National Geographic Society This peasant girl, hedged about by snowclad mountains, comes in contact with the outside world through hosts of tourists who frequent the lovely Cogne valley on walking tours from Aosta. PIETY HAS DECORATED THE WALLS OF HER ALPINE CHAPEL Before the World War divided Tyrol and gave its southern half to Italy, this mountain-rimmed city was Meran. Until Innsbruck superseded it, in 1420, the town was the capital of Tyrol, and its environs are studded with the romantic ruins of medieval castles. The path leads up to Castle Tyrol on the outskirts of Merano (see Color Plate XXII), a famous medieval fortress-dwelling. Many of the castle's legends are associated with Margaret of Tyrol, one of history's ablest but most unsightly heroines." National Geographic Society SHE BIDS YOU HAIL AND FAREWELL TO ITALY National Geographic Society Autochrome by Hans Hildenbrand The charming peasant apron and head scarf which heighten the attractiveness of the young woman of the mountains are familiar to visitors in the vale of Gressoney (see also Color Plate XX). Ο I BY ISOBEL WYLIE HUTCHISON NA blustering day of October I stood swaying in a gale high upon stood swaying in a gale high upon the white lighthouse at the Butt of Lewis, Outer Hebrides Islands, and, gazing northward, saw only the piled billows of the green Atlantic. Yet there, 600 miles beyond the mists, lay Iceland, the last outpost of Europe, an island larger than Ireland, whose Culdean hermits, landing upon some rocky islets still bearing their name-Vestmannaeyjar, or Westman Islands-within sight of the snowy peaks of Hekla, more than a thousand years ago, had first carried the torch of Christ to this lonely wilderness of fire and frost and emerald pasture. For Iceland has been wrongly named, as I heard traveler remark, gazing across the vivid swards of Fellsmuli (see illustration, page 472) to the black lava slopes of Hekla. "This island," he said, "should have been called Greenland, and Greenland Iceland." To the Hebridean it seems as if it might form but the last bead in the emerald chain of lovely islands which girds the northwestern seaboard of Scotland (see map, page 470). From that windy moment there awak ened in me the determination to visit this far-off island; but when I mentioned the subject some months later to a clerk in an Edinburgh shipping office, you might have thought the place had never been heard of, far less visited by his own ancestors 1,000 years ago. "Iceland!" he stammered, a kind of startled, frozen look coming into his face at the mention of the word. "Sailings to Iceland! I am afraid we have no particulars." He conferred with another youth. BOUND FOR "IC-A-LAND" At the whisper of the word "Iceland" I saw a grin spread immediately over this fellow's countenance; he turned round to examine me with interest, but could give no very satisfactory information as to how to reach the land of my desire, for the steamers which leave Leith for Reykjavik fortnightly in summer come from Copenhagen and are crowded with Danes. Strangely enough, despite this easy opportunity, Iceland is still to the Britisher practically an unknown land, and when I tried to obtain a road map of the country I was told that such a thing did not exist, as there are no roads. It may be imagined how all this fired. my desire to visit Iceland, and to explore her afoot, and the end of it was that on a calm July night I wriggled backward through the labyrinth of Leith docks aboard the Danish steamer Island, and heard with a thrill, surely as keen as that which pierced the Celts of old when they set out upon their lonely adventure into the far north in the 9th century, the hail of the watchman in his red-lighted tower at the harbor mouth, "Where bound?" And the answer from our bows, falling clear across the black water in precise foreign English, "Ic-a-land," with the comfortable reply, "Iceland-right!" The adventure was afoot! Another dream was coming true, as they always will if we have faith enough. II "What! Walking to Akureyri? Walking! Then all I can say is, God save you!" With this parting blessing from an Icelandic gentleman whom I had encountered on the summit of Hekla ringing in my ears, I set out from Reykjavik one bright August morning on my journey of 260 miles to Akureyri, in the far north, where I intended to pick up the boat for home in a fortnight's time and accomplish my design of a walking tour in Iceland. I had already been nearly a month in the country; had sailed in the Island to the west and north coast to Akureyri and back again, visiting the herring fishing stations at Isafjördur and Siglufjördur (see pages 500 and 502); had taken a motorcar to the great plain of Thingvellir (see page 469) and gazed upon the Logberg, where Snorri the priest a thousand years ago appealed to the chiefs to give up their pagan gods and worship the White Christ. There came one running then with news of a tide of burning lava and the anger of |