Eastwards of the great arterial line of railway which, running from Manchester to Lancaster through Bolton and Preston, almost exactly bisects the county, the scenery is rich in the eloquent features which come of wild and interminable surges of broad and massive hill, often rocky, with heights of fantastic form, the irregularities giving token, in their turn, of deep chasms and clefts, that subdivide into pretty lateral glens and moist hollows crowded with ferns. The larger glens constitute the "cloughs" so famous in local legend, and the names of which recur so frequently in Lancashire literature. As Yorkshire is approached, the long succession of uplands increases in volume, rising at last in parts to a maximum altitude of nearly 1900 feet. Were a survey possible from overhead, the scene would be that of a tempest-ruffled ocean, the waves suddenly made solid.
THE LAKE AT LITTLEBOROUGH
Very much of this vast hill-surface consists of desolate, heathery, unsheltered moorland. The amount of unreclaimed land still existing in Lancashire, and which must needs remain for ever as it is, constitutes in truth one of the striking characteristics of the county. Not merely in the portion now specially under notice are there cold and savage wastes such as laugh the plough to scorn. The "fells" of the more northern districts present enormous breadths of similar character, incapable of supporting more than the poorest aboriginal vegetation, affording only the scantiest pasturage for a few scattered mountain-sheep, thus leaving the farmer without a chance. In itself the fact of course is in no degree remarkable, since there are plenty of hopeless acres elsewhere. The singular circumstance is the association of so much barrenness with the stupendous industries of the busiest people in the world. It is but in keeping after all with the general idea of old England,—
"This precious gem, set in the silver sea,"—
the pride of which consists in the constant blending of the most diverse elements. If we have grim and hungry solitudes, rugged and gloomy wildernesses, not very far off, be sure there is counterpoise in placid and fruitful vale and mead. Lancashire may not supply the cornfield: the soil and climate, though good for potatoes, are unfriendly to the cerealia; there is no need either to be too exacting; if the sickle has no work, there is plenty for the scythe and the spade.
A few miles beyond Bolton the hills begin to rise with dignity. Here we find far-famed and far-seen Rivington Pike, conspicuous, like Ashurst, through ascending almost immediately out of the plain. "Pike" is in Lancashire, and in parts of the country closely adjacent, the equivalent of "peak," the highest point of a hilly neighbourhood, though by no means implying an exactly conical or pyramidal figure, and very generally no more than considerable elevation, as in the case of the "Peak of Derbyshire." Rivington well deserves its name, presenting from many points of view one of those beautiful, evenly swelling, and gently rounded eminences which the ancient Greeks were accustomed to call τιτθοί and μαστοί, as in the case of the classic mound at Samos which Callimachus connects so elegantly with the name of the lady Parthenia. There are spots, however, where the mamelon disappears. From all parts of the summit the prospect is delightful. Under our feet, unrolled like a carpet, is a verdant flat which stretches unbrokenly to the sea-margin, twenty miles distant, declared, nevertheless, by a soft, sweet gleam of silver or molten gold, according to the position of the sun in the heavens. The estuary of the Ribble, if the tide be in, renews that lovely shining; and beyond, in the remote distance, if the atmosphere be fairly clear, say fifty or sixty miles away, may be discerned the grand mountains that cast their shadows into Coniston. Working Lancashire, though it has lakes of its own, has made others! From the summit of Rivington we now look down upon half a dozen immense reservoirs, so located that to believe them the work of man is scarcely possible. Fed by the inflow of several little streams, and no pains taken to enforce straight margins, except when necessary, these ample waters exemplify in the best manner how art and science are able at times to recompense Nature—
WATERFALL IN CLIVIGER