[FROM KENDAL TO BAMPTON AND HAWSWATER.]
Of two roads from Kendal to Bampton one is through Long Sleddale, the other over Shap-fell, the king of the Westmoreland mountains; of which routes the last is the most interesting for simple sublimity, leading through the heart of the wildest tracts and opening to such vast highland scenery as even Derbyshire cannot shew. We left Kendal by this road, and from a very old, ruinous bridge had a full view of the castle, stretching its dark walls and broken towers round the head of a green hill, to the southward of the town. These reliques are, however, too far separated by the decay of large masses of the original edifice, and contain little that is individually picturesque.
The road now lay through shady lanes and over undulating, but gradually ascending ground, from whence were pleasant views of the valley, with now and then a break in the hills, on the left, opening to a glimpse of the distant fells towards Windermere, gray and of more pointed form than any we had yet seen; for hitherto the mountains, though of huge outline, were not so broken, or alpine in their summits as to strike the fancy with surprise. After about three miles, a very steep hill shuts up the vale to the North, and from a gray rock, near the summit, called Stone-cragg, the prospect opens over the vale of Kendal with great dignity and beauty. Its form from hence seems nearly circular; the hills spread round it, and sweep with easy lines into the bottom, green nearly to their summits, where no fantastic points bend over it, though rock frequently mingles with the heath. The castle, or its low green hill, looked well, nearly in the centre of the landscape, with Kendal and its mountain, on the right. Far to the south, were the groves of Leven's park, almost the only wood in the scene, and, over the heights beyond, blue hills bounded the horizon. On the west, an opening in the near steeps discovered clusters of huge and broken fells, while other breaks, on the east, shewed long ridges stretching towards the south. Nearer us and to the northward, the hills rose dark and awful, crowding over and intersecting each other in long and abrupt lines, heath and crag their only furniture.
The rough knolls around us and the dark mountain above gave force to the verdant beauty and tranquillity of the vale below, and seemed especially to shelter from the storms of the north some white farms and cottages, scattered among enclosures in the hollows. Soon after reaching the summit of the mountain itself
"A vale appear'd below, a deep retir'd abode,"
and we looked down on the left into Long Sleddale, a little scene of exquisite beauty, surrounded with images of greatness. This narrow vale, or glen, shewed a level of the brightest verdure, with a few cottages scattered among groves, enclosed by dark fells, that rose steeply, yet gracefully, and, at their summits, bent forward in masses of shattered rock. An hugely pointed mountain, called Keintmoor-head, shuts up this sweet scene to the north, rising in a sudden precipice from the vale, and heightening, by barren and gloomy steeps, the miniature beauty, that glowed at its feet. Two mountains, called Whiteside and Potter's-fell, screen the perspective; Stone-crag is at the southern end, fronting Keintmoor-head. The vale, seen beyond the broken ground we were upon, formed a landscape of, perhaps, unexampled variety and grace of colouring; the tender green of the lowland, the darker verdure of the woods ascending the mountains, the brown rough heath above them, and the impending crags over all, exhibit their numerous shades, within a space not more than two miles long, or half a mile in breadth.
From the right of our road another valley extended, whose character is that of simple sublimity, unmixed with any tint of beauty. The vast, yet narrow perspective sweeps in ridges of mountains, huge, barren and brown, point beyond point, the highest of which, Howgill-fell, gives its name to the whole district, in which not a wood, a village, or a farm appeared to cheer the long vista. A shepherd boy told us the names of almost all the heights within the horizon, and we are sorry not to have written them, for the names of mountains are seldom compounded of modern, or trivial denominations, and frequently are somewhat descriptive of their prototypes. He informed us also, that we should go over eight miles of Shap-fell, without seeing a house; and soon after, at Haw's-foot, we took leave of the last on the road, entering then a close valley, surrounded by stupendous mountains of heath and rock, more towering and abrupt than those, that had appeared in moorlands on the other side of Kendal. A stream, rolling in its rocky channel, and crossing the road under a rude bridge, was all that broke the solitary silence, or gave animation to the view, except the flocks, that hung upon the precipices, and which, at that height, were scarcely distinguishable from the gray round stones, thickly starting from out the heathy steeps. The Highlands of Scotland could scarcely have offered to Ossian more images of simple greatness, or more circumstances for melancholy inspiration. Dark glens and fells, the mossy stone, the lonely blast, descending on the valley, the roar of distant torrents every where occurred; and to the bard the "song of spirits" would have swelled with these sounds, and their fleeting forms have appeared in the clouds, that frequently floated along the mountain tops.
The road, now ascending Shap-fell, alternately climbed the steeps and sunk among the hollows of this sovereign mountain, which gives its name to all the surrounding hills; and, during an ascent of four miles, we watched every form and attitude of the features, which composed this vast scenery. Sometimes we looked from a precipice into deep vallies, varied only with shades of heath, with the rude summer hut of the shepherd, or by streams accumulating into torrents; and, at others, caught long prospects over high lands as huge and wild as the nearer ones, which partially intercepted them.
The flocks in this high region are so seldom disturbed by the footsteps of man, that they have not learned to fear him; they continued to graze within a few feet of the carriage, or looked quietly at it, seeming to consider these mountains as their own.