and dangerous for the human race, especially in the summer season, is a fact that speaks for itself.

It is necessary for me here to remark, that the disorder principally attacked those who had previously suffered from want and hunger, and who had protracted a miserable existence by eating the flesh of such animals (not even excepting horses) as had died of the same distemper *, and by having recourse to boiled skins and other most unwholesome and indigestible food. From respect to my readers I forbear to enumerate a variety of other things, which, as articles of food, were in an equal or greater degree nauseous and disgusting, and which, were. I to detail them, would serve to show what shocking expedients the extreme cravings of appetite will drive men to have recourse to, and how that it is possible to convert almost every thing to food.

* I have been assured, in the district of Skaptefield, that the flesh and milk of sick animals had a remarkably unpleasant taste, and that, in particular, the milk was of an unusually dark and yellow color.

Some of the inhabitants, during the whole course of the winter, had not the least morsel of any kind of fresh or wholesome victuals, nor were they able to procure any other beverage than the water, which had been corrupted by the mixture of ashes and sulphur-dust. It was not all, however, even in this case, who died, but some recovered after having, in the course of the following summer, had a fresh supply of cows, and some provisions conveyed to them from the sea-coast, and after the pastures once more afforded them their wonted supply, being again covered with good grass and herbage, among which last were the various kinds of sorrel (Rumex Acetosa and other species) and the dandelion (Leontodon Taraxacum), of which the natives made spoon-meat.

In my endeavors to ascertain the nature and origin of this distemper, I have not relied solely on my own judgment, but have solicited information on the subject from my valuable friend, our learned Professor, Kratzenstein, who deduces it from the same causes, and classes it with the

same disorders, as Professor Callisen, to whose goodness I am indebted for the following remarks:

"The epidemic distemper, which broke out in Iceland in the vicinity of the volcanic eruption, appears to me, from all its attendant symptoms, to be entirely of a scorbutic and putrid nature, and exactly corresponding with the appearances which I have observed to accompany the highest degree of scurvy in cold climates. It undoubtedly owes its origin to bad provisions and water, and to the deprivations to which the unhappy inhabitants of the district were subjected. It is therefore most natural to suppose, and experience confirm the supposition, that no other remedy or relief could be found for these wretched people but a meliorated diet of fresh vegetables and fresh animal food."

General con

§ XXXIV.

The volcanic eruption having sequences. thus been productive of devastation and sickness, both among man and beast, a great famine and unexampled mi

sery throughout the country, naturally ensued. The peasant, who, with the loss of his cattle, was likewise deprived of his sole means of subsistence, and of the best and most valuable part of his property, had nothing else (after having eaten the animals that died by famine and sickness) wherewith to satisfy the painful cravings of hunger, but skins and old hides, which he then boiled and devoured. Many, driven to the last extremity, have killed the few healthy cattle and sheep that still remained, and afterwards, when these were consumed, wandered with their whole families down to the sea-side, where they have become an intolerable burthen and source of impoverishment to the inhabitants of the coast. the same time, too, that the uplands are become desolate, the condition of the inhabitant of the coasts is so much the more pitiable; as he can no longer continue his laborious toil through storms and frosts, with vigor and energy, unable as he is, to obtain the smallest quantity of butter or other strengthening articles of food to add to his present wretched fare; and being reduced to water, too, as his only drink; since whey,

At

which was his usual beverage, is denied him. All this, as is known by long and sad experience in Iceland, renders the fishermen weak and disspirited, and unfits them for their ordinary occupations: thus, each hanging on each, the misery that began with one runs through all. The want of skins for sea-clothing will likewise for some years be a great obstacle to the carrying on of the fisheries with advantage; for although, since the mortality among the cattle, there is so great a quantity of hides in the country that they are considered as scarcely of any value, yet it is a wellknown fact that those of animals which have died of hunger are in general unfit for use, and these, therefore, will neither answer the purpose of making coats or even of being manufactured into the shoes in use in the country.

The loss of the horned cattle and sheep was very severely felt by the Icelanders, but that of the horses was equally so, especially by the inhabitauts of the interior of the country, who thus found themselves de