four o'clock in the evening
Shortly after we entered a place of communal jurisdiction called Ejulberg , and the clock of which would then have struck twelve , if any Icelandic church had been rich enough to possess so valuable and useful an article . These sacred edifices are , however , very much like these people , who do without watches -- and never miss them . Here the horses were allowed to take some rest and refreshment , then following a narrow strip of shore between high rocks and the sea , they took us without further halt to the Aoalkirkja of Brantar , and after another mile to Saurboer Annexia , a chapel of ease , situated on the southern bank of the Hvalfjord . It was four o'clock in the evening and we had traveled four Danish miles , about equal to twenty English . The fjord was in this place about half a mile in width . The sweeping and broken waves came rolling in upon the pointed rocks ; the gulf was surrounded by rocky walls -- a mighty cliff , three thousand feet in height , remarkable for its brown strata , separated here and there by beds of tufa of a reddish hue . Now , whatever may have been the intelligence of our horses , I had not the slightest reliance upon them , as a means of crossing a stormy arm of the sea .