“Here, on the topmost peak of Hekla,” writes Madame Pfeiffer, “I could look down far and wide upon the uninhabited land, the image of a torpid nature, passionless, inanimate, and yet sublime,—­an image which, once seen, can never be forgotten, and the remembrance of which will compensate me amply for all the toils and difficulties I have endured.  A whole world of glaciers, lava-peaks, fields of snow and ice, rivers and miniature lakes, were comprehended in that magnificent prospect; and the foot of man had never yet ventured within these regions of gloom and solitude.  How terrible must have been the resistless fury of the element which has produced all these changes!  And is its rage now silenced for ever?  Will it be satisfied with the ruin it has wrought?  Or does it slumber only to break forth again with renewed strength, and lay waste those few cultivated spots which are scattered so sparingly throughout the land?  I thank God that he has allowed me to see this chaos of his creation; and I doubly thank him that my lot was cast in these fair plains where the sun does more than divide the day from the night; where it warms and animates plant-life and animal-life; where it awakens in the heart of man the deepest feelings of gratitude towards his Maker.”

On her way down our traveller discovered that the snow had not melted for the first five or six hundred feet.  Below that distance the mountain-sides were enveloped in a shroud of vapour.  That glossy, coal-black, shining lava, which is never porous, can be found only at Hekla and in its immediate vicinity; but the other varieties, jagged, porous, and vitrified, are also met with, though they are invariably black, as is the sand which covers the side of the mountain.  As the distance from the volcano increases, the lava loses its jet-black colour, and fades into an iron-gray.

After an absence of twelve hours, Madame Pfeiffer reached Salsun in safety.

Six-and-twenty eruptions of Hekla have been recorded,—­the last having occurred in 1845-46.  One was prolonged for a period of six years, spreading desolation over a country which had formerly been the seat of a prosperous settlement, and burying the cultivated fields beneath a flood of lava, scoriae, and ashes.  During the eruption of 1845-46, three new crater-vents were formed, from which sprang columns of fire and smoke to the height of 14,000 feet.  The lava accumulated in formidable masses, and fragments of scoriae and pumice-stone weighing two hundredweight were thrown to a distance of a league and a half; while the ice and snow which had lain on the mountain for centuries were liquefied, and rolled in devastating torrents over the plains.

Hekla is not the only volcanic mountain of Iceland.  Mounts Leirhnukr and Krabla, in the northeast, are very formidable; and one of the most terrible eruptions recorded in the island annals was that of the Skapta Jokul in 1783.