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Show LIFE IN ICELAND IS LONELY. A traveler JnPIcel&nd says that ho journeyed more tbau fifty miles from tho capital, Reykjavik, and saw but two or three farms In all that distance. dis-tance. "During all this ,tlmo." he says, "I had not seen a sapling as' big as a stalk of cat-o'-nlne-talls. Extinct volcanoes vol-canoes surrounded us on every sldo. Dust-storms swept down from tholr scarred Bides. Distant gleams of glittering glit-tering ice from tho glaciers dazzled us when tho sun shono upon thorn. iBut here, In a land whero there is almost no fuel, and whero fow crops besides hay and turnips can be raised, In the land of the midnight sun In summer and the midday moon in win-tor, win-tor, I found books nnd cheerful conversation, con-versation, an outlook on life and a knowledge of current events which I havo not always found In populous cities'. "There are no schools, 'to be sure, outside of Reykjavik and ono or two other small towns, for children cannot can-not walk ten miles each way to a schoolhouse, and even such a school-house school-house would accommodate but two or three families. But the Itinerant pedagogue goes about from house to hous6, carrying "his store of knowledge knowl-edge with him, and leaving behind much Intellectual stimulus and a desire de-sire to know what is going on beyond the bound of tho iBland. "They were great choss players In the lonely farmhouses where Ve stayed, stay-ed, and they wore keen to play with us AltSough my companion considered consid-ered himself a fair chess player, he was Ignominlously beaten by the angular an-gular lady of the household. They had a Bible, too, and nn Icelandic hymn book. We wont away from our short vi6lt to the lonely farmhouse of tho Sog with tho Impression that the homo home life in the typical farms of Iceland mlghy well bo envied by dwellers In more favored climes." Youth's Companion. |