Bessastaðir in 1834. The school building (background) dates from 1761-6 and is built of stone; the church, also of stone, was begun before 1780 but not taken into use until 1795, and the tower was not completed until 1822-3, just about the time Jónas arrived at the school.

The illustration is from a book by the English traveller John Barrow, Jr., who visited Iceland in the summer of 1834. At Bessastaðir, he says, there is "a good house that had formerly been the residence of the Governors of Iceland, and close to it the best church in the island" (229). Barrow explains:

I determined to visit the only public school — I may say the only school of any kind — in the whole island, intended for the education chiefly of young men destined for the church, which was at no great distance from Havnefiord [i.e., Hafnarfjörður], at a place called Bessestad. We found, on our arrival there, that this was vacation time, when all the students go to their respective homes, where they are useful in assisting their parents in getting in the hay for the winter provender of the cattle, cutting and getting in turf, &c. . . .

We were received on our arrival by the person who, I think, is called the Inspector, and who keeps the house, and has charge of victualling the establishment. . . . He was civil and communicative. He took us over the school-room and the sleeping apartments. The whole was in a very miserable and filthy state, to all appearance not having been washed or cleaned out for several years.

The sleeping-room might have been mistaken for a menagerie. There were wooden recesses on either side ot it (filled with hay and straw and some dirty bedding), each having a sliding-door which completely shuts up the berth. I was astonished and heard with disgust that each of these cribs or berths is occupied by two boys, and that till recently each bed-place contained three young men. This may be thought lightly of in Iceland, as I believe it is in Norway, but to us it appears a barbarous practice. . . . (227-9)

The library of Bessestad corresponded with the filthy state of the sleeping room. It had not changed its character since the visit of Mr. Hooker, who describes it as "a small and dirty room, in which a number of books, principally Latin and Greek, many of them on theological subjects, were lying in great confusion."

Close to the school stands the church, a stone building, with a large wooden roof. It is the largest church, I believe, in Iceland, equal at least to that of Reikiavik. There is nothing within its walls to attract particular attention. . . . (249)

Source: John Barrow, Jun. A Visit to Iceland, by way of Tronyem [i.e., Trondheim] in the "Flower of Yarrow" Yacht, in the Summer of 1834 (London: John Murray, 1835).