Reverend Ebenezer Henderson, (1818). Iceland; or A Journal of a Residence in that Island During the Years 1814 and 1815.
A little past ten we anchored before the town of Reykjavík, where the Danish flag was displayed from the tops of the mercantile houses, in honour of our arrival. The first act of kindness shewn us by the natives, was their mounting us on their shoulders, and carrying us ashore from the boat. On landing, we were met by a crowd of men, women, and children, who filled the air with the exclamations, "Peace! come in peace! the Lord bless you!" &c. salutations that were at once calculated to prepossess a stranger in favour of the religious disposition of the Icelanders.

John Barrow Jr. (1835). A Visit to Iceland.
A stranger who first approaches the shore on which Reykjavík stands, and has not prepared himself by reading for what he may expect beyond the simple fact that it is the capital of Iceland, cannot possibly behold what he sees of it, without experiencing a strong feeling of disappointment. He perceives only a long row of houses, or rather the upper parts of houses, running parallel to, and close behind, a rising beach of black shingle, their red or brown roofs being the most conspicuous, and the tops of the doors only; but he sees enough of them to satisfy himself that they are of a low mean character.

Pliny Miles (1854). Rambles in Iceland.
After hearing a good deal of the poverty of the Icelanders, and their few resources, I am surprised to find the place look so comfortable and pleasant.

Anthony Trollope (1878). How the "Mastiffs" Went to Iceland.
Reykjavík, as a town, is at present clean and pleasing.

Nelson Annandale (1905). The Faroes and Iceland: Studies in Island Life.
Taking all in all, Reykjavík is probably the ugliest town in Europe. It boasts some streets and a square, but the material of which most of the buildings are made is corrugated iron -- a substance which does not lend itself to architectural beauty.

Notwithstanding that its site, as I mentioned in my last letter, was determined by auspices not less divine than those of Rome or Athens, Reykjavik is not so fine a city as either, though its public buildings may be thought to be in better repair. In fact, the town consists of a collection of wooden sheds, one story high, rising here and there into a gable end of greater pretensions, built along the lava beach, and flanked at either end by a suburb of turf huts.

On every side of it extends a desolate plain of lava that once must have boiled up red-hot from some distant gateway of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. No tree or bush relieves the dreariness of the landscape, and the mountains are too distant to serve as a background to the buildings; but before the door of each merchant's house facing the sea there flies a gay little pennon; and as you walk along the silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out of the windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once convince you that, notwithstanding their unpretending appearance, within each dwelling reign the elegance and comfort of a woman-tended home.

J. Ross Browne, The Land of Thor (1867).

The whole country for miles around is a black desert of bogs and lava. Scarcely an arable spot is to be seen save on the tops of the fishermen's huts, where the sod produces an abundance of grass and weeds. A dark gravelly slope in front of the town, dotted with boats, oars, nets, and piles of fish; a long row of shambling old store-houses built of wood, and painted a dismal black, varied by patches of dirty yellow; a general hodge-podge of frame shanties behind, constructed of old boards and patched up with drift-wood; a few straggling streets, paved with broken lava and reeking with offal from the doors of the houses; some dozens of idle citizens and drunken boatmen lounging about the grog-shops; a gang of women, brawny and weather-beaten, carrying loads of codfish down to the landing; a drove of shaggy little ponies, each tied to the tail of the pony in front; a pack of mangy dogs prowling about in dirty places looking for something to eat, and fighting when they got it -- this was all I could see of Reykjavik, the famous Icelandic capital.

The town lies on a strip of land between the harbor and a lagoon in the rear. It is said to contain a population of two thousand, and if the dogs and fleas be taken into consideration, I have no doubt it does. Where two thousand human beings can stow themselves in a place containing but one hotel, and that a very poor one, is a matter of wonder to the stranger. The houses generally are but one story high, and seldom contain more than two or three rooms. Some half a dozen stores, it is true, of better appearance than the average, have been built by the Danish merchants within the past few years; and the residence of the governor and the public University are not without some pretensions to style.

The only stone building in Reykjavik of any importance is the "Cathedral;" so called, perhaps, more in honor of its great antiquity than anything imposing about its style or dimensions. At present it shows no indications of age, having been patched, plastered, and painted into quite a neat little church of modern appearance.

At each end of the town is a small gathering of sod-covered huts, where the fishermen and their families live like rabbits in a burrow. That these poor people are not all devoured by snails or crippled with rheumatism is a marvel to any stranger who takes a peep into their filthy and cheerless little cabins. The oozy slime of fish and smoke mingles with the green mould of the rocks; barnacles cover the walls, and puddles make a soft carpeting for the floors. The earth is overhead, and their heads are under the earth, and the light of day has no light job of it to get in edgewise through the windows. The beaver-huts and badger-holes of California, taking into consideration the difference of climate, are palatial residences compared with the dismal hovels of these Icelandic fishermen. At a short distance they look for all the world like mounds in a grave-yard. The inhabitants, worse off than the dead, are buried alive. No gardens, no cultivated patches, no attempt at anything ornamental relieves the dreary monotony of the premises. Dark patches of lava, all littered with the heads and entrails of fish; a pile of turf from some neighboring bog; a rickety shed in which the fish are hung up to dry; a gang of wolfish-looking curs, horribly lean and voracious; a few prowling cats, and possibly a chicken deeply depressed in spirits – these are the most prominent objects visible in the vicinity. Sloth and filth go hand in hand.

The women are really the only class of inhabitants, except the fleas, who possess any vitality. Rude, slatternly, and ignorant as they are, they still evince some sign of life and energy compared with the men. Over-taxed by domestic cares, they go down upon the wharves when a vessel comes in, and by hard labor earn enough to purchase a few rags of clothing for their children. The men are too lazy even to carry the fish out of their own boats. At home they lie about the doors, smoking and gossiping, and too often drunk. Some are too lazy to get drunk and go to sleep over the effort. In truth, the prevailing indolence among all classes is so striking that one can almost imagine himself in a Southern clime. There is much about Reykjavik to remind a Californian traveler of San Diego. The drunken fellows about the stores, and the racing of horses up and down the streets, under the stimulus of liquor rather than natural energy, sometimes made me feel quite at home.

I should be sorry to be understood as intimating, in my brief sketch of Reykjavik, that it is destitute of refined society. There are families of as cultivated manners here as in any other part of the world; and on the occasion of a ball or party, a stranger would be surprised at the display of beauty and style. The University and public library attract students from all parts of the island, and several of the professors and literary men have obtained a European reputation. Two semi-monthly newspapers are published at Reykjavik, in the Icelandic language. They are well printed, and said to be edited with ability. I looked over them very carefully from beginning to end, and could see nothing to object to in any portion of the contents.

The two or three stores, which are like our Highland "general merchants" shops, places where you can buy everything rather dear, are crowded in summer. There are stacks of fish on the shore which are built up in rain, and spread out to dry in sunshine. The dried fish is made indeed, just as we make hay, by busy women, while numbers of men are employed in plying with boatloads of fish to the ships in the roadstead.

There was no inn when we were there first, only a public house; but though the town now boasts of a humble hotel, it is better for ladies to lodge, as we did, in a private house. They told us we could dine at the hospital. This sounded rather melancholy; but it proved to be a jovial sort of hospital, where dinner parties and balls were given, and where an excellent cook provided dinners for many strangers. There were only four patients there at that time, and when there are any infectious cases, they are sent to a lonely house across the bay.

An English gentleman I met at our hospital told me he disliked towns in general, but he liked Reykjavik certainly better than any other town; perhaps because it is as little of a town as a town can be. It has the advantage of a very pleasant little society, simple in externals, yet refined, and withal rather ceremonious.

When you come into Reykjavik Bay – which is called Faxafjord – the steamer anchors a good way from shore, and you have to get with your luggage into a small row-boat, and are landed at a little wooden pier, of which there are many in the harbour. And then, no cabs, no buses, no hurrying to catch a train, but your luggage is put on a hand-barrow, and you walk off to your hotel, just a stone's-throw from the wharf.

When I first knew Reykjavik it was a tiny little fishing-town, with funny old houses and stores, and shops like a very small Scotch village merchant's; now it is spreading in all directions. But nearly all the houses are built of wood and iron, with just a stone foundation, and very funnily they build them, up and down and across and alongside – by no means in straight rows, except here and there. They are all of different heights, too, and some of them seem standing on tiptoe to look over their neighbours' heads. The streets are very quiet for a town, but there are more carts and little pony carriages every year. But the chief sound is the trot, trot, trot of the dear little ponies! The prettiest feature of the town is the number of ponies; round every corner, in every backyard, wherever there is a scrap of green grass, and often where there is not, ponies are to be seen. Most of them are very pretty, and every colour is to be met with. Every man, woman, and child, old or young, rides in Iceland; in most places it is the only way of getting about, and the usual way even where there are wheel roads. The Icelanders are very kind to their ponies, though they work them hard; and the ponies are generally willing and very patient, and they stand quite quiet wherever their masters leave them. The men pull the reins over their heads, and let them hang down in the dusty road, and then the ponies know they are to stand still and wait, and they do so for hours.

The principal buildings in Reykjavik are the Cathedral, which looks more like an old-fashioned, very plain parish church than what we call a cathedral; the Parliament House, which is a large square stone building; the National Bank; an excellently-arranged museum and library; the "Latin School," and another large new schoolhouse, where the King of Denmark was entertained on a recent visit. Behind the town is a small lake, which looks very pretty with the reflections of the buildings near it and the beautiful purple hills behind. I have seen lovely sunsets at Reykjavik. In summer the days are very long; in June there is really no night: the sun sets for about ten minutes at midnight, and then rises again. In the north of the island, where it touches the Arctic Circle, the sun does not set at all for a day or two. Of course in winter the days are proportionately short, and there are only three hours of daylight; but the nights are very beautiful, with moon and starlight, and the aurora borealis, or northern light. I have seen the latter even in August, when the nights are beginning to darken; it is very beautiful, like a white flame reaching quite across the sky.

Iceland is a very quiet, law-abiding country, and though there is a prison in Reykjavik, there are hardly ever any prisoners. There used to be only two policemen in Reykjavik. They walked about the town in dark uniforms, looking rather like tin soldiers. Now there are a few more, as the town has increased so much; but there is very little crime.