dramatists than we Americans have of theirs.

There are no bathrooms in the hotels, and I was told that there are not many in private houses. Most Icelanders go to the public baths, maintained by the city, where, for a few cents, you are provided with a towel and soap and plenty of clean, warm water. These baths are open every day, and judging by the numbers of people I saw going there, I should say that Icelanders are as devout lovers of bodily cleanliness as we Americans. But it did not seem to me that they care nearly as much as we do for motion-pictures. went to the cinema several times, as much to see the crowds as anything, but there were no crowds. There was never more than a handful of people in the theater at any time when I was there, but this may have been because it was glorious summer weather and people found it more enjoyable to be out of doors.

I

the open country comes to the very doors of the capital, so to speak. There are no scattered suburbs or houses outside the city itself. A ten-minute walk brings you to the beginning of moorland country which is almost as wild and empty as it was a thousand years ago. And there are no roads in Iceland as we Americans think of roads. There are some motor-cars in Reykjavik but these are mostly for use within the city. In fact there are only two or three roads which are possible for cars beyond the city limits, and then only for a distance of twenty or thirty miles. Nearly all overland travel throughout the country is done on horseback, or rather, on the backs of Iceland ponies, and so most of the roads are nothing but pony trails winding across the moors and along the valleys and over the steep slopes of the mountains.

That was the way I wanted to travel-on horseback, through a country where there were no fences and very few towns or villages. At Reykjavik I

met an English-speaking Icelander who was about to set out on a journey to Akureyri, a town on the north coast, and as I, too, wanted to go there, we arranged to travel together. He had made many of these overland journeys and knew just what we needed in the way of equipment.

The most important part of it, of course, were the ponies. There were five of them, two riding ponies for each of us, and one pack-pony-and beautiful little animals they were! As a matter of fact they were not so little. When one thinks of ponies one usually thinks of Shetland ponies, but those of Iceland are much larger and sturdier. Many of them are almost as large as horses, and ours, which had been grazing all summer and doing no work, were in splendid condition.

the north and the summers are too short and cold to permit the ripening of grain. For this same reason there are almost no vegetables and no fruit at all except what is shipped in. Iceland farms are all grass-land, and the only crop is hay. Summer begins about the middle of June and is over by the end of August. In these two and a half months farmers must grow and safely harvest the hay which is to carry their cattle and ponies and sheep and goats through the long, dark winter. This means hard work and long hours from the moment when the first crop is ready to be cut. Then men and women, and all the children who are old enough to help, are in the hay-fields all day long, and as in June and July there are very few hours of darkness,-in June practically none at all, Iceland farmers often work at their hay-making from fourteen to eighteen hours a day. The hay is cut by hand with scythes and raked by hand, and when it is dry it is bound into great bundles and carried to the barns on the backs of ponies. In all my travels in Iceland I did not for see a mowing-machine or even a horse-drawn hay-rake. The reason for this is principally that the hayfields, owing to the action of frosts and thaws during the winter, are covered with hummocks of earth which would prevent the use of modern haymaking machinery.

Our pack-pony was very lightly loaded, for all that we carried with us was our spare clothing, a suit of oilskins each, and, for myself, a few books, copies of the old Icelandic sagas which I read on the way. Oilskins are necessary for travel in Iceland both winter and summer, much of the time the climate is decidedly wet. This is due largely to the influence of the Gulf Stream which divides around the coast of Iceland and flows northward until it is lost in the polar seas. This warm current makes the Iceland weather misty and rainy a good deal of the year and so greatly modifies the temperature that even on the north coast, in midwinter, it is rarely so cold as it is then at New York or Boston, or Chicago or anywhere in the Middle West.

I found on the first day of our journey that Iceland is even more lonely and empty than I had supposed. Although it is an island about the size of Ireland, it has a population of only ninety-five thousand, and seventeen thousand, as I have said, live in Reykjavik. That leaves but seventy-eight thousand to be scattered over a land with an area of fortyfour thousand square miles. Many of these latter are gathered into villages around the coast, so that those who actually live on the farms are so few in comparison to the size of the land that there seem to be hardly any of them. The interior of Iceland is largely desert country where no one has ever lived and where not even the birds can find food.

But although the farms are so scattered, we always found one where we could put up for the night at the end of our day's journey. They were not farms such as one sees in America. There were no fields of corn or oats or wheat or barley; Iceland is too far to

The farm-houses were of great interest to me, having never before seen any like them. Many of them, particularly those exposed to the winter

winds, are built partly underground, and walled and roofed with turf. The grass grows as luxuriantly on the turf covering the farm-houses as it does in the meadows, and it is a not uncommon sight to see goats or sheep grazing on the roofs. I was often surprised to find how roomy these houses were, indoors, for as you approach them from outside you see little or nothing but a series of low gables with a door or windows in each one. The door in the central gable is usually the main entrance, and from this you go down a short flight of steps into a long, dark passageway. Various chambers lead off from this: rooms for guests, harness-rooms, living-rooms, and family bedrooms, and at the end of it is a spacious kitchen and a dairy-room where is to be found the only piece of modern farm-machinery the Icelanders usea cream separator. Nearly every farmer has one, and the faint drone they make is a familiar sound morning and evening after the cows have been milked. There are other underground passageways as well, leading to the hay-barns and to the stables for the cattle and sheep, so that a farmer has no need to go out of doors to feed his stock in the winter-time.

In the old days Iceland farm-houses were entirely unheated, and this is still the case with many of them. To be sure, there must be a fire in the kitchen for the preparation of food, but often it is not kept going except at times when the food is actually being cooked. The reason for the scarcity of fires is the scarcity of fuel. There is no coal in Iceland, and what wood is used must be brought in from Norway or England. But those Icelanders living far from the coasts must depend for fuel on peat or dried sheep's dung, and in sections where peat is scarce, many of the people do very largely without fires for heating purposes. But they are a naturally hardy race and will sit without discomfort in their shirt-sleeves, in unheated rooms where their breath comes out in clouds of steam.

My first overland journey, from Reykjavik to Akureyri, gave me an interesting glimpse into Icelandic home life; but it was only a glimpse which made me wish to see more of it. I at first supposed that it would be impossible to do much traveling in the winter-time, but I soon learned that this was not the case. All through the winter I was perpetually on the move. Sometimes I traveled by steamer around the coast, but for the most part I made overland journeys with the postmen who carry the mails each month from one part of (Continued on page 408)

ISTEN! What was that?

LIST

The game-warden held his breath. There it was again, faintly, off to the right.

Yip-yap-yi-yi-yap!

A puzzled frown wrinkled the warden's brow. That cry was a new one to him. He listened to it once more. Part of it was familiar; it sounded like a hurt dog-a puppy. Yet there was also a fox-like bark to it.

The warden was not one to waste time in idle surmising. He hastened cautiously in the general direction of the cry. As he drew near to the sound, he went more carefully until suddenly he stopped-amazed. His gun flew to his shoulder, only to be slowly lowered. He wanted to shoot, but was afraid to. He wanted to rush forward to aid, but more than that, he wanted to watch the strange spectacle before him. In all his days he had never seen anything like it.

It was the beginning of the feud! An hour later the warden was tenderly bathing a mangled hind foot of what had been, earlier in the day, a beautiful setter puppy. Now it was dirty, cut, and bleeding, with one toe missing.

Sitting on the wood-box near the kitchen stove was his farmer friend, to whose house the warden had hurried with the dog. Beside the farmer

sat his son Tom, a strongly built boy of fifteen, who watched anxiously while the warden cared for the injured dog.

With a nod toward the next room, the farmer told what he knew of the little setter. Those city fellers in there owned him. He was a thurrybred with registered papers and sich things. Must be 'bout a year old. They brought him up from the city last night, 'n after shet'n' him in the barn, they had clean forgot 'im; his son Tom, thar, had to feed 'im hisself. Pup must a' got out someways, in the night. He was 'bout through boardin' these here city hunters!

It was easy for the warden to imagine the remainder of the story. When about eight weeks old, the pup had been shipped from his well-kept kennel to spend the rest of his life shut up in a room in the city. Occasionally he would be given a week or so in the open-then back to his prison again. It was a shame, a life like that for a dog bred to the open.

night. What a big place it was! There was room to run and there were things to chase. He was free!

For the next hour or so the pup wandered about, going from this to that, finally working his way out of the farmyard and across the fields to the brush on the hillside. Several times he scented game; now a woodcock, then a hillside grouse. Each time the young setter came to point, somewhat clumsily, but with a spirit and instinct that showed he had the making of a real bird-dog.

The hours passed, the pup wandering up into the mountains, until afternoon found him virtually lost on top of Gate Hill, a couple of miles from the farm. He wasn't thirsty though, for there are plenty of springs and streams on these mountains, but he was hungry. He hadn't thought of it until he caught scent of some meat near the base of a tree. Sniffing eagerly, he pawed around in the leaves and there it was. Snap!

Strong, cruel jaws clamped on his right hind foot! He sprang into the air with a terrified howl and was jerked sprawling. He was trapped!