The worst feature of our night’s lodging was the absence of water, so I ordered the waterproof coats to be spread out to catch rain for our use in the morning.
It was 1.30 A.M. before we all turned in for the night. Sand is warm to camp upon, but it gets into everything, and when one is wet it sticks to clothes, &c., in a most objectionable manner. By six A.M. we were all awake, sufficient water had collected for immediate use, and we were soon all under weigh over the lava, which in most places flowed very evenly, and being of a more compact character than that which was close to the volcanoes we had just left, had allowed little pools of rain water to collect upon the surface. We marched for four hours, and then struck a large river upon our east. This was the Jökulsá-á-fjöllum. After following its course for some time, we decided to “cache” everything but the remainder of our provisions, our maps, and my diary, for it was my intention to return with horses to the Dyngjufjöll mountains which now lay to our N.W., when I could recover them without much difficulty. Having carefully made our “cache,” we planted a flag-pole upon an adjacent sandbank, and having carefully taken its bearings, struck for the Vaðalda hills, which were not very far distant. These hills run for some nine miles parallel with the course of the Jökulsá; their base being washed by the Svartá, or Black river, which rises in the Dyngjufjöll, but is soon lost in the sand, re-appearing on the Svartá at the commencement of the Vaðalda. Upon the opposite side of this river we found a root of angelica (Icelandic, _hvönn_), the stem and root of which we shared and ate with great relish; we also saw two white sheep, but how they manage to eke out an existence must have puzzled their sheeps’ heads not a little. Though, proverbially, two heads are better than one, I doubt if the proverb would hold good in their case, but there may be some grass in glens which I have not seen in the Ódáðahraun, where enough herbage may grow to feed Icelandic sheep, as they are not very dainty, and are accustomed to short commons.
The Vaðalda hills, although of no great height, command an extensive view towards the Vatna Jökull, and upon reaching their summit I glanced back over the plain. It was one broad wilderness of black sand and lava, girt about with ridges of volcanic mountains, whose numerous cones and chasms have vomited the immense amount of ash, sand and lava with which the surrounding country is covered. In the centre of the plain rose the little volcanoes by which we had encamped the previous night, grimly and perkily protruding, as if they aped their monster brethren around them. Beyond all was the wide, white expanse of the Vatna Jökull, from which a huge tongue of glacier extended more than half way across the plain; from its extremity commenced the river we had been following (the Jökulsá-á-fjöllum), which stretched through the black bare plain sometimes in many arms, enclosing little islands of black sand and pebbles in its sinuous embrace, then surging along through a single deep channel it had worn for itself in the sand, where the unstable banks, even while we gazed on them, were crumbling and falling in, patch after patch of sand rendering still more murky its already discoloured waters.