_Borrodale.—Wasdale.—Waswater.—Calder Bridge.—Ennerdale.—Crummock
Water.—Lake of Buttermere.—Lakes on the Mountains._
Friday.
The Lakes which we were next to explore lay south-west, and west of
Keswick. We took an early breakfast, provided ourselves with some hard
eggs, slung our knapsacks, and started about seven, taking the
horse-road to Lodore. The morning promised well, there was neither sun
to heat us, nor clouds enough to menace rain; but our old tormentors the
flies swarmed from the hedges and coppices by which we passed, as many,
as active, as impudent, and hardly less troublesome than the imps who
beset St Anthony.
For half a league we had no other view than what a gate, a gap in the
hedge, or an occasional rise of ground afforded. On the left was an
insulated hill of considerable height wooded to the summit, and when we
had left this, a coppice which reached to the foot of a long and lofty
range of crags, and spread every where up the acclivity where soil
enough could be found for trees to take root. This covered road
terminated in a noble opening: from a part which was almost completely
overbowered we came out at once upon a terrace above the Lake, the open
crags rising immediately upon the left. Among these rocks some painter
formerly discovered the figure of a female, which, with the help of
imagination, may easily be made out, and accordingly he named the place
Eve's crag, because, he said, she must certainly have been the first
woman.—Lodore was glittering before us, not having yet discharged all
the rain of yesterday; and Borrodale, into which we were bound, became
more beautiful the nearer we approached.
We had consulted tourists and topographers in London, that we might not
overpass any thing worthy of notice, and our Guide to the Lakes was with
us. They told us of tracts of horrible barrenness, of terrific
precipices, rocks rioting upon rocks, and mountains tost together in
chaotic confusion; of stone avalanches rendering the ways impassable,
the fear of some travellers who had shrunk back from this dreadful
entrance into Borrodale, and the heroism of others who had dared to
penetrate into these impenetrable regions:—into these regions, however,
we found no difficulty in walking along a good road, which coaches of
the light English make travel every summer's day. At the head of the
lake, where the river flows into this great reservoir, the vale is about
a mile in width, badly cultured because badly drained, and often
overflowed; but the marsh lands had now their summer green, and every
thing was in its best dress. The vale contracted as we advanced, and was
not half this width when, a mile on, we came to a little village called
the Grange.
This village consists of not more than half a score cottages, which
stand on a little rising by the river side,—built apparently without
mortar, and that so long ago that the stones have the same weather-worn
colour as those which lie upon the mountain side behind them. A few
pines rise over them, the mountains appear to meet a little way on and
form an amphitheatre, and where they meet their base is richly clothed
with coppice wood and young trees. The river, like all the streams of
this country, clear, shallow, and melodious, washes the stone bank on
which the greater number of the pines grow, and forms the foreground
with an old bridge of two arches, as rude in construction as the
cottages. The parapet has fallen down, and the bridge is impassable for
carts, which ford a little way above. The road from the bridge to the
village is in ruins; it had been made with much labour, but has been
long neglected, and the floods have left only the larger and deeper
rooted stones, and in other places the floor of rock; the inhabitants
therefore are relatively poorer than they were in former times.—In this
scene here are all the elements which the painter requires; nothing can
be more simple than the combination, nothing more beautiful. I have
never in all my travels seen a spot which I could recall so vividly; I
never remember it without fancying that it can easily be described,—yet
never attempt to clothe my recollections in words without feeling how
inadequately words can represent them.
Another mile of broken ground, the most interesting which I ever
traversed, brought us to a single rock called the Bowder Stone, a
fragment of great size which has fallen from the heights. The same
person who formerly disfigured the island in Keswick Lake with so many
abominations, has been at work here also; has built a little mock
hermitage, set up a new druidical stone, erected an ugly house for an
old woman to live in who is to show the rock, for fear travellers should
pass under it without seeing it, cleared away all the fragments round
it, and as it rests upon a narrow base, like a ship upon its keel, dug a
hole underneath through which the curious may gratify themselves by
shaking hands with the old woman. The oddity of this amused us greatly,
provoking as it was to meet with such hideous buildings in such a
place,—for the place is as beautiful as eyes can behold, or imagination
conceive. The river flows immediately below, of that pale gray green
transparency which we sometimes see in the last light of the evening
sky; a shelf of pebbles on the opposite shore shows where it finds its
way through a double channel when swoln by rains:—the rest of the shore
is covered with a grove of young trees which reach the foot of a huge
single crag, half clothed with brush-wood:—this crag when seen from
Keswick appears to block up the pass. Southward we looked down into
Borrodale, whither we were bound,—a vale which appeared in the shape of
a horse-shoe.
This lovely vale when we had descended into it, appeared to lie within
an amphitheatre of mountains; but as we advanced we perceived that its
real shape was that of the letter Y: our way lay along the right branch.
They have a pestilential fungus in this country which has precisely the
smell of putrid carrion, and is called by the fit name of the stinker.
It is so frequent as to be quite a nuisance along the road. We passed
through one little village, and left a second on our right, the
loneliest imaginable places;—both villages, and the few single houses
which we saw in the vale, have pines planted about them. A third and
still smaller village called Seathwaite lay before us, drearily
situated, because no attempt has been made to drain the land around,
easily as it might be done. Above this lies the mine of black-lead of
which those pencils so famous over all Europe are made,—it is the only
one of the kind which has yet been discovered. We could not see it, as
it is worked only occasionally, and had just been shut.
Our attention had been too much engaged by the delightful scenes around
us to let us think of the weather, when, to our surprise, it began to
rain hard:—there was no alternative but to proceed, for we were between
two and three leagues from Keswick. Dreary as the wet and plashy ground
about Seathwaite had appeared as we approached, it became cheerful when
we looked back upon it,—for it seemed as if we were leaving all
inhabitable parts,—nothing but rock and mountain was to be seen.—When we
had almost reached the extremity of this ascending vale, we came to a
little bridge, as rude as work of human hands can be; the stream making
a little cataract immediately under it. Here the ascent of the mountain
began, a steep, wet, winding path, more like a goat's highway than the
track of man. It rained heavily; but we consoled ourselves with
remarking that the rain kept us cool, whereas we should otherwise have
suffered much from heat. After long labour we reached a part which from
its easier acclivity seemed almost like a plain; and keeping by the side
of a little stream came to a small mountain lake, or Tarn as it is
called in the language of the country. A crag rose behind it; the water
was so dark that till I came close to it I could scarcely believe it was
clear. It may be thought that there is nothing more in a pool on the
mountains, than in a pool on a plain,—but the thing itself occasions a
totally different sensation. The sense of loneliness is an awful
feeling. I have better understood why the saints of old were wont to
retire into the wilderness, since I have visited these solitudes. The
maps call this Sparkling Tarn; but Low Tarn is the name given it in the
neighbourhood, and another about half an hour's height above it they
call High Tarn. This other is omitted in the maps, which, indeed, the
knowledge we have of their track, little as it is, enables us to say are
very incorrect. It would make a fine picture, and the height of its
situation might be expressed by alpine plants in the foreground.
Beyond this there was about half a mile still up, and by a steeper road.
Having reached the highest point, which is between Scafell and Great
Gabel, two of the highest mountains in England, we saw Wasdale below
bending to the south-west, between mountains whose exceeding height we
were now able to estimate by our own experience,—and to the west the sea
appeared through an opening. The descent may without exaggeration be
called tremendous; not that there is danger, but where any road is
possible, it is not possible to conceive a worse. It is, like the whole
surface round it, composed of loose stones, and the path serpentizes in
turns as short and as frequent as a snake makes in flight. It is withal
as steep as it can be to be practicable for a horse. At first we saw no
vegetation whatever; after a while only a beautiful plant, called here
the stone-fern, or mountain parsley, a lovely plant in any situation,
but appearing greener and lovelier here because it was alone. The
summits every where were wrapt in clouds; on our right, however, we
could see rocks rising in pinnacles and grotesque forms,—like the lines
which I have seen a child draw for rocks and mountains, who had heard of
but never seen them,—or the edge of a thundercloud rent by a storm.
Still more remarkable than the form is the colouring; the stone is red;
loose heaps or rather sheets of stones lay upon the sides,—in the
dialect of the country they call such patches _screes_, and it is
convenient to express them by a single word: those which the last winter
had brought down were in all their fresh redness, others were white with
lichens; here patches and lines of green were interposed. At this height
the white lichen predominated, but in other parts that species is the
commonest which is called the geographical from its resemblance to the
lines of a map; it is of a bright green, veined and spotted with
black,—so bright as if nature, in these the first rudiments of
vegetation, had rivalled the beauty of her choicest works. Wasdale
itself, having few trees and many lines of enclosure, lay below us like
a map.
The Lake was not visible till we were in the valley. It runs from
north-east to south-west, and one mountain extends along the whole of
its southern side, rising not perpendicularly indeed, but so nearly
perpendicular as to afford no path, and so covered with these loose
stones as to allow of no vegetation, and to be called from them _The
Screes_. The stream which accompanied our descent was now swoln into a
river by similar mountain torrents descending from every side. The dale
is better cultivated at the head than Borrodale, being better drained;
and the houses seemed to indicate more comfort and more opulence than
those on the other side the mountain; but stone houses and slate roofs
have an imposing appearance of cleanliness which is not always verified
upon near inspection. Ash trees grow round the houses, greener than the
pine, more graceful, and perhaps more beautiful,—yet we liked them
less:—was this because, even in the midst of summer, the knowledge that
the pine will not fade influences us, though it is not directly
remembered?
The rain now ceased, and the clouds grew thinner. They still concealed
the summits, but now began to adorn the mountain, so light and silvery
did they become. At length they cleared away from the top, and we
perceived that the mountain whose jagged and grotesque rocks we had so
much admired was of pyramidal shape. That on the southern side of the
dale head, which was of greater magnitude, and therefore probably,
though not apparently, of equal height, had three summits. The clouds
floated on its side, and seemed to cling to it. We thought our shore
tamer than the opposite one, till we recollected that the road would not
be visible from the water; and presently the mountain, which had
appeared of little magnitude or beauty while we passed under it, became,
on looking back, the most pyramidal of the whole, and in one point had a
cleft summit like Parnassus; thus forming the third conical mountain of
the group, which rose as if immediately from the head of the Lake, the
dale being lost. But of all objects _the screes_ was the most
extraordinary. Imagine the whole side of a mountain, a league in length,
covered with loose stones, white, red, blue, and green, in long straight
lines as the torrents had left them, in sheets and in patches, sometimes
broken by large fragments of rocks which had unaccountably stopt in
their descent, and by parts which, being too precipitous for the stones
to rest on, were darkened with mosses,—and every variety of form and
colour was reflected by the dark water at its foot: no trees or bushes
upon the whole mountain,—all was bare, but more variegated by this
wonderful mixture of colouring than any vegetation could have made it.
The Lake is a league in length, and the hilly country ends with it. We
entered upon a cultivated track, well wooded, and broken with gentle
swells, the mountains on the right and left receding towards Ennerdale
and Eskdale. About half a league beyond the end of the Lake we came to a
miserable alehouse, the first which we had found all day, where they
charged us an unreasonable price for milk and oaten bread. We went into
a church-yard here, and were surprised at seeing well-designed and
well-lettered tombstones of good red stone, in a place apparently
inhabited by none but poor peasantry. In about another league we came to
a larger village, where manufactures had begotten alehouses; in the
church-yard was a pillar of the Pagan Danes converted into a cross, once
curiously sculptured, but the figures are now nearly effaced. Here we
came into the high road which runs along the coast, and in a short time
arrived at a little town called Calder Bridge, where, to our comfort,
after a walk of not less than seven leagues, we found a good inn. The
bridge from which this place is named is very beautiful; the river flows
over rocks which it has furrowed at the banks, so that shelves of rock
jut out over the water, here green, here amber-coloured; ash,
mountain-ash, and sycamores overhang it.——We have seen inscriptions over
some of the houses in Saxon characters to-day,—a proof how long old
customs have been retained in these parts.
Saturday.
"Well," said D. this morning when he came into my room, "we shall not be
caught in the rain to-day, that is certain,—for we must set off in
it."—We were to return to Keswick by way of Ennerdale and Crummock
Lakes:—the road was not easy for strangers, and we soon lost it; but
while we were stopping to admire an oak growing from three trunks of
equal size which united into one, breast-high from the ground, a man
overtook us and set us right. Perhaps the tree was originally planted
upon a hillock, and these three stems had been the roots. It was nearly
two leagues to Ennerdale bridge, and it rained heavily the whole
way:—there we breakfasted in a dirty and comfortless alehouse;—but while
we dried ourselves by the fire the sun came out, and we set off
cheerfully towards the foot of the Lake.
Ennerdale water is a sort of square, spreading widely at its base. The
mountains seem to have planted their outworks in the lake; they rise
directly up to a certain height on both sides, then leave an interval of
apparently level ground, behind which they start up again to a great
height. All are bare, with something of the same colouring as in
Wasdale, but in a less degree. The Lake is about a league in length; at
its foot the dale is cultivated, spotted with such houses as suit the
scene; and so wooded as to form a fitting and delightful foreground. We
had here a singular and most beautiful effect of shadow. A line of light
crossed the Lake; all that was in sunshine seemed water; all that was in
shade reflected the shores so perfectly, with such a motionless and
entire resemblance, that it appeared as if the water were stopt by some
unseen dam on the edge of a precipice, or abyss, to which no bottom
could be seen.
From this place we ventured to cross the mountains to Crummock, where
there was no track: they told us we could not miss the way; and it was
true,—but woe to the traveller who should be overtaken there by clouds
or by storms! It was a wild tract,—a few straggling sheep upon the green
hill sides, and kites screaming over head, the only living things. We
saw the rude outline of a man cut in the turf by some idle shepherd's
boy, and it gave us some pleasure as being the work of hands. As we were
descending, having effected a passage of nearly three hours, we saw to
our right a chasm in the mountain in which trees were growing, and out
of which a stream issued. There we turned, and soon found that it must
needs be the waterfall called Scale-force, one of the objects especially
marked in our route. The stream falls down a fissure in the rock in one
unbroken stream, from a prodigious height, then rolls along a little
way, and takes a second but less leap, before it issues out.
A heavy shower came on: but we were well repaid on reaching the shore of
Crummock Lake; for one of the loveliest rainbows that ever eyes beheld,
reached along the great mountain opposite,—the colours of the mountain
itself being scarcely less various or less vivid. We came to an inn at
the foot of the Lake, procured a boat and embarked; but this Lake is not
supplied like Winandermere and Keswick. Never did adventurers in search
of pleasure set foot in a more rotten and crazy embarkation,—it was the
ribs and skeleton of a boat: however, there was no other; if we would go
upon the Lake we must be contented with this. We were well repaid:—for,
of all the scenes in the Land of Lakes, that from the middle of Crummock
is assuredly the grandest. In colour the mountains almost rival the
rainbow varieties of Waswater; they rise immediately from the water, and
appear therefore higher and more precipitous than any which we have
seen. Honistar crag forms the termination, the steepest rock in the
whole country, and of the finest form; it resembles the table-mountains
in the East Indies, each of which has its fortress on the summit. To
appearance it was at the end of this water, but a little vale
intervened, and the smaller Lake of Buttermere. We landed at the end,
and walked to the village by this second water, where we took up our
abode for the night, for the first time in a village inn.
* * * * *
Sunday.
The western side of this little lake is formed by a steep mountain
called Red Pike; a stream runs down it, issuing from a Tarn in a bason
near the summit, which, when seen from below, or from the opposite
heights, appears certainly to have been once the crater of a volcano.
The situation of this Tarn was so peculiar that we would not leave it
unseen. Before breakfast we commenced our labour, and labour in truth it
was. We had supposed an hour and a half would be sufficient for the
expedition; but we were that time in getting up, and just as long in
returning, so steep was the mountain side. As we ascended, it was
remarkable to perceive how totally Crummock water had lost all its
grandeur,—it was a striking emblem of human pursuits, thus divested of
their importance and dwindled into insignificance when we look back upon
them. Having conquered the ascent, instead of finding the Tarn
immediately on the edge, as we expected, there was a plain of half a
mile to cross, and then we found it lying under a buttress of rock,—as
lonely a spot as ever mountain kite sailed over. Like Low Tarn, its
waters were dark; but the sun shone, and the wind just breaking up the
surface, rolled over it a fleeting hue like the colour of a pigeon's
neck. There is a pleasure in seeing what few besides ourselves have
seen. One Tarn, I perceive, differs little from another:—but the
slighter the difference of features is, the more pleasure there is in
discovering that difference;—and if another of these mountain pools lay
in our way, I should willingly spend three hours more in ascending to
it.
The most unpleasant part of this expedition, fatiguingly steep as it
was,—and nothing could be steeper which was not an actual
precipice,—was, that we had a wall to cross of loose stones, very broad,
and as high as an ordinary man's stature. The utmost care was necessary,
lest we should drag the stones after us; in which case they would have
killed us and buried us at the same time.
Our road to Keswick lay up a long ascent between green swelling
mountains—a pastoral scene, with its stream in the bottom, and
sheep-folds beside it—then down that vale of Newlands, which is seen so
beautifully from Keswick through the great mountain portal.