“KINDRED HILLS.”
The view from this same Old Man is, in my opinion, and in that of many others, unequalled in England; and though, on the north and east, the prospect is somewhat limited by its kindred hills, they are hills such as you would not have removed, if you could, even to enlarge the prospect, for they comprise all the English mountains worthy of notice, and, in other directions, some of those of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Commencing here at the south-west, you have Blackcombe, which is not seen to very great advantage, in as much as you are looking down upon it, a mode of inspection which you must know to be unfavourable to the dignity of either mountain or man.
Near to it is a tarn called Devock Water, which contains trout of peculiarly excellent quality, traditionally said to have been imported by the Monks of Furness from Italy, and it fully supports the character of those holy men as judges of good living, for no one should say he has eaten trout, till once he has tasted those of Devock Water. The next hill of any mark is Birksfell, which is a striking object, not so much on account of its altitude—for that is no great matter—as its isolated position and conical shape. Then you see Scawfell and the Pikes, followed up by Great End, Great Gable, and Bowfell, beyond which, more to the east, is Skiddaw, and beyond Skiddaw are to be seen the dim outlines of the Scotch hills about Langholm. Still bringing the eye round in the course of the sun, you look at Blencathra, and then “the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn.” Nearly in the same line, but much nearer, you have Langdale Pikes, and in the side of them Stickle Tarn glistens like a gem in a lady’s hair. Recurring to the more distant line, you see Fairfield, Kirkstone, High Street, and Hillbell. You have overlooked very many important mountains, but I have enumerated the most prominent as seen from the Old Man. Rather nearer than Hillbell is Wansfell, at the foot of which you may perceive Ambleside, and a little lower, a considerable portion of Windermere, with numerous seats upon its banks, Wray Castle the most conspicuous; and nearer and more to the right, the vale and lake of Esthwaite, with the pretty village of Sawrey (which Wilson calls “scarcely a village indeed, but rocks, glades, and coppices bedropt with dwellings!”) smiling in the sun, at its south-eastern extremity. A little farther to the right, another portion of the “river lake” is visible, and beyond that a remarkable succession of elevated ridgy moorlands stretches across the view, until it is stopped by a portion of that chain of hills called the “Backbone of England.” You remark that, if yonder ridge be in reality a portion of England’s backbone, she must have been a ricketty child, for there are inequalities upon it such as no healthy spine would exhibit.
A WIDE SWEEP.
More to the right, the view becomes more extended, for it embraces much of that part of Lancashire lying to the west and south of the county town, watered by the Ribble and the Wyre, and at the western extremity of which you can distinctly see the town and port of Fleetwood. Stretching far in-land from it, you have all the majestic Bay of Morecambe, looking so beautiful with its numerous rivers meandering along its level sands, that you fancy it would be almost a sin to carry into execution the project of embanking it. Following along its shores, your eyes come to the town and castle of “John O'Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster;” then the wooded promontory of Cartmel, jutting into the bay, and, on its north-western side, the fertile and undulating district of Low Furness, with the Isle of Walney stretched along its seaward side like a natural breakwater. Then you look upon the miles of smooth, flat sand, over which the Duddon is
“Gliding in silence with unfettered sweep.”
Directly over that, and across the sea, are to be seen very plainly some of the hills of Wales, Snowdon, I believe, amongst the rest; and you have under your eye the whole of that portion of the Irish sea stretching from Wales to the Isle of Man, and thence to the Mull of Galloway and Burrow Head, and, again, a considerable portion of the Solway Frith. I am told that in “certain conditions of the atmosphere,” the high hill in Ireland, called Slieve Donard, where O'Neale entertained Rokeby and Mortham, and
“Gave them each sylvan joy to know,
Slieve Donard’s cliffs and woods could shew”—