is to be seen between the Scottish headlands and the Isle of Man. If it be so, and there is no good reason to doubt it, it seems that, from the Old Man, the eye can at one sweep behold all the divisions of the Kingdom, as well as “the Kingdom of Man.”
A FACT FOR NATURALISTS.
You may now take a look at the objects nearer home, and perhaps the most striking is the tarn, occupying a concavity in the eastern side of the Old Man, and called, on the principle of lucus a non lucendo, Low-wat-hung by a tremendous precipitous range called Buckbarrow Crags, which, like Dow Crags, is a favourite place of refuge with foxes; and upon its ledges sheep frequently get “crag-fast,” from which predicament they have to be rescued by an adventurous shepherd lowered over the beetling precipice by a rope, the animal, aware of its peril, allowing itself to be slung in the rope and drawn up. Low-water is remarkable for trouts of large dimensions, and once, like the tarn sung by the poet, had one of enormous size supposed to be immortal. It was frequently seen by the men working in the slate quarry above, and it was not unfrequently hooked, but no tackle was strong enough to land such a monster. So much for its strength: but, alack for its immortality,—it was found one morning dead upon the shore. I am too tenacious of my character for veracity to tell you its weight and size; but, according to my informant, nature, compassionating its great age and its high stormy location, had furnished it with a covering of hair, a fact unparalleled, as I think, in the annals of ichthyology.
Directly under Low-water, you have a bird's-eye view of the works belonging to the Mines, which, with the roads intersecting the hills about them, have a rather odd appearance. Beyond these, Weatherlam rears his massive cone to nearly an equal height with you.
TWO DEATHS.
Down to the right, you have a delicious view of the vale of Monk and Church Conistone, in early autumn most beautifully chequered with fields of ripe and ripening grain. But I have already dilated usque ad nauseam (sufficiently to sicken a dog) upon the beauties of that same valley, so let it rest, and commence your descent, taking a path to the southward of Low-water, through amongst the slate-quarries, which, for many years deserted, are again in active operation. One of these, called Saddle Stone quarry, was the scene, some years ago, of two melancholy deaths,—one of them mysterious, the other singular. On a Monday morning, the labourers discovered a man’s hat floating in some water in a hole a good way into the working, and, on a search being instituted, they soon after found the body of a Mr Dixon, a respectable and intelligent native of the dale. It was supposed that he had sauntered into the level, and, whilst directing his attention to the air-shaft above, had walked into the water.
The other was one of the labourers, named Gould, who, with his fellow-workmen, had sat down to rest, or dine, somewhere under the said shaft. He was leaning back, when a stone, scarcely larger than a good walnut, fell from the shaft, and striking him upon the forehead, killed him on the spot. Passing this ill-omened hole, you follow the steep path downwards, and pass considerably to your left the “Pudding Stone,” the largest boulder stone I have seen, excepting that near Keswick. It is higher than it is long or broad, and rests upon a ridge, where it is puzzling to conceive how it could have stayed by chance. You also pass on the left, but nearer to you, two singularly rugged hillocks called High and Low Crawberry, with Crawberry Hause between. On the right is the Bell, a precipitous rocky hill, where ravens, and buzzards, or gleads, take up their abode; and descending still through an extensive rocky pasture, rejoicing in the euphonious title of the Scrow, formerly covered with wood, as is evidenced by the traces of the charcoal pits yet visible, you reach a wooden bridge, and cross it into the Mines road, with which you are already so well acquainted, that it is scarcely incumbent upon me to rave any further at this present speaking.
CHOICE OF ROUTES.
I would by no means bind you to ascend or descend the Old Man by the routes I have described. I merely recommend them as offering most objects likely to amuse, and as being considered the easiest for pedestrian adventurers. But, by taking the road to the slate quarries, you may ride a steady pony to within a quarter of a mile of the summit,—or by following the Walna Scar road for a mile or two, and taking the path by Gaits Water, you may, with one or two short intervals of leading, ride to the very top; the road, however, is some miles longer, seeing that you must circumvent the Old Man before you attain your object by this route, and you will find it no trifling task to get round him.
PROPER SELF-APPRECIATION.