We have now completed our summary of Madame Pfeiffer’s Icelandic excursions.  From the country we may pass to its inhabitants, and ascertain the deliberate opinion she had formed of them after an experience extending over several weeks, and under conditions which enabled so shrewd an observer as she was to judge them impartially.  Her estimate of their character is decidedly less favourable than that of her predecessors; but it is to be noted that in almost every particular it is confirmed by the latest authority, Captain Burton.  And the evidence goes to show that they are not the simple, generous, primitive, guileless Arcadians which it had pleased some fanciful minds to portray.

Their principal occupation consists in the fisheries, which are pursued with the greatest activity during the months of February, March, and April.  The people from the interior then stream into the different harbours, and bargain with the coast-population, the fishermen proper, to help them for a share of the profits.  On the other hand, in July and August many of the coast-population penetrate inland, and lend their services in the hay-harvest, for which they are paid in butter, wool, and salted lamb.  Others resort to the mountains in search of Iceland moss, which they mix with milk, and use as an article of food; or grind it into meal, and make cakes with it, as a substitute for bread.  The labours of the women consist in preparing the fish for drying, smoking, or salting; in tending the cattle, in knitting, and gathering moss.  During the winter season both men and women knit uninterruptedly.

Madame Pfeiffer thinks their hospitality has been overrated, and gives them credit for the ability to make a good bargain.  In fact, she saw nothing of that disinterestedness which Dr. Henderson and other travellers have ascribed to them.  They are intolerably addicted to brandy-drinking,—­indeed, their circumstances would greatly improve if they drank less and worked more.  They are scarcely less passionately addicted to snuff-taking, as well as to tobacco-chewing.  Their mode of taking snuff is peculiar, and certainly not one to be imitated.  Most of the peasants, and even many of the priests, have no snuff-boxes, but make use instead of a piece of bone, turned in the shape of a little powder-horn.  When desirous of indulging in a little titillation, they throw back their heads, and putting the point of the horn to their nostril, empty in the snuff.  So little fastidious are these devotees, that they frequently pass on a horn from nose to nose, without the needless formality of cleaning it.  The mention of this practice leads Madame Pfeiffer to comment very severely on the want of cleanliness among the Icelanders, who are as dirty in their houses as in their persons.