I found Faroe and Iceland in a second hand bookshop, unwanted, unloved, unread. I scooped it up. It was owned originally by a Mr. Edmund Wilford Bulkley, 1880. It has some fine sketches in it. I think I paid $5.00 for it. The author is Andrew James Symington and the book was published in London, in 1862.

Symington wants to go to Iceland, that no longer so distant but still fabled place. He thinks that he might try getting to Iceland on a private yacht (if he can find one that is going), to rent a sloop or to get a passage on a mail ship from Copenhagen. The first two are highly uncertain. The third possibility is important. This is 1862, steam ships have appeared and changed everything. They can travel in any weather, they can keep to a schedule, and they are relatively cheap. These are the reasons ten years later that our ancestors were able to leave Iceland in large numbers. It was actually possible to plan.

He sees an ad in the Times for the Danish mail-steamer