_Keswick, and its Lake.—Lodore Waterfall.—Ascent of Skiddaw._
Wednesday.
From Penrith to Keswick is four leagues and a half; and as we were told
there was no place where we could breakfast upon the way, we lay in bed
till a later hour than would otherwise have beseemed pedestrians. The
views were uninteresting after such scenery as we had lately passed,
yet, as we were returning to the mountainous country, they improved as
we advanced. Our road lay under one very fine mountain called
Saddleback, and from every little eminence we beheld before us in the
distance the great boundaries of the vale of Keswick. At length, after
walking five hours, we ascended the last hill, and saw the vale below us
with its lake and town, girt round with mountains even more varied in
their outline, and more remarkably grouped, than any which we had left
behind. It was beginning to rain; and to confess the truth, we derived
more satisfaction from the sight of the town than from the wonders
around it. Joyfully we reached the inn to which our trunks had been
directed from Ambleside, but our joy was in no slight degree damped by
the unwelcome intelligence that the house was full. Was there another
inn?—that was full also; the town was crowded with company: but if we
would walk in they would endeavour to procure us beds. In a few minutes
word was brought us that they had procured one bed, if we had no
objection to sleep together,—and if we had, it seemed there was no
alternative. We were assured, for our comfort, that strangers had
sometimes slept in their carriages. Accordingly we were conducted to our
apartment, which proved to be at the house of the barber.
The Barber in England is not the important personage he is in our
country; he meddles with no surgical instruments, and the few who draw
teeth practise exclusively among the poor, and are considered, as
degrading the profession;—still the barber is a person of importance
every where. Our host was as attentively civil as man could be, and
partly out of compliment to him, partly from a fancy to be shaved in the
English fashion, I submitted my chin to him. Barbers-basons, it seems,
are as obsolete here as helmets, and Don Quixote must in this country
have found some other pretext for attacking a poor shaver. Instead of
rubbing the soap upon the face, he used a brush; this mode of operating
is not so cleanly as our own, but it is more expeditious. We find him of
great use in directing our movements here. He has been a sailor; was in
the famous action against the Comte de Grasse; and after having been in
all parts of the world, returned at last to his native place, to pass
the remainder of his days in this humbler but more gainful employment.
His wife was as active as himself in serving us; our trunks were
presently brought up,—the table laid,—dinner brought from the inn;—and
though we might have wished for a larger apartment, which was not to
serve for bed-room as well, yet the behaviour of these people was so
unlike that of inn-waiters, and had so much the appearance of real
hospitality, that the gratification of seeing it was worth some little
inconvenience. The room is very neat, and bears marks of industrious
frugality;—it has a carpet composed of shreds of list of different
colours, and over the chimney-piece is the portrait of one of the
admirals under whom our host had served.
It rained all night, and we were congratulated upon this, because the
waterfall of Lodore, the most famous in all this country, would be in
perfection. As soon as we had breakfasted a boat was ready for us, and
we embarked on the lake, about half a mile from the town. A taste for
the picturesque, if I may so far flatter myself as to reason upon it
from self-observation, differs from a taste for the arts in this
remarkable point,—that instead of making us fastidious, it produces a
disposition to receive delight, and teaches us to feel more pleasure in
discovering beauty, than connoisseurs enjoy in detecting a fault. I have
sometimes been satiated with works of art; a collection of pictures
fatigues me, and I have regarded them at last rather as a task than as a
pleasure. Here, on the contrary, the repetition of such scenes as these
heightens the enjoyment of them. Every thing grows upon me. I become
daily more and more sensible of the heights of the mountains, observe
their forms with a more discriminating eye, and watch with increased
pleasure the wonderful changes they assume under the effect of clouds or
of sunshine.
The Lake of Keswick has this decided advantage over the others which we
have seen, that it immediately appears to be what it is. Winandermere
and Ulswater might be mistaken for great rivers, nor indeed can the
whole extent of either be seen at once; here you are on a land-locked
bason of water, a league in length, and about half as broad,—you do not
wish it to be larger, the mirror is in perfect proportion to its frame.
Skiddaw, the highest and most famous of the English mountains, forms its
northern boundary, and seems to rise almost immediately from its shore,
though it is at the nearest point half a league distant, and the town
intervenes. One long mountain, along which the road forms a fine
terrace, reaches nearly along the whole of its western side; and through
the space between this and the next mountain, which in many points of
view appears like the lower segment of a prodigious circle, a lovely
vale is seen which runs up among the hills. But the pride of the Lake of
Keswick is the head, where the mountains of Borrodale bound the
prospect, in a wilder and grander manner than words can adequately
describe. The cataract of Lodore thunders down its eastern side through
a chasm in the rocks, which are wooded with birch and ash trees. It is a
little river, flowing from a small lake upon the mountains about a
league distant. The water, though there had been heavy rains, was not
adequate to the channel;—indeed it would require a river of considerable
magnitude to fill it,—yet it is at once the finest work and instrument
of rock and water that I have ever seen or heard. At a little
public-house near, where the key of the entrance is kept, they have a
cannon to display the echo; it was discharged for us, and we heard the
sound rolling round from hill to hill,—but for this we paid four
shillings,—which are very nearly a peso duro. So that English echoes
appear to be the most expensive luxuries in which a traveller can
indulge. It is true there was an inferior one which would have cost only
two shillings and sixpence; but when one buys an echo, who would be
content, for the sake of saving eighteen pence, to put up with the
second best, instead of ordering at once the super-extra-double
superfine?
We walked once more at evening to the Lake side. Immediately opposite
the quay is a little island with a dwelling-house upon it. A few years
ago it was hideously disfigured with forts and batteries, a sham church,
and a new druidical temple, and, except a few fir-trees, the whole was
bare. The present owner has done all which a man of taste could do in
removing these deformities: the church is converted into a tool-house,
the forts demolished, the batteries dismantled, the stones of the
druidical temple employed in forming a bank, and the whole island
planted. There is something in this place more like the scenes of
enchantment in the books of chivalry than like any thing in our ordinary
world,—a building, the exterior of which promised all the conveniences
and elegancies of life, surrounded with all ornamental trees, in a
little island the whole of which is one garden, and that in this lovely
lake, girt round on every side with these awful mountains. Immediately
behind it is the long dark western mountain called Brandelow: the
contrast between this and the island, which seemed to be the palace and
garden of the Lady of the Lake, produced the same sort of pleasure that
a tale of enchantment excites, and we beheld it under circumstances
which heightened its wonders, and gave the scene something like the
unreality of a dream. It was a bright evening, the sun shining, and a
few white clouds hanging motionless in the sky. There was not a breath
of air stirring,—not a wave, a ripple, or wrinkle on the lake, so that
it became like a great mirror, and represented the shores, mountains,
sky, and clouds so vividly, that there was not the slightest appearance
of water. The great mountain-opening being reversed, in the shadow
became a huge arch, and through that magnificent portal the long vale
was seen between mountains and bounded by mountain beyond mountain, all
this in the water, the distance perfect as in the actual scene,—the
single houses standing far up in the vale, the smoke from their
chimneys,—every thing the same, the shadow and the substance joining at
their bases, so that it was impossible to distinguish where the reality
ended and the image began. As we stood on the shore, heaven and the
clouds and the sun seemed lying under us; we were looking down into a
sky, as heavenly and as beautiful as that overhead, and the range of
mountains, having one line of summit under our feet and another above
us, were suspended between two firmaments.
* * * * *
Thursday.
This morning we enquired as anxiously about the weather as if we had
been on shipboard, for the destined business of the day was to ascend
the great Skiddaw. After suffering hopes and fears, as sunshine or cloud
seemed to predominate, off we set with a boy to guide us. The foot of
the mountain lies about a mile from the town; the way for the first
stage is along a green path of gradual and uninterrupted ascent, on the
side of a green declivity. At the northern end of the vale there is
another lake, called Bassenthwaite, closed in like a wedge between two
mountains, and bounding the view; the vale, with both its lakes, opened
upon us as we ascended. The second stage was infinitely more laborious,
being so steep, though still perfectly safe, that we were many times
forced to halt for breath, and so long that before we had completed it
the first ascent seemed almost levelled with the vale. Having conquered
this, the summit appeared before us, but an intervening plain, about a
mile across, formed the third stage of the journey; this was easy
travelling over turf and moss. The last part was a ruder ascent over
loose stones with gray moss growing between them,—on the immediate
summit there is no vegetation. We sat down on a rude seat formed by a
pile of these stones, and enjoyed a boundless prospect,—that is, one
which extended as far as the reach of the human eye, but the distance
was dim and indistinct. We saw the sea through a hazy atmosphere, and
the smoke of some towns upon the coast about six leagues off, when we
were directed where to look for them: the Scotch mountains appeared
beyond like clouds, and the Isle of Man, we were told, would have been
visible had the weather been clearer. The home scene of mountains was
more impressive, and in particular the Lake of Bassenthwaite lying under
a precipice beneath us. They who visit the summit usually scratch their
names upon one of the loose stones which form the back to this rude
seat. We felt how natural and how vain it was to leave behind us these
rude memorials, which so few could possibly see, and of those few in all
human probability none would recognise,—yet we followed the example of
our predecessors. There are three such seats upon the three points of
the mountain; all which we visited. It is oftentimes piercingly cold
here, when the weather is temperate in the vale. This inconvenience we
did not perceive, for the wind was in the south,—but it brought on rain
as we were descending, and thoroughly wetted us before we reached home.
After dinner, as the rain still continued, and we could not go further
from home, we went to see an exhibition of pictures of the Lakes, a few
doors distant. There were several views of one called Waswater, which is
so little visited that our book of directions is silent concerning it.
It seemed to us, however, to be of so striking a character, and so
different from all which we have yet seen, that we consulted with our
host concerning the distance and the best mode of getting there, and
have accordingly planned a route which is to include it, and which we
shall commence tomorrow.
The people here wear shoes with wooden soles. D., who had never seen any
thing of the kind before, was inclined to infer from this that the
inhabitants were behind the rest of England in improvement; till I asked
him whether in a country so subject to rain as by experience we knew
this to be, a custom which kept the feet dry ought not to be imputed to
experience of its utility rather than to ignorance; and if, instead of
their following the fashions of the south of England, the other
peasantry would not do wisely in imitating them.