This is one of the spectacles of the country. Its size makes it impossible to have been ever moved by human means; and, if it fell from the nearest of the rocks, it must have rolled upon the ground much further than can be readily conceived of the motion of such a mass. The side towards the road projects about twelve feet over the base, and serves to shelter cattle in a penn, of which it is made to form one boundary. A small oak plant and a sloe have found soil enough to flourish in at the top; and the base is pitched on a cliff over the river, whence a long perspective of the gorge is seen, with a little level of bright verdure, spreading among more distant fells and winding away into trackless regions, where the mountains lift their ruffian heads in undisputed authority. Below, the shrunk Derwent serpentized along a wide bed of pebbles, that marked its wintry course, and left a wooded island, flourishing amidst the waste. The stillness around us was only feebly broken by the remote sounds of many unseen cataracts, and sometimes by the voices of mountaineer children, shouting afar off, and pleasing themselves with rousing the echoes of the rocks.
In returning, the view opened, with great magnificence, from the jaws of this pass over the lake to Skiddaw, then seen from its base, with the upper steeps of Saddleback obliquely beyond, and rearing itself far above all the heights of the eastern shore. At the entrance of the gorge, the village or hamlet of Grange lies picturesquely on the bank of the Derwent among wood and meadows, and sheltered under the ruinous fell, called Castle-crag, that takes its name from the castle, or fortress, which from its crown once guarded this important pass.
Borrowdale abounds in valuable mines, among which some are known to supply the finest wadd, or black lead, to be found in England. Iron, slate, and free stone of various kinds, are also the treasures of these mountains.
[FROM KESWICK TO WINDERMERE.]
The road from Keswick to Ambleside commences by the ascent of Castle-rigg, the mountain, which the Penrith road descends, and which, on that side, is crowned by a Druid's temple. The rise is now very laborious, but the views it affords over the vale of Keswick are not dearly purchased by the fatigue. All Bassenthwaite, its mountains softening away in the perspective, and terminating, on the west, in the sister woods of Wythop-brows, extends from the eye; and, immediately beneath, the northern end of Derwentwater, with Cawsey-pike, Thornthwaite-fell, the rich upland vale of Newland peeping from between their bases, and the spiry woods of Foepark jutting into the lake below. But the finest prospect is from a gate about halfway up the hill, whence you look down upon the head of Derwentwater, with all the alps of Borrowdale, opening darkly.
After descending Castle-rigg and crossing the top of St. John's vale, we seemed as going into banishment from society, the road then leading over a plain, closely surrounded by mountains so wild, that neither a cottage, or a wood soften their rudeness, and so steep and barren, that not even sheep appear upon their sides. From this plain the road enters Legberthwaite, a narrow valley, running at the back of Borrowdale, green at the bottom, and varied with a few farms, but without wood, and with fells of gray precipices, rising to great height and nearly perpendicular on either hand, whose fronts are marked only by the torrents, that tumble from their utmost summits, and perpetually occur. We often stopped to listen to their hollow sounds amidst the solitary greatness of the scene, and to watch their headlong fall down the rocky chasms, their white foam and silver line contrasting with the dark hue of the clefts. In sublimity of descent these were frequently much superior to that of Lowdore, but as much inferior to it in mass of water and picturesque beauty.
As the road ascended towards Helvellyn, we looked back through this vast rocky vista to the sweet vale of St. John, lengthening the perspective, and saw, as through a telescope, the broad broken steeps of Saddleback and the points of Skiddaw, darkly blue, closing it to the north. The grand rivals of Cumberland were now seen together; and the road, soon winding high over the skirts of Helvellyn, brought us to Leathes-water, to which the mountain forms a vast side-skreen, during its whole length. This is a long, but narrow and unadorned lake, having little else than walls of rocky fells, starting from its margin. Continuing on the precipice, at some height from the shore, the road brought us, after three miles, to the poor village of Wythburn, and soon after to the foot of Dunmail Rays, which, though a considerable ascent, forms the dip of two lofty mountains, Steel-fell and Seat Sandle, that rise with finely-sweeping lines, on each side, and shut up the vale.
Beyond Dunmail Rays, one of the grand passes from Cumberland into Westmoreland, Helm-crag rears its crest, a strange fantastic summit, round, yet jagged and splintered, like the wheel of a water-mill, overlooking Grasmere, which, soon after, opened below. A green spreading circle of mountains embosoms this small lake, and, beyond, a wider range rises in amphitheatre, whose rocky tops are rounded and scolloped, yet are great, wild, irregular, and were then overspread with a tint of faint purple. The softest verdure margins the water, and mingles with corn enclosures and woods, that wave up the hills; but scarcely a cottage any where appears, except at the northern end of the lake, where the village of Grasmere and its very neat white church stand among trees, near the shore, with Helm-crag and a multitude of fells, rising over it and beyond each other in the perspective.
The lake was clear as glass, reflecting the headlong mountains, with every feature of every image on its tranquil banks; and one green island varies, but scarcely adorns its surface, bearing only a rude and now shadeless hut. At a considerable height above the water, the road undulates for a mile, till, near the southern end of Grasmere, it mounts the crags of a fell, and seemed carrying us again into such scenes of ruin and privation as we had quitted with Legberthwaite and Leathes-water. But, descending the other side of the mountain, we were soon cheered by the view of plantations, enriching the banks of Rydal-water, and by thick woods, mingling among cliffs above the narrow lake, which winds through a close valley, for about a mile. This lake is remarkable for the beauty of its small round islands, luxuriant with elegant trees and shrubs, and whose banks are green to the water's edge. Rydal-hall stands finely on an eminence, somewhat withdrawn from the east end, in a close romantic nook, among old woods, that feather the fells, which rise over their summits and spread widely along the neighbouring eminences. This antient white mansion looks over a rough grassy descent, screened by groves of oak and majestic planes, towards the head of Windermere, about two miles distant, a small glimpse of which is caught beyond the wooded steeps of a narrow valley. In the woods and in the disposition of the ground round Rydal-hall there is a charming wildness, that suits the character of the general scene; and, wherever art appears, it is with graceful plainness and meek subjection to nature.