he was put on board a gunboat, and raced down the Thames, just managing to get alongside the Arctic ship before it was too late.
From H.M.S. "Worcester" we watched the anchor weighed, and as the boys manned the rigging of the two training ships, they sent up a tremendous roar of cheers. Flags were flying on every side, for several yachts had come to see the start. "God Save the Queen" sounded across the water from the land, and the sun came out and shone brightly as the stout whaler "Windward" steamed away with her party of Polar explorers in the best of spirits.
A couple of months hence they will be settling down in their winter quarters in Franz Josef Land, there to wait through the Arctic darkness for the return of the sun, when they will push on towards the North Pole, leaving a chain of depôts behind them.
Everyone must wish them "God speed."
They may meet Dr. Nansen, and Mr. Jackson was immensely amused when I handed him a letter for my good friend – addressed
Kindly favoured by F. G. Jackson.
How strange it will be if these two adventurous men really meet and shake hands beneath the Polar star! May good fortune attend them, and their enthusiasm be rewarded.
London, 12th July, 1894.
CHAPTER I.
OUR START
As the London season, with its thousand and one engagements, that one tries to cram into the shortest possible time, draws to a close, the question uppermost in every one's mind is, 'Where shall we go this autumn?' And a list of places well trodden by tourists pass through the brain in rapid succession, each in turn rejected as too far, too near, too well known, or not embracing a sufficient change of scene.
Switzerland? Every one goes to Switzerland: that is no rest, for one meets half London there. Germany? The same answer occurs, and so on ad infinitum.
'Suppose we make up a party and visit Iceland?' was suggested by me to one of my friends on a hot July day as we sat chatting together discussing this weighty question, fanning ourselves meanwhile under a temperature