And I, being neither bard, antiquary, romancist, moral philosopher, gourmand, natural philosopher, miner, bookmaker, opium-eater, painter, moist weather meter, nor philanthropist in particular, but the least in the world of them all, “in the abstract”—keeping its scenery, atmosphere, geology, mineralogy, fish, flesh, and fine weather all at once in view, and lumping, as is fair, the opinions of all these great and undeniable authorities together,—hold it to be matchless, not only in the Lake district of England, but in the world, at least in any part of it that I have seen.
In executing my agreeable task of pointing out some of the more prominent of the beauties and attributes of Conistone, I shall suppose you, my reader (should I gain one) to be a diffident, well-disposed young gentleman, located at the Water Head Inn, and just coming down stairs after a capital night’s rest. It is no matter, for our present purpose, how you contrived to get there without seeing anything I am going to shew you, but there you LENGTH, &c., OF CONISTONE LAKE.are, “with shining morning face,” praying complacently, as you trip down stairs, that you may never find yourself in worse quarters. You may present my compliments to Mrs. Atkinson, and request her to let you have breakfast in the parlour with the projecting window. If you be very hungry, you had better not look out yet; but, should there be any delay in the appearance of your breakfast, a thing not very likely, you may amuse yourself with the visitor’s book until it comes in; but don’t scribble any nonsense in it, as has been done by some youths who have been permitted by their mammas to leave home prematurely.
Breakfast being brought in, whilst you are eating, I may as well say a word or two on the statistics of the lake whose head lies within a few yards of your feet, and whose ancient name was Thurston Water. It is about six and a half miles long, therefore ranks next after Windermere and Ullswater in point of size, or, to speak very exactly, in point of longitude, for I should suppose the area of Bassenthwaite Water to be larger than the area of this lake, it (Bassenthwaite), though only four miles long, carrying a better breadth with it than Conistone Water, whose greatest width does not exceed a mile, many parts not half a mile, the average lying, perhaps, between them. Its greatest depth is stated in the Guide Books to be twenty-seven fathoms, but a map or chart of the lake in my possession, which was made from actual survey, many years ago, by a talented native of the dale, gives the depth of forty fathoms at about two-thirds of the distance down the lake, and twenty or thirty yards from the western shore. This places the depth of Conistone Lake second only to that of Wastwater, which is stated by some to be forty-five fathoms, by others to be unfathomable. Conistone Lake contains, in addition to some mere rocks, two islands. The uppermost, called Knott’s Island, after its ISLANDS, FISH, AND MERCHANDISE.proprietor, or more frequently, Fir Island, from its handsome covering of Scotch firs, becomes peninsular in very droughty weather; and the lower, called Peel Island—why, I don’t know—or Montagu Island, after the Dukes of Montagu, formerly Lords of the Manor, and succeeded by the Dukes of Buccleugh, or by the Aborigines, the “Gridiron,” the best name of the three, inasmuch as it pretty accurately describes its shape, it having a handle or shank of rocks projected in lengthened chain from its south-western side, is covered by natural wood of no great altitude; and its rocky sides are so high and precipitous, as to render landing upon it a matter of difficulty, if not of danger, but, for all that, pic-nic parties sometimes resort to it. There was also a floating island about twenty yards square, finely covered with young birches of decent stature, which used to move about the lower end of the lake, but unfortunately it was stranded amongst the reeds near Nibthwaite by a strong north-east wind which prevailed for a day or two in October, 1846, when the lake was unusually swollen by heavy rains. I shall, perhaps, point it out to you by and bye.
As to the lake’s vulgarly useful qualities, it contains the best char in the world, and quantities of unsurpassable trout of delicious flavour, and often of large size—for instance, there was one cut up at your present quarters, some time since, which weighed fourteen pounds. Of its pike, I need only say that one of them roasted or baked “with a pudding in its belly,” is, on certain occasions, worth all the scenery in the neighbourhood. It is also rich in eels and perch, more particularly the latter. It serves as a commodious highway towards the port of exportation for two hundred and fifty tons of copper ore every month, as well as for nobody knows how much slate, flags, birch brooms, and small timber. Conjointly with the circumjacent mountains and valleys, and the SOMETHING “OLD KIT” SAYS.copper mines, it brings, during each laking season, a goodly haul of fish to your host’s net, in the form of tourists and visitors. There has been only one person drowned in it within the memory of man, and he was a stupid, drunken fellow, who walked into it over the slate quay. Of course, under these circumstances, the most harmless water in the world could do nothing else but drown him.
Of its ornamental characteristics you shall judge for yourself, as soon as you finish eating.
Well, having despatched a few cups of coffee and a fair proportion of a most satisfactory array of etceteras, (for be it remarked, en parenthese, that a breakfast furnished by Mrs Atkinson does not yield even to that at Grasmere described by Christopher North, in terms sufficiently graphic, “to create an appetite under the ribs of death,”) you may take a look from the window. Your first impulse is an expression of gratitude to me for advising you to make a hearty breakfast before looking forth, for assuredly, say you, this would, if seen before, have effectually withdrawn your attention from the creature comforts before you, albeit first-rate.
The eminent Scotchman already twice mentioned, who is a high-caste laking authority, although his judgment is somewhat warped by his attachment to his own Windermere, says, somewhere, that a man sitting where you do now, might fancy himself looking from the cabin window of a ship at anchor in a beautiful land-locked bay of some island in the South Sea. You don’t know how far that flight may be correct; but you think that the Pacific bays must, in beauty, fall somewhat short of the scene before you. And you are nearer right than the great Christopher, who is out of his latitude in the South Seas, else he had never drawn the pretty-sounding comparison. Though many of the bays in those seas are lovely enough, yet few, RHYME AND A REASON FOR IT.as I am told, can come within a day’s sail of Conistone Water, so far as ordinary impressions of the beautiful may bear me out; and the beauties of Conistone, as they are manifold, so are they manifest even to the lowest order of taste, or talent, or whatever the principle may be that enables a common-place man, like myself, to distinguish beauty when he looks at it, and as they are apparent to all, so must they be appreciable by every one, and—but I am waxing enthusiastic, and shall, if I go on, become intolerably nonsensical, for, with me, there is not even the one step between the sublime and the ridiculous; therefore, as I prefer being absurd in verse to being ridiculous in prose, till I cool down a little—
“I'll have a shy
At Po—e—try.”
Conistone, fair Conistone, how vain it were to roam