Gordale Beck has its rise near Malham Tarn, about 1,500 feet above sea-level; and, after running across the moor for about three miles, gathering strength in its progress, it reaches the top of this cliff, and, passing over it, has formed in the course of ages quite a considerable passage, widening as it approaches the valley below, where it emerges through a chasm between two rocks which rise to a great height. It was from this point we had to begin our climb, and few people could pass underneath these overhanging rocks without a sense of danger. The track at this end had evidently been well patronised by visitors, but the last of these had departed with the month of September, and as it was now late in October we had the Scar all to ourselves. It was, therefore, a lonely climb, and a very difficult one as we approached the top, for the volume of water was necessarily much greater after the heavy autumnal rainfall than when the visitors were there in the summer; and as we had to pass quite near the falls, the wind blew the spray in some places over our path. It seemed very strange to see white foaming water high above our heads. There was some vegetation in places; here and there a small yew tree, which reminded us of churchyards and the dark plumes on funeral coaches; but there were also many varieties of ferns in the fissures in the rocks. When we neared the top, encumbered as we were with umbrellas, walking-sticks, and bags, we had to assist each other from one elevation to another, one climbing up first and the other handing the luggage to him, and we were very pleased when we emerged on the moors above.
KILNSEY CRAGS.
Here we found the beck running deeply and swiftly along a channel which appeared to have been hewn out expressly for it, but on closer inspection we found it quite a natural formation. We have been told since by an unsentimental geologist that the structure is not difficult to understand. As in the case of the Malham Cove stream, this one passed into the rock and gradually ate out a hollow, while ultimately escaping from the cliff as in the cove; but the roof of the cave collapsed, forming the great chasm and revealing the stream as it leaped down from one level to another. Looking about us on the top we saw lonely moors without a house or a tree in sight, and walked across them until we came to a very rough road—possibly the track which we expected to find leading from Malham. Malham Tarn was not in sight, but we had learned that the water was about a mile in length and the only things to be seen there were two kinds of fish—perch and trout—-which often quarrelled and decimated each other. The weather was dull, and we had encountered several showers on our way, passing between the Parson's Pulpit to the left, rising quite 1,700 feet, and the Druid's Altar to our right; but we afterwards learned that it was a poor specimen, and that there were much finer ones in existence, while the Parson's Pulpit was described as "a place for the gods, where a man, with a knowledge of nature and a lover of the same, might find it vantage ground to speak or lecture on the wonders of God and nature."
We were pleased to get off the moors before further showers came on, and before we reached Kilnsey, where this portion of the moors terminated abruptly in the Kilnsey Crags, we passed by a curious place called Dowker Bottom Cave, where some antiquarian discoveries had been made about fifteen years before our visit, excavations several feet below the lime-charged floor of the cave having revealed the fact that it had been used by cave-dwellers both before and after the time of the Romans: there were also distinct traces of ancient burials.
The monks of Furness Abbey formerly owned about 6,000 acres of land in this neighbourhood, and a small vale here still bore the name of Fountains Dell; but the Scotch raiders often came down and robbed the monks of their fat sheep and cattle. The valley now named Littondale was formerly known as Amerdale, and was immortalised as such by Wordsworth in his "White Doe of Rylstone":
Unwooed, yet unforbidden.
The White Doe followed up the vale,
Up to another cottage, hidden
In the deep fork of Amerdale.