Iceland Ship Arrives

1916

New York, Sept. 23. — The Gullfoss, said to be one of the first Icelandic ships to visit the shores of the western hemisphere since the days of Leif the Lucky, tied up in New York harbor yesterday with a cargo of herring. Aboard the Gullfoss, a little steamer of 886 tons, is a crew of Icelandic sailors, officered by Icelandic navigators, and speaking virtually the same language that Leif, son of Eric the Red, spoke when he landed at Cape Cod about the year 1000. The ship is under command of Captain Sigurdur Pjeturssen, who told of the remarkable prosperity that has come upon Iceland since the European war started.

The Gullfoss brought twenty-eight passengers, mostly merchants, from Reykjavik, the capital, and other cities, who came to buy goods in American markets. On its return trip, the first of next month, the Gullfoss will pass a sister ship, the Gothaloss, bound for New York with a cargo of fish. Captain Pjeturssen said he hopes to see established a regular trade with the United States. The two vessels are owned by the Icelandic Steamship company. They sail under the Danish flag.

Amazingly high prices for products of the island have brought prosperity in the last two years, the captain said. The war created the first millionaires in Iceland, he declared, and also gave the island its first experience with labor troubles and other disorders of modern civilization. A strike of the fishermen's union on the island lasted throughout last summer.

Life in Dreary Iceland; Romance in America

1878

Life in Dreary Iceland

Men and women, masters and servants, all inhabit the same room, while the cleanliness is not much attended to; but poor as they are, and accustomed to great privations, they set an example of cheerful contentment. The beauty of the young girls is remarkable; their fair hair falls in long plaits, partially covered by a black cloth coil, daintily worn on one side of the head, and finished at the top with a tassel of colored silk run through a silver or steel buckle, which floats on the shoulder. It reminds the traveler of the Greek head-dress, but the blue eyes, with their sweet, benevolent expression, soon recall to his mind their Danish origin. The dress is made of the cloth woven in the country, and on festive days the bodice is gaily adorned with silver braid and velvet, while the belt and sleeves are ornamented with silver devices, beautifully chased and often of great value. On wet and cold days the shawl becomes a useful mantilla, completely enveloping the head, and defending the wearer from the effects of the frequent storms. — Chambers' Journal.


Condensed Romance

1878

Who says that there is no romance in practical America? Who says that the days of chivalry and love-making are gone, and that this is a world of ledgers and blue stockings?

Why, the exchange table shows:

(a) that romance begins early: for a Chicago lad of fourteen eloped, last week, with a sweet little miss of thirteen;

(b) that it gets on fast: for a dashing naval officer proposed to a Washington belle last Tuesday, was accepted on Wednesday and married on Saturday;

(c) that it is numerous: for a woman in Coventry, Conn., swears that, like the good wife in Chaucer's tale, she has had seven husbands, and that they have annoyed her all her life by turning up after she had every reason to suppose that they had been hanged as pirates, or carried off by small-pox;

(d) that it is exceedingly uncertain: for "Clara," of Westfield, Mass., broke the engagement the moment she heard that her betrothed had been bitten by a mad dog, on the ground that it would be unsafe to marry a man who might have the hydrophobia;

(e) that it is never too late for it: for a farmer in Massachusetts, who confessed his seventy-third year, hired his neighbor's son to find a wife for him, insisting that she must be young and pretty, and the agent brought to the venerable widower an engaging lass of seventeen, who, rather than work out for a living, professed her willingness to marry him, and to inherit his money in the sweet by-and-by; but the marriage has cost the old man dear, for, besides the commissions charged by the neighbor's son, he has had to give his daughter, who was the bride's senior by eight years, $10,000 outright before she would consent to leave his roof and allow him to enjoy his honeymoon. — New York Tribune.

Wireless Music Entertains Men on Ships at Sea

Like all well-regulated ships, the transport "George Washington" has a phonograph. It also has wireless-telephone equipment of the latest design. On a recent occasion the phonograph horn and the telephone transmitter were brought face to face, and the music started. A hundred miles away, soldiers and sailors on the transport "President Grant" gathered eagerly around a loud-speaking receiver, from which issued the merry strains of song and fox trot, as the concert ship threw its melodious vibrations into space. Within the hundred-mile radius were several other radio-equipped ships, and when the concert was over the "George Washington's" operator was kept busy receiving encores.

After more than four years' service as an important military wireless station, during which no civilians were allowed to visit it, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, has been reopened to the public.

Iceland's traditional isolation has vanished with the erection of a wireless station which now receives daily press bulletins from Scandinavia, England, France, and Germany.

Airplane to Unite Isolated Towns of Interior Peru
The Peruvian government has decided to bind more closely together the scattered communities on the eastern slopes of the Andes by means of regular airplane service, handling mail, passengers, and freight. It is possible that the first route will extend from the city of Huanuco, high in the Andes, northward along a branch of the upper Amazon, then eastward over passes in the high mountain ranges, to Iquitos, 500 miles away. Iquitos is 2,653 miles from the mouth of the Amazon River, yet is touched by many foreign ocean-going vessels, making it the center of the Peruvian river-transportation system.

--Popular Mechanics, August 1919