The only pollution he would admit in this innocent stream was the occasional sheep-washing by the dalesmen. In his notes Wordsworth recommends the traveller who would be most gratified with the Duddon not to approach it from its source, as is done in the sonnets, nor from its termination, but from Coniston over Walna Scar, first descending into a little circular valley, a collateral compartment of the long, winding vale through which the river flows. In fact, Wordsworth’s notes are a very excellent guide to the district, and Thorne, who was a first-hand authority upon rivers, confessedly took the poet as his cicerone when he followed the stream from the very top of Wrynose, marking even the bed of moss through which the water oozes at the source. With a poet’s licence, Wordsworth likens his river finally to the Thames; but though the Duddon widens considerably at Ulpha, it loses its beauty before it finishes its career.
DERWENTWATER AND SKIDDAW (p. [299]).
DERWENTWATER FROM SCAFELL.
Following the coast around Haverigg Point, whence the sand of the coast becomes only the decent margin which makes the shore pleasant, we pause at the three-branched estuary of the Esk, the creeks, right, left, and middle, being formed by the Esk, the Mite, and the Irt. This is all majestic country. Our Cumberland Esk hails from Scafell, whose pike of 3,210 feet is the highest ground in England. Upper Eskdale may also be spoken of in the superlative degree for its marked grandeur. No mean skill in mountaineering is required to reach Wastdale, Langdale, and Borrowdale from the different paths. The Esk Falls are formed by the junction of becks from Bowfell and Scafell. The fine cataract, Cam Spout, descends from Mickledore; and Hardknott, which is one of the lesser heights, has a Roman ruin spoken of as a castle. There are, moreover, Baker Force and Stanley Gill amongst the waterfalls. Little need be said about the second-named river, the Mite, except that it passes the fell, the railway station, and the castle, bearing each the name of Muncaster.
THE COCKER FLOWING FROM CRUMMOCK WATER (p. [300]).
The river IRT is the outlet of Wastwater, a gloomy lake three and a half miles long and half a mile broad, and of immense depth. It is a tradition in Lakeland that this piece of water is never frozen, but this is clearly an error, for there is a distinct record by the learned brother of Sir Humphry Davy that it was partly covered with ice in the great frost of 1855. The desolate crags around the lake are answerable for much of its severe character, and perhaps it was on this account that the Lakers used to visit it. Waugh, the Lancashire poet, encountered a local gossip who was full of memories of Wordsworth, Wilson, De Quincey, and Sedgwick, and the man very much amused his listener by describing Wordsworth as a very quiet old man, who had no pride, and very little to say. Christopher North was naturally a horse of another colour, being full of his gambols, and creating great excitement by his spirited contests with one of the Cumberland wrestlers. Wastwater is often violently agitated by heavy squalls from the south, which is somewhat of an anomaly, seeing that the boundary on that side is a mighty natural rampart named the Screes, so called from the loose nature of the scarps, which tend to make some of the neighbouring mountains practically inaccessible.