Letters from England, Volume 2 (of 3)

by Robert Southey

Another mile of broken ground, the most interesting which I ever traversed, brought us to a single rock called the Bowder Stone, a fragment of great size which has fallen from the heights. The same person who formerly disfigured the island in Keswick Lake with so many abominations, has been at work here also; has built a little mock hermitage, set up a new druidical stone, erected an ugly house for an old woman to live in who is to show the rock, for fear travellers should pass under it without seeing it, cleared away all the fragments round it, and as it rests upon a narrow base, like a ship upon its keel, dug a hole underneath through which the curious may gratify themselves by shaking hands with the old woman. The oddity of this amused us greatly, provoking as it was to meet with such hideous buildings in such a place,—for the place is as beautiful as eyes can behold, or imagination conceive. The river flows immediately below, of that pale gray green transparency which we sometimes see in the last light of the evening sky; a shelf of pebbles on the opposite shore shows where it finds its way through a double channel when swoln by rains:—the rest of the shore is covered with a grove of young trees which reach the foot of a huge single crag, half clothed with brush-wood:—this crag when seen from Keswick appears to block up the pass. Southward we looked down into Borrodale, whither we were bound,—a vale which appeared in the shape of a horse-shoe.

This lovely vale when we had descended into it, appeared to lie within an amphitheatre of mountains; but as we advanced we perceived that its real shape was that of the letter Y: our way lay along the right branch. They have a pestilential fungus in this country which has precisely the smell of putrid carrion, and is called by the fit name of the stinker. It is so frequent as to be quite a nuisance along the road. We passed through one little village, and left a second on our right, the loneliest imaginable places;—both villages, and the few single houses which we saw in the vale, have pines planted about them. A third and still smaller village called Seathwaite lay before us, drearily situated, because no attempt has been made to drain the land around, easily as it might be done. Above this lies the mine of black-lead of which those pencils so famous over all Europe are made,—it is the only one of the kind which has yet been discovered. We could not see it, as it is worked only occasionally, and had just been shut.

Our attention had been too much engaged by the delightful scenes around us to let us think of the weather, when, to our surprise, it began to rain hard:—there was no alternative but to proceed, for we were between two and three leagues from Keswick. Dreary as the wet and plashy ground about Seathwaite had appeared as we approached, it became cheerful when we looked back upon it,—for it seemed as if we were leaving all inhabitable parts,—nothing but rock and mountain was to be seen.—When we had almost reached the extremity of this ascending vale, we came to a little bridge, as rude as work of human hands can be; the stream making a little cataract immediately under it. Here the ascent of the mountain began, a steep, wet, winding path, more like a goat's highway than the track of man. It rained heavily; but we consoled ourselves with remarking that the rain kept us cool, whereas we should otherwise have suffered much from heat. After long labour we reached a part which from its easier acclivity seemed almost like a plain; and keeping by the side of a little stream came to a small mountain lake, or Tarn as it is called in the language of the country. A crag rose behind it; the water was so dark that till I came close to it I could scarcely believe it was clear. It may be thought that there is nothing more in a pool on the mountains, than in a pool on a plain,—but the thing itself occasions a totally different sensation. The sense of loneliness is an awful feeling. I have better understood why the saints of old were wont to retire into the wilderness, since I have visited these solitudes. The maps call this Sparkling Tarn; but Low Tarn is the name given it in the neighbourhood, and another about half an hour's height above it they call High Tarn. This other is omitted in the maps, which, indeed, the knowledge we have of their track, little as it is, enables us to say are very incorrect. It would make a fine picture, and the height of its situation might be expressed by alpine plants in the foreground.

Beyond this there was about half a mile still up, and by a steeper road. Having reached the highest point, which is between Scafell and Great Gabel, two of the highest mountains in England, we saw Wasdale below bending to the south-west, between mountains whose exceeding height we were now able to estimate by our own experience,—and to the west the sea appeared through an opening. The descent may without exaggeration be called tremendous; not that there is danger, but where any road is possible, it is not possible to conceive a worse. It is, like the whole surface round it, composed of loose stones, and the path serpentizes in turns as short and as frequent as a snake makes in flight. It is withal as steep as it can be to be practicable for a horse. At first we saw no vegetation whatever; after a while only a beautiful plant, called here the stone-fern, or mountain parsley, a lovely plant in any situation, but appearing greener and lovelier here because it was alone. The summits every where were wrapt in clouds; on our right, however, we could see rocks rising in pinnacles and grotesque forms,—like the lines which I have seen a child draw for rocks and mountains, who had heard of but never seen them,—or the edge of a thundercloud rent by a storm. Still more remarkable than the form is the colouring; the stone is red; loose heaps or rather sheets of stones lay upon the sides,—in the dialect of the country they call such patches screes, and it is convenient to express them by a single word: those which the last winter had brought down were in all their fresh redness, others were white with lichens; here patches and lines of green were interposed. At this height the white lichen predominated, but in other parts that species is the commonest which is called the geographical from its resemblance to the lines of a map; it is of a bright green, veined and spotted with black,—so bright as if nature, in these the first rudiments of vegetation, had rivalled the beauty of her choicest works. Wasdale itself, having few trees and many lines of enclosure, lay below us like a map.

The Lake was not visible till we were in the valley. It runs from north-east to south-west, and one mountain extends along the whole of its southern side, rising not perpendicularly indeed, but so nearly perpendicular as to afford no path, and so covered with these loose stones as to allow of no vegetation, and to be called from them The Screes. The stream which accompanied our descent was now swoln into a river by similar mountain torrents descending from every side. The dale is better cultivated at the head than Borrodale, being better drained; and the houses seemed to indicate more comfort and more opulence than those on the other side the mountain; but stone houses and slate roofs have an imposing appearance of cleanliness which is not always verified upon near inspection. Ash trees grow round the houses, greener than the pine, more graceful, and perhaps more beautiful,—yet we liked them less:—was this because, even in the midst of summer, the knowledge that the pine will not fade influences us, though it is not directly remembered?

The rain now ceased, and the clouds grew thinner. They still concealed the summits, but now began to adorn the mountain, so light and silvery did they become. At length they cleared away from the top, and we perceived that the mountain whose jagged and grotesque rocks we had so much admired was of pyramidal shape. That on the southern side of the dale head, which was of greater magnitude, and therefore probably, though not apparently, of equal height, had three summits. The clouds floated on its side, and seemed to cling to it. We thought our shore tamer than the opposite one, till we recollected that the road would not be visible from the water; and presently the mountain, which had appeared of little magnitude or beauty while we passed under it, became, on looking back, the most pyramidal of the whole, and in one point had a cleft summit like Parnassus; thus forming the third conical mountain of the group, which rose as if immediately from the head of the Lake, the dale being lost. But of all objects the screes was the most extraordinary. Imagine the whole side of a mountain, a league in length, covered with loose stones, white, red, blue, and green, in long straight lines as the torrents had left them, in sheets and in patches, sometimes broken by large fragments of rocks which had unaccountably stopt in their descent, and by parts which, being too precipitous for the stones to rest on, were darkened with mosses,—and every variety of form and colour was reflected by the dark water at its foot: no trees or bushes upon the whole mountain,—all was bare, but more variegated by this wonderful mixture of colouring than any vegetation could have made it.

The Lake is a league in length, and the hilly country ends with it. We entered upon a cultivated track, well wooded, and broken with gentle swells, the mountains on the right and left receding towards Ennerdale and Eskdale. About half a league beyond the end of the Lake we came to a miserable alehouse, the first which we had found all day, where they charged us an unreasonable price for milk and oaten bread. We went into a church-yard here, and were surprised at seeing well-designed and well-lettered tombstones of good red stone, in a place apparently inhabited by none but poor peasantry. In about another league we came to a larger village, where manufactures had begotten alehouses; in the church-yard was a pillar of the Pagan Danes converted into a cross, once curiously sculptured, but the figures are now nearly effaced. Here we came into the high road which runs along the coast, and in a short time arrived at a little town called Calder Bridge, where, to our comfort, after a walk of not less than seven leagues, we found a good inn. The bridge from which this place is named is very beautiful; the river flows over rocks which it has furrowed at the banks, so that shelves of rock jut out over the water, here green, here amber-coloured; ash, mountain-ash, and sycamores overhang it.——We have seen inscriptions over some of the houses in Saxon characters to-day,—a proof how long old customs have been retained in these parts.

Saturday.

"Well," said D. this morning when he came into my room, "we shall not be caught in the rain to-day, that is certain,—for we must set off in it."—We were to return to Keswick by way of Ennerdale and Crummock Lakes:—the road was not easy for strangers, and we soon lost it; but while we were stopping to admire an oak growing from three trunks of equal size which united into one, breast-high from the ground, a man overtook us and set us right. Perhaps the tree was originally planted upon a hillock, and these three stems had been the roots. It was nearly two leagues to Ennerdale bridge, and it rained heavily the whole way:—there we breakfasted in a dirty and comfortless alehouse;—but while we dried ourselves by the fire the sun came out, and we set off cheerfully towards the foot of the Lake.