The Arcturus is a small screw steamer owned by Messrs. Koch and Henderson, and now some six years on the route between Copenhagen and Reykjavik. The Danish government pays them an annual sum for carrying the mails, and they control a considerable trade in fish and wool. This vessel makes six trips every year, touching at a port in Scotland both on the outer and return voyage. At first she made Leith her stopping-place; but, owing to superior facilities for her business at Grangemouth, she now stops at that port. The cost of passage is extremely moderate—only 45 Danish dollars, about $28 American, living on board 75 cents a day, and a small fee to the steward, making for the voyage out or back, which usually occupies about eleven days, inclusive of stoppages, something less than $40. I mention this for the benefit of my friends at home, who may think proper to make a very interesting trip at a very small expense; though, as will hereafter appear, the most considerable part of the expenditure occurs in Iceland. Captain Andersen (they are all Andersens, or Jonasens, or Hansens, or Petersens in Denmark), a very active and obliging little Dane, commands the Arcturus. He speaks English fluently, and is an experienced seaman; and if the tourist is not unusually fastidious about accommodations, there will be no difficulty in making an agreeable voyage. I found every thing on board excellent; the fare abundant and wholesome, and the sleeping-quarters not more like coffins than they usually are on board small steamers. A few inches cut off the passengers’ legs or added to the length of the berths, and a few extra handspikes in the lee scuppers to steady the vessel, would be an improvement; but then one can’t have every thing to suit him. Some grumbling took place, to be sure, after our departure from Scotland. A young Scotchman wanted a berth for a big dog in the same cabin with the rest of his friends, which the captain would not permit; an Englishman was disgusted with the “beastly fare;” and an old Danish merchant would persist in shaving himself at the public table every day—all of which caused an under-current of dissatisfaction during the early part of the voyage. Sea-sickness, however, put an end to it before long, and things went on all right after that.

But I must not anticipate my narrative. The scene upon leaving the wharf at Copenhagen was amusing and characteristic. For some hours before our departure the decks were crowded with the friends of the passengers. Every person had to kiss and hug every other person, and shake hands, and laugh and cry a little, and then hug and kiss again, without regard to age and not much distinction of sex. Some natural tears, of course, must always be shed on occasions of this kind. It was rather a melancholy reflection, as I stood aloof looking on at all these demonstrations of affection, that there was nobody present to grieve over my departure—not even a lapdog to bestow upon me a parting kiss. Waving of handkerchiefs, messages to friends in Iceland, and parting benedictions, took place long before we left the wharf. At length the last bells were rung, the lingering loved ones were handed ashore, and the inexorable voice of the captain was heard ordering the sailors to cast loose the ropes. We were fairly off for Iceland!

In a few hours we passed, near Elsineur, the fine old Castle of Kronberg, built in the time of Tycho Brahe, once the prison of the unfortunate Caroline Matilda, queen of Christian VII., and in the great vaults of which it is said the Danish Roland, Holger Dansk, still lives, his long white beard grown fast to a stone table. We were soon out of the Sound, plowing our way toward the famous Skager-Rack. The weather had been showery and threatening for some time. It now began to rain and blow in good earnest.

We had on board only thirteen passengers, chiefly Danes and Icelanders. Among them was a newly-appointed amtman for the district of Reykjaness, with a very accomplished young wife. He was going to spend the honey-moon amid the glaciers and lava-fjelds of Iceland. It seemed a dreary prospect for so young and tender a bride, but she was cheerful and happy, except when the inevitable hour of sea-sickness came. Love, I suppose, can make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and shed a warmth over ice-covered mountains and a pleasant verdure over deserts of lava. A very agreeable and intelligent young man, Mr. Jonasen, son of the governor, was also on board. I saw but little of him during the passage—only his head over the side of his berth; but I heard from him frequently after the weather became rough. If there was any inside left in that young man by the time we arrived at Reykjavik, it must have been badly strained. As a son of Iona he completely reversed the scriptural order of things; for, instead of being swallowed by a great fish, and remaining in the belly thereof three days and nights, he swallowed numerous sprats and sardines himself, yet would never allow them internal accommodations for the space of three minutes. My room-mate was a young Icelandic student, who had been to the college at Copenhagen, and was now returning to his native land to die. There was something very sad in his case. He had left home a few years before with the brightest prospects of success. Ambitious and talented, he had devoted himself with unwearied assiduity to his studies, but the activity of his mind was too much for a naturally feeble constitution. Consumption set its seal upon him. Given up by the physicians in Copenhagen, he was returning to breathe his last in the arms of a loving mother.

On the second morning after leaving the Sound we passed close along the Downs of Jutland, a barren shore, singularly diversified by great mounds of sand. The wind sweeping in from the ocean casts up the loose sands that lie upon this low peninsula, and drifts them against some bush or other obstacle sufficiently firm to form a nucleus. In the course of a few years, by constant accumulations, this becomes a vast mound, sometimes over a hundred feet high. Nearly the whole of Northern Jutland is diversified with sand-plains, heaths, and ever-changing mounds, among which wandering bands of gipsies still roam. The shores along the Skagen are surrounded by dangerous reefs of quicksand, stretching for many miles out into the ocean. Navigation at this point is very difficult, especially in the winter, when terrific gales prevail from the northwest. The numerous stakes, buoys, and other water-marks by which the channel is designated, the frequency of light-houses and signal telegraphs, and the wrecks that lie strewn along the beach, over which the surging foam breaks like a perpetual dirge, afford striking indication of the dangers to which mariners are subject in this wild region. Hans Christian Andersen, in one of his most delightful works, has thrown a romantic interest over the scenery of Jutland, giving a charm to its very desolation, and investing with all the beauty of a genial humanity the rude lives of the gipsies and fishermen who inhabit this wild region of drifting sands and wintry tempests. Steen Blicher has also cast over it the spell of his poetic genius; and Von Buch, in his graphic narrative, has given a memorable interest to its sea-girt shores, where “masts and skeletons of vessels stand like a range of palisades.”

During our passage through the Skager-Rack we passed innumerable fleets of fishing-smacks, and often encountered the diminutive skiffs of the fishermen, with two or three amphibious occupants, buffeting about among the waves many miles from the shore. The weather had been steadily growing worse ever since our departure from Copenhagen. As we entered the North Sea it began to blow fiercer than ever, and for two days we experienced all the discomforts of chopping seas that drenched our decks fore and aft, and chilling gales mingled with fogs and heavy rains. It was cold enough for midwinter, yet here we were on the verge of midsummer. Our little craft was rendered somewhat unmanageable by a deck-load of coal and a heavy cargo of freight, and there were periods when I would have thought myself fortunate in being once more off Cape Horn in the good ship Pacific. The amtman and his young bride spent this portion of their honey-moon performing a kind of duet that reminded me of my friend Ross Wallace’s lines in “Perdita:”

At least the harmony was perfect, whatever might be thought of the music in other respects. Young Jonasen swallowed a few more sardines about this period of the voyage, which he vainly attempted to secure by sudden and violent contractions of the diaphragm. In short, there were but two persons in the cabin besides Captain Andersen and myself who had the temerity to appear at table—one an old Danish merchant, who generally received advices, midway through the meal, requiring his immediate presence on deck; and the other a gentleman from Holstein, who always lost his appetite after the soup, and had to jump up and run to his state-room for exercise.

In due time we sighted the shores of Scotland. A pilot came on board inside the Frith of Forth, and, as we steamed rapidly on our course, all the passengers forgot their afflictions, and gazed with delight on the sloping sward and woodland, the picturesque villages, and romantic old castles that decorate the shores of this magnificent sheet of water.

Our destination was Grangemouth, where we arrived early on Sunday morning. A few sailors belonging to some vessels in the docks, a custom-house inspector, and three small boys, comprised the entire visible population of the place. Judging by the manner in which the Sabbath is kept in Scotland, the Scotch must be a profoundly moral people. The towns are like grave-yards, and the inhabitants bear a striking resemblance to sextons, or men who spend much of their lives in burying the dead.

I was very anxious to get a newspaper containing the latest intelligence from America, but was informed that none could be had on Sunday. I wanted to go up to Edinburg: it was not possible on Sunday. I asked a man where could I get some cigars? he didna ken; it was Sunday. The depressed expression of the few people I met began to prey like a nightmare on my spirits. Doubtless it is a very good thing to pay a decent regard to the Sabbath, but can any body tell me where we are commanded to look gloomy? The contrast was certainly very striking between the Scotch and the Danes. Of course there is no such thing as drunkenness in Scotland, no assaults and batteries, no robberies and murders, no divorces, no cheating among the merchants of Glasgow or the bankers of Edinburg, no sympathizing with rebellion and the institution of slavery—for the Scotch are a sober and righteous people, much given to sackcloth and ashes, manufactures of iron, and societies for the insurance of property against fire.

The Arcturus was detained several days discharging and taking in freight. I availed myself of the first train to visit Edinburg. A day there, and an excursion to Glasgow and Loch Lomond, agreeably occupied the time. I must confess the scenery—beautiful as it is, and fraught with all the interest that history and genius can throw over it—disappointed me. It was not what I expected. It was a damp, moist, uncomfortable reality, as Mantalini would say—not very grand or striking in any respect. A subsequent excursion to the Trosachs, Loch Katrine, Loch Long, and the Clyde, afforded me a better opportunity of judging, yet it all seemed tame and commonplace compared with the scenery of California and Norway. If I enjoyed a fair specimen of the climate—rain, wind, and fog, varied by sickly gleams of sunshine—it strikes me it would be a congenial country for snails and frogs to reside in. The Highlands are like all other wild places within the limits of Europe, very gentle in their wildness compared with the rugged slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The Lady of the Lake must have possessed an uncommonly strong constitution, if she made her nocturnal excursions on Loch Katrine in a thin white robe without suffering any bad consequences, for I found a stout overcoat insufficient to keep the chilling mists of that region from seeking in my bones a suitable location for rheumatism.