CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ordinarily, it would have been dark by six o'clock in the evening. In Iceland, however, the sun never sets in June and July, there is always daylight, although, the temperature was much colder than during the day. I was cold and hungry, so I was glad to see a villager welcome us into his home.

It was a peasant's house, and he was eager to greet us. We followed him into the cottage, and saw there were four rooms, the kitchen, the workroom, the family bedroom, and the guestroom, the best room of all. I was quite disturbed with the strong smell of dried fish and sour milk that filled the house.

The host called us into the kitchen, and greeted us with the words Saellvertu, which means, "Be happy," and kissed us on the cheek. His wife greeted us in the same manner.

We soon discovered that they had nineteen children, all of whom had just entered the small kitchen. Soon enough, all twenty-four of us sat down at the table, many of the children sitting on our laps.

When the soup arrived, however, the room was silent. We ate mushroom soup, then a great amount of dried fish with rotten butter, then had soured milk and bread. After dinner, the children ran off, and the hostess offered to take off our socks and pants, as was tradition for the hostess to do, but we politely declined.

At five o'clock the next morning, we said goodbye to the Icelandic peasants and continued on our journey, after my uncle had insisted to pay the peasant for allowing us to stay in his home.

We went deeper into the wilderness. Sometimes, however, we saw a human running away from us. I was shocked to see them hairless with sores on their bodies. Hans would greet them as they ran away with, "Saellvertu," before turning to my uncle to say, "Spetelsk."

My uncle would then translate for me: "A leper." Leprosy was a terrible disease, which was, unfortunately, common in Iceland. These poor humans were forbidden to marry.

We were going through the wilderness of Iceland quite quickly. On Saturday, June 20, at six o'clock in the evening, we reached a village where Hans' relatives lived. He asked for his wages. My uncle paid him. I hoped to stay for a short time to recover from our long journey, but my uncle insisted we leave early the next morning, as he felt nothing but eagerness and excitement for the adventure.

After walking for four hours, we could see Sneffels in the distance. The professor could look at nothing else than this great mountain we would soon climb.

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