On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills: Pilgrimages to Snowdon and Scafell

by Henry S. Salt

Having spoken of the sights, let me speak of the sounds of the mountain, for the ear is not less fascinated than the eye in these echoing temples, where the upper cloughs and chambers are as huge whispering galleries, and sounds are often carried from immense distances, yet in so modulated and subtle a tone as to leave a haunting impression on the mind. There is a solemnity about these mountain voices which is only comparable, on a larger scale, to the effects produced in the hollow space of a cathedral; hence the perfect appropriateness, as has been pointed out, of Wordsworth’s much criticized reference to the “solemn voice” of the mountain lamb. The singing of the stream below, the deep croak of the raven as he sails on his straight course overhead, the shrill cry of the wheeling buzzard, the bleat of a sheep and even the noise of a detached stone falling from the cliff to the screes, come to us with a significance which would hardly be intelligible elsewhere. The wind, too, has some strange things to tell us, as it tears itself into shreds on the rocks, or lifts the water from the tarns and streams and dashes it in spray to the sky, or startles us with muffled subterranean sobbings as we cross some exposed ridge. Listening among the higher mountains in rough or cloudy weather, we may hear sounds so wild and mysterious that their origin wholly baffles us. There is also felt, at times, a strange apprehension—or should we say premonition?—of the presence of human beings, which may be due to the ear having become unconsciously aware of their approach, if not to some other sense more poignant and occult.

One sometimes sees strange companionships on mountains. Once, when I was on the Glyder Fach with some friends, we heard the steps of a party ascending by the steep northern screes from Cwm Tryfan, and presently two men came into sight, the leader with a cloak thrown over his shoulder in cavalier-like style, the follower in the garb of a serving man. In this manner they crossed the summit-plateau, and when they neared the edge of the southern escarpment, the valet (for that he was valet, not guide, we inferred both from his demeanour and the order of their procession) dropped respectfully to the rear, while his master stood for some time as if wrapped in thought, and gazing out over the wide scene that had Cardigan Bay as its limit. Then, the reverie ended, he turned back towards Cwm Tryfan, and followed by his demure attendant, descended as he had come. Was he a prince or a poet, we wondered; and if a poet, how could his sensitiveness bear the near presence of a servant—a servant!—in that great freedom of the mountain, where one would expect the distinctions of rank to disappear?

The voices of the mountain streams become, of course, less powerful in proportion to the height to which the traveller attains, until from the distant summits he hears them only in fitful intervals, now clear, now hushed, according to the force and direction of the wind; but alike in the valley and on the hillside there is that singular aerial quality in the sound which makes it different to all other voices in Nature. This is the music which De Quincey described as like that “of pealing anthems, as if streaming from the open portals of some illimitable cathedral,” and he adds, with special reference to the river Brathay, in Langdale, that “such a sound does actually arise, in many states of the weather, from the peculiar action of the river upon its rocky bed; and many times I have heard it, of a quiet night, when no stranger could have been persuaded to believe it other than the sound of choral chanting, distant, solemn, saintly.” The same illusion, if it be an illusion, may be felt by one who rests with closed eyes on the bank of any of the small steep becks, which go purling down the slopes, to feed the larger rivers below.

And now for the joys of the descent. The regret with which the mountain lover turns his back on the summits and leaves

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,

is tempered with the pleasure of choosing some well-pounded scree-slope or soft grassy stair, down which he may race, with the skill and sureness of foot which long practice has given him, towards the abodes of men, and, like a miser turned spendthrift, may squander in one wild fling the thousands of upward steps so laboriously amassed. It is extraordinary with what speed, given suitable foothold, you may run from top to bottom of a mountain which it took you hours to climb; the Alpine glissade is hardly more glorious. Then, if the day be hot, there awaits you that supreme reward and crown of your labours—the bath.

Can bliss be greater than that of coming down sun-scorched and footsore, to the divine cool streams which fall from hill to valley through a series of rock-pools, each a fit bath-place for an emperor, or to the lakes which tempt the swimmer below, or to the sea itself, never far distant from these mountains? To bathe after a stern day on the heights is the elysium of the climber; no ordinary mortals can understand the passion with which he betakes himself to the healing waters. After coming off the Glyders in a burning sun, I have known the traveller leap into Llyn Idwal, to the consternation of its motionless fishermen; I have seen wonder, too, in the faces of wood-cutters by Buttermere, at the sight of a fellow-being rushing down crazed, as they thought, from the banks of High Stile, and plunging into the lake even while a thunderstorm burst overhead. Assuredly the Delectable Mountains themselves can contain nothing more delectable than their streams.

There is a reckless joy, too, in the descent on a wet and stormy afternoon, when, after facing rain and wind for hours on the ridges, we return home drenched and weather-beaten, with the exhilaration that arises in the mind which has nothing to hope or to fear. Indeed, the foul day has its proper place, no less than the fair day, in the economy of the hills, when the rain-curtain is drawn visibly across the valley, and scores of white runnels are coursing down the slopes, and the voice of the swollen river sounds hoarser every hour, while it rises as only a mountain river can rise.