A couple of lines by Spenser prefaced these remarks about the Lune, and an extract from the river-poet, Drayton, may well conclude them:—

There are streams which find their way, sometimes through devious and uncertain channels, into Morecambe Bay, but they are little known even to the inquisitive angler, who is always in search of new waters. The local sportsmen in their wisdom periodically look for the run of silver sea-trout, and keep their secret. The line of the bay from its north-eastern corner, where the Kent comes in, and round to Walney Island, is in the most literal sense irregular, for its indentations and river tributaries are continuous. It forms the intake of what Windermere and Coniston water send down to the sea, and it is, moreover, the watery foreground from which the world-famed scenery of Westmorland and Cumberland may be finely viewed. At Carnforth and Silverdale the outlook in this direction is unrivalled; Fairfield, Helvellyn, and Red Screes loom in the clouds or stand clear against the sky afar, and along the shores of the Bay are nestling towns and villages, wooded knolls and slopes, cottages, farms, and, always behind them, that wonderful amphitheatre, tier upon tier, of mountain.

In pre-railway days the journey from Lancaster to Ulverston was something of an adventure, always exciting, not only on account of the scenery brought under review, but because of the absolute danger of the shifting channels that had to be crossed. The coach was invariably joined at Hestbank (a cliff about three miles from the county town) by guides, whose duty it was to be up to date with the last manœuvres of the quicksands, and to be ready with safe crossing places. These guides were an old institution, and were originally appointed and paid as retainers by the Prior of Cartmel. When the downfall came, and there was no longer an abbey treasure-chest to fall back upon, the Duchy of Lancaster paid the wages. It used to be said that few of those who got their living by “following the sands” died in their beds. Nevertheless, the calling of guide was kept in the same family for generations. The danger of this passage of the sands was long ago put into a distich—

Some of the channels, it was said, were never two days together in the same place. The Keer mentioned in the old couplet was very treacherous, and was always carefully sounded before the coach ventured to cross. Sand tracks had to be staked out with furze-bushes, as the channel of a river is buoyed. Perilous difficulties were apprehended when nearing the Cartmel tongue of the Kent; the Leven sands beyond Cartmel and Ulverston were the worst of all. The poet Wordsworth told Mrs. Hemans, according to the lady’s own letter, that he admired her exploit in crossing the Ulverston sands as a deed of derring-do, and as a decided proof of taste; and he truly added that the lake scenery is never seen to such advantage as after the passage of what he calls its majestic barrier.

Before arriving at the Lake district we might in farewell turn our faces to the south, standing in imagination at Silverdale. There in the picture are the Wharton Crags, with houses great and small amongst their wooded feet; and then there are Bolton-le-Sands, Hestbank, Poulton-le-Sands (which to all intents and purposes is Morecambe), Heysham, and Lancaster Bay. It is a journey of twenty-six miles by rail from Lancaster to Ulverston, and the greater part of the distance is close to the shores of Morecambe Bay. The traveller going north, therefore, has the sea laving the tract to his left, and always, as an alternative prospect, rock, wood, stream, bushy dales and retiring glens to the right. From the sea the fishermen obtain great store of shrimp and flat fish. There are border guard-houses, such as Arnside Tower; and in reaching Hawes Tarn (which is said to be affected somehow by the rise and fall of the tide) groves of larch and pine, with a plenteous undergrowth of gorse and ling, offer themselves to the view. Picturesque Holme Island, at the mouth of the Kent, and the ruins of Peel Castle on the islet of that name, enter into the picture in other directions.

The river KENT, upon whose left bank the town of Kendal is situated, must not long delay our round of the streams that await introduction. It gives name to Kentmere village, and to the reservoir, or tarn, fed by the beck springing from the mountain bearing, in memory of the Roman road which neared its loftiest point, the very familiar name of High Street. There is also Kentmere Hall, remnant of one of the peel towers, and birthplace of Bernard Gilpin, the almost forgotten Apostle of the North in the dangerous times of Mary and Elizabeth, and after whom a parallel stream westward is called. The Kent, like the Mint from Grayrigg Forest, and the Sprint running down the middle of Long Sleddale—like, indeed, unnumbered becks on every hand in the whole district—is of the rapid order, abounding in boulders, shingly strands, deep channels between banks of imperishable rock, opening pools and pebbly shallows, haunts of trout and of the anglers who understand their ways and know the seasons when salmonidæ should be ascending from the salt water.

Her Majesty Catherine Parr, who had the good fortune to escape the peril of burning as a heretic, and the loving attention which was fatal to other wives of Bluff Harry, was born on the banks of the Kent, in the castle whose ruins are a prominent object in the scenery of which Kendal is the centre. Wordsworth sketches it in happy terms:—

Shakespeare and others refer to Kendal in connection with an industry established by the Flemings, who settled there under Edward III. They became famous for their woollens, and their special “line” was the cloth termed “Kendals” in trade parlance, and “Kendal-green” by the outlaws and their critics. This was the colour of the clothes worn by the “three misbegotten knaves” whose exploits upon Falstaff were denounced by Prince Henry as lies “gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” The foresters’ cloth made by the Flemings was deservedly popular; but cotton superseded woollens in the last century, and this in time gave place to other textile fabrics.

The GILPIN flows into the head of the long and crooked estuary a mile or so away from the mouth of the Kent river; and, further south, the viaduct carrying the railway to Grange crosses from Arnside. The isolated conical hill, Castle Head (or Castle Hill), is prettily brightened by foliage, and it is a significant survival of the old landmarks. The waves used to wash the base of this now high and dry eminence, for the plain traversed by the river WINSTER is mostly land reclaimed from the sea at different times, but most extensively for the construction of the railway. Holme Island is opposite and near the mouth of the Winster, and has not been inaptly described as a marine paradise made by the art and industry of man from a rude, isolated rock upon which previously nothing better than whins and brambles struggled for precarious roothold. The causeway which joins this beautiful little realm of a few acres to the mainland makes it an island only in name, but the name abides. Upon the Cartmel peninsula is the wooded domain of Holker Hall, which was the favourite autumnal resort of the late Duke of Devonshire.

The much more spacious peninsula of Furness—with Ulverston as its central town, the great docks and shipbuilding yards of Barrow marking modern progress, and the ruins of Furness Abbey pointing to a distant past—is divided from Cartmel by the estuary of the Leven. Leven from our point of consideration means Windermere and entrance to the unchanging beauty of Lakeland. The river Leven, however, is but a conclusion; in other words, it is the final link of the chain of water-pictures which have inspired many a poet; and to arrive at the first we must leave for a moment the sands of Morecambe Bay and take a new departure away beyond Grasmere, where the river ROTHAY (or Rotha) is formed by a congregation of murmuring becks or gills. One of the feeders of the Rothay comes from the tiny Codale Tarn and the larger Easedale Tarn, well known to tourists from the rattling little waterfall, Sourmilk Force. Codale lies pretty high in the world, rising to an altitude considerably over 2,000 feet. Easedale is a basin somewhat down hill, and is in these days much better known than when Wordsworth strolled beside its outpouring stream, and confessed to having composed thousands of verses in the solitude of the vale. The conspicuous headland of Helm Crag is an essential part of the scenery, and it is climbed for the sake of the view over Grasmere, Windermere, Esthwaite Tarn, Helvellyn, and Fairfield.

It may be remarked that we are now in the region of tarns and pikes, and the derivation of the former word, if not strictly correct, is not unpoetical, for it is said to mean “a tear.” This imaginative investment reminds us of Wordsworth’s declaration that the stream which traverses Easedale is now and again as wild and beautiful as a brook may be. The river Rothay, however, does not rely entirely upon this immortalised brook, but it can fairly reckon upon what can be spared from the tarns when the other gills fail in their shrunken currents. In the valley is the village of Grasmere, sacred to Wordsworth’s cottage; and the church, containing a medallion of the author who sang its “naked rafters intricately crossed,” and whose grave and that of members of his family, with Hartley Coleridge lying hard by, and a memorial-stone to Clough, attract renewed streams of pilgrims. The cottage is not far from the church, and it is now owned by trustees, who keep it in order for the inspection of visitors. There is no section of this district which is not beautiful, and the recurring clumps of trees recall how the country was at one time alleged to be so covered with wood that wild boars abounded. There was, and probably is, a local saying that a squirrel could travel from Kendal to Keswick without once touching the ground.

It was at this cottage that Wordsworth first set up housekeeping, and many and distinguished were his visitors to Grasmere. It had been previously a rustic inn under the prophetic sign of the “Dove and Olive Bough”; and upon about £100 a year the poet contrived to entertain relays of visitors, amongst them Southey, Coleridge, and Scott. It was, perhaps of necessity, a teetotal cottage, and it was here (according to report) that Sir Walter, after dinner, used to pretend that he was going for a meditative stroll, and resort to the public-house for a draught of what was best. Until recent years the descendant of a certain publican—who was said to have given Scott away by addressing him, as he and Wordsworth walked up, with, “Ah, Master Scott, you’re early to-day for your drink”—was pointed out as an inhabitant of the village; but there is some doubt about this pretty story, as Sir Walter only visited Wordsworth for one day while he resided at the cottage, and then it was a call in company with Davy, on an occasion when they ascended Helvellyn together. On the whole, the Lake district must remain a most temperate region, for it was reported that on the Christmas day of so recent a year as 1896 a party of young men who called at the most elevated public-house in England were the first customers the landlord had seen for six weeks.

The Rothay courses south, a short length between the village and the mere. Writ large in literary associations, and a household word amongst English-speaking peoples, Grasmere is but a mile long, and nothing like so broad at its widest part, but it is a precious gem in a setting where all is worthy. Gray, whose prose descriptions of Lakeland are passed on from writer to writer, rejoiced exceedingly because not a single red tile, and no staring gentleman’s house (meaning probably no gentleman’s staring house) broke in upon the repose of the unsuspected paradise. The paradise is not any longer unsuspected; it is public property; but there are still left the eternal hills, Grasmere water hollowed in their bosom, the small bays and miniature promontories, the soft turf green as an emerald, trees, hedges, cattle, pastures, and corn-land—items of description that may in a varying degree apply to almost every one of these famous sheets of Lakeland water. In truth, there is no better travelled ground in the three kingdoms than this; and it may be assumed once for all that its general attractions are known to the reader, and that we are free to proceed with our purpose of showing the part borne by the rivers as connecting ways, and systems of supply and relief for the lakes.

The river Rothay does precisely what Wordsworth did: it moves from Grasmere to Rydal, flowing along the base of Loughrigg Fell, avoiding the terrace and curving up towards the “Wishing Gate” to the western point of Rydal Water. From any of the paths which conduct downwards the course of the Rothay is brightly and clearly mapped. We need not pause at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s last residence, nor at the rock which is remembered as his favourite seat, nor at Rydal Hall and the shade-giving trees of its park, nor follow the beck to the little tumbles of water named Rydal Falls, nor stroll the half mile which would bring us to Fox How, the holiday retreat of Arnold of Rugby. Amongst the trees in the so-called Rydal forest there are oaks that must often have given pleasure to Wordsworth in his rambles; and the beck which is always scurrying to the Rothay receives its impetus from the steepness of its journey from the mountain—

On past Ambleside, which it leaves untouched to the left, the Rothay proceeds, with greetings from Rydal Water to busy Windermere. Ambleside, though it has no immediate lake view, is not without its water effects, both heard and seen when the swollen little tributary gives power to Stock Ghyll Force, a very respectable fall of some seventy feet. Every visitor to Ambleside pays homage to this romantic termination of a delightful walk through a sylvan enclosure. Ambleside is nowadays practically connected with the lake by Waterhead and the extended occupation of the flat; and a short distance above the head of the lake is the junction of the Brathay and the Rothay. The former, like the latter, is in intimate relations with lakelet and feeder, and, in truth, cuts an important figure by its drainage of Great and Little Langdale, its reception of sundry gills from the dominating pikes which seldom allow themselves to be forgotten in the Windermere county, its inclusion of Little Langdale tarn and Elterwater, and its share in keeping in action various waterfalls, of which Dungeon Ghyll Force and the Mill Beck Cascades are the best. The neighbourhood elicited the warmest admiration from Professor Wilson, who said that sweeter stream scenery with richer foreground and loftier background was nowhere to be seen within the four seas. Of the three lakelets he preferred the small tarn on Loughrigg Fell—

The two rivers have time and space to combine in a united volume before fairly entering Windermere. It is strange to notice the exaggerated idea entertained by those who have never explored Lakeland as to the dimensions of such waters as Windermere, Ullswater, and Derwentwater. They have read so much and so often about them that they have become visions of vast distances, inland seas upon which storm-bound mariners have to run to port for shelter when the stormy winds do blow. Yet Windermere, the first of the lakes in dimensions, is not more than ten miles and a half in length, and, except in its broadest section, opposite Windermere and Bowness towns, less than a mile broad. Its real greatness lies in its exquisite islets or holms, and in the commanding views which receive so much charm from the intervening foreground of water, however limited in extent it may be.

Two of the feeders of Windermere, and they the principal ones, have been mentioned in their geographical order; and there remain to complete the category at least two others. TROUTBECK, which is said to be one of the few streams in all Lakeland that are of small value to the angler, comes in from the north-east down a beautiful valley, an easy excursion distance either from Ambleside for the higher, or from Windermere for the lower, portions; and midway, under Wansfell Pike, lies Troutbeck village, the most picturesque conceivable, as it was also when Christopher North wrote of the scattered dwellings “all dropped down where the painter and the poet would have wished to plant them, on knolls and in dells, on banks and braes, and below tree-crested rocks—and all bound together in picturesque confusion by old groves of ash, oak, and sycamore, and by flower-gardens and fruit-orchards rich as those of the Hesperides.” There to the north-east, over against Kentmere Reservoir, Ill Bell offers the temptation of an ascent of 2,476 feet, and Troutbeck valley is preferred as on the whole the easiest and pleasantest route.

Esthwaite Water, one of the smaller lakes, and a satellite of Windermere, is also narrow in proportion to length, and a matter of four miles removed to the west. No one is heard to rave about its homely shores and indifferent setting, but it comes under frequent notice from its nearness to Hawkshead, a quaint little market-town with a notable church, and a grammar school, one of whose forms is preserved with Wordsworth’s initials cut in it. Esthwaite Water, however, is bound to receive its due in these pages, as the helpmeet of Windermere through the medium of the short and business-like stream CUNSEY BECK. At the point where this feeder is lost in the lake, though it is not its deepest part, the angler may reckon upon the miscellaneous sport which is yielded by the lakes generally. In the deeper waters (and the plumb-line makes the bottom 240 feet at the maximum depth) the char, only to be found in a few localities in the three kingdoms, occurs. Its capture with rod and line is sport of a kind, but it is inferior in this respect to the trout. At a time when the available rivers for the angler who cannot afford to be his own riparian owner are becoming fewer and fewer, it is a little remarkable that these countless becks, tarns, full-sized streams and lakes are not more highly prized by the fisherman-tourist. It is true that Windermere, from one cause and another, has of late years fallen into disrepute, but under the operations of a local association there has been distinct improvement, though steamer traffic must always seriously reduce the value of such fishing haunts.

Very pleasing to the eye are the undulating shores, and the green of the grass, and the foliage of Windermere at its southern end. At Lakeside it is so narrow that it is hard to put your finger on the spot where the LEVEN begins, though, for want of a better, Newby Bridge, as shown in the illustration (p. 284), will serve. The Leven, as before remarked, is the last link of our Windermere chain, but after Rothay and Brathay, and the becks with their forces and falls, we need give it but the consideration which is due to an outlet bearing to the sea such waters as Windermere does not want, through the long tortuous channel in the sandy wastes of Morecambe Bay.

The CRAKE river falls into the Leven so near its mouth that it might almost claim to be a tributary. But it is independent and apart in its character and mission. It belongs to Coniston Water, as Leven belongs to Windermere; and the commonplace scenery of its short course, with its trio of bridges, is another mark of similarity. All that is noticeable around Coniston lake is at the upper portion. The steamer pier is at Waterhead, the village and station are half a mile inland; the Old Man of Coniston (2,633 feet), whom generations of climbers have been proud to attack, is in the same direction, and Yewdale and its tarn, howes, crags and fells are towards the north. The coaching traveller may feast his eyes upon the lancet-shaped water, some five miles long from Schoolbeck at the upper or from the Crake at the lower terminal, and of a uniform width of about half a mile; while the upward trip from Lake Bank affords clear and happy views of the mountains of which the Old Man is the irrepressible head. Off the high road opposite Coniston Hall, a farmhouse once the Westmorland seat of the Le Fleming family, is Brantwood, associated with the names of Gerald Massey, poet and self-made man, of Linton the engraver, and of Ruskin, great as any of those giants of literature whose names are linked with Lakeland.

The river DUDDON as a thing of beauty has often been overpraised, no less an authority than Wordsworth setting the example when, in his “Scenery of the Lakes,” he says it may be compared, such and so varied are its beauties, with any river of equal length in any country. Yet there are streams in Wales, and even in the north of England, which their admirers would not hesitate to rank above it. It rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of Westmorland, Cumberland, and Lancashire, and for twenty-five miles or so is the boundary between the two latter counties. It possesses, no doubt, a certain picturesqueness, having its wild mountain phases, its torrents roaring around obstructive rocks, its passage through fertile meadows, and at last its slow ending through the everlasting sands to an open outlet into the Irish Sea at the north end of Walney Island.

Donnerdale, with Seathwaite as its most notable centre, has received much attention because Wordsworth (from whom we cannot, and would not if we could, escape in Lakeland) made it the subject of thirty-four sonnets, dedicated to his brother Christopher. The poet evidently set himself down to glorify this particular district by prolonged observation—

In the course of his sonnets he sings its dwarf willows and ferny brakes; its sullen moss and craggy mound; its green alders, ash and birch trees, and sheltering pines; its hamlets under verdant hills; its barns and byres, and spouting mills. Nor does he fail to celebrate the gusts that lash its matted forests. When the gale becomes too obstreperous, then, reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by, the poet turns him to the warm hearth, to

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.

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 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.

Ennerdale Water, a few miles to the north, receives its first influx from the river LIZA, locally known as Lissa Beck. It is a lovely valley, and there is no overcrowding of population. The last house is the farmhouse of Gillerthwaite, and further progress upwards to the mountains is by footpath only. This is in truth the only excuse for mentioning the Liza, though it might serve as an opportunity for singing the praises of the Great Gable, formerly known as the Green Gable. It is one of the most conspicuous of mountain heads, and its frowning peak meets the view from great distances. Pillar Mountain, which is nearer Ennerdale Plain, is almost exactly the same height—2,927 feet, which is about seven yards less than the Gable—and it has a pinnacled and abrupt descent almost to the confines of the lake. Ennerdale Water at one time had the character of being the best fishing resort in the Lakes. “The Anglers’ Inn” is not, as may be supposed, an establishment of modern growth, for it is bepraised in the literature of forty years ago. The bold headland projecting into the water at the western end was more than half a century back well known as Angler Fell, for a reason which the term itself explains, and at that time one of the curiosities of the lake was a collection of loose stones which, according to tradition, had been placed at the head of the shoal by unknown mortal or supernatural hands. Anyhow, the heap was always pointed out as a mystery until a scientific visitor explained it away by pronouncing it to be the remnant of an old moraine.

Though not so deep as Wastwater, Ennerdale Water can boast its twenty-four fathoms, and the familiar statement is made as to its immunity from ice, the fact being that it is only in the severest frosts that these uncommonly deep lakes are affected. At the lower end the river Ehen takes up the duty of carrying the overflow to the sea, describing a long and semicircular course that from opposite St. Bees becomes by quick swerve a journey due south. The valley thence is of a pastoral character, and is perhaps best known from the establishment on its banks (long before the Cleator Iron Works sent up their smoke) of the little town of Egremont, with its ruins of a strong fortress. It was this that suggested the Cumberland tradition told by Wordsworth in the poem “The Horn of Egremont Castle.”

“Scarcely ever have I seen anything so fine as the Vale of St. John,” Southey exclaims; and the Valley of St. John which is named more than once in Scott’s “Bridal of Triermain” is always accepted as the same. It is in the country of Helvellyn, of Thirlmere, of the river GRETA, and Keswick is its capital. The Greta, however, is known by sectional names, even after it issues from the mere, which has the distinction of being, while one of the minor lakes, the highest in altitude. The other lakes are generally something between 200 and 300 feet above sea level. This is over 500 feet, and its precipitous borderings here and there are in accord with its unusual elevation.

The stream which has to make so steep a descent before it is received by the Derwent is generally spoken of as St. John’s Beck as it trends northward through the namesake vale, Naddle Fell on the one side, and Great Dodd on the other, keeping watch and ward, deeply scored; Saddleback always looming grimly ahead beyond Threlkeld, with Skiddaw as near neighbour. At this stage the Glenderamakin makes conjunction from the east, and, united, the streams become the Greta. From Threlkeld it takes a new course, westerly to Keswick, and its scenery is of the highest beauty as it hurries past Latrigg, otherwise known as Skiddaw’s Cub. Greta in this short length of established identity is not to be denied, as Greta Bridge, Greta Hall (the home of Southey for forty years), and Greta Bank testify. Half a mile from Keswick, over the bridge, is Crosthwaite, the old parish church in whose God’s acre Southey was buried.

The tourist in Lakeland will bring back his special impression of “the very finest view,” according to his individual tastes and, maybe, temperament. A well-ordered ballot would probably, however, place at the head of the list that prospect—never to be adequately described—from Castlerigg top. For water there are Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater; for giant mountain forms, Skiddaw and Saddleback; for cloud-capped and shadowy fells, the highlands of Buttermere and Crummock, with “the mountains of Newlands shaping themselves as pavilions; the gorgeous confusion of Borrowdale just revealing its sublime chaos through the narrow vista of its gorge,” as De Quincey described them; and for the softer toning and the human interest, the valley of the Greta and the goodly town of Keswick are in the nearer survey. Out of town the river becomes moderately tranquil, and enters the Derwent at the northernmost point of Keswick Lake or Derwentwater.

Derwentwater is the most oval in outline of any of the lakes, and it has the bijou measurements of three miles in length, by a mile and a half in breadth. Foreshores of foliaged slopes or herbaged margins give play to an imposing presentment of cliff and wooded knoll, with dark masses of fantastic mountains behind; the clear water is studded with small islands of varying form and bulk, and in its centre is St. Herbert’s Isle, sacred to the memory of a “saintly eremite” whose ambition it was to die at the moment when his beloved Cuthbert of Durham expired, so that their souls might soar heavenwards in company. After hot summers a phenomenal floating islet, of bog-like character and covered with vegetation, rises at a point about 150 yards from the shore near the far-famed waters coming down from Lodore. Scafell is somewhat a far cry from Keswick, but one of the most impressively comprehensive views of Derwentwater, as of Windermere and Wastwater in a lesser degree, is to be obtained from the summit.

The river DERWENT, known alternatively as the Grange, rises at the head of Borrowdale, flows along the middle of the valley, and enters the lower part of the lake near the Falls of Lodore. Issuing from the further extremity, augmented by the Greta, it flows north-westwards to pay tribute to Bassenthwaite Water, which, after Derwentwater and its strong features of interest, is somewhat of an anti-climax; yet it is a fine lake some four miles in length, with woods on the Wythop shore, and Armathwaite Hall at its foot commanding a full view of the lake. The Derwent, renewing its river-form on the outskirts of this wooded estate, turns to the west, and arrives at Cockermouth, so named from the river which here joins it from the south.

Buttermere and Crummock Water, with Little Loweswater up in the high fells, are the western outposts of Lakeland, and they must be considered as the starting-point of the river COCKER. They are a small chain of themselves, equidistant, and in a line from south-east to north-west. Loweswater is of least account, and not in eager request by tourists; but it is the moving spirit of Holme Force, in a wood beside which the explorer of the lake passes; and the lower end, where the small stream connects with Crummock Water, is not without pleasant scenery. Kirkgate, about half a mile south and half-way on the connecting stream, is a favourite resting-point. In the illustration on page 297 the artist has eloquently described the river Cocker in its hill solitudes, and in its early life, when a single arch is enough to span its modest channel; the plain whitewashed cottage in its sheltered nook, the straggling trees, the sheep fresh from the higher grazings, are very typical of these remote districts.

Crummock Water, the largest of this trio, is somewhat out of the beaten track, but there are boats upon it, and walls of mountain rise on either side. The tourist generally spends the time possible for the casual excursionist at Scale Force, on a feeder of the Cocker after it has cleared the lake. It is a sheer fall of over a hundred feet when there is plenty of water. A kindred cataract in the neighbourhood is Sour Milk Force, the second waterfall of that name mentioned in this chapter. The main river, having sped through the meres and the meadows that separate them, passes through the Vale of Lorton, and enters the Derwent near the castle ruins at Cockermouth. The town was so important, through its baronial fortress, of which the gateway remains, that the Roundhead troops gave it the fatal honour of a passing visit, and there an end of the castle, which they promptly dismantled. But Wordsworth was born here, and the garden-terrace of his home was by Derwent side. The railway frequently crosses the Derwent between Cockermouth and Workington, keeping it on the whole close company through a generally level and ordinary country. Workington is in these days a prosperous seaport; yet we must not forget that Mary Queen of Scots landed here on a May day in 1568, and Wordsworth tells us how—

WILLIAM SENIOR.

RIVERS OF THE SOLWAY FIRTH.

IT is some years since we last saw the Solway Firth, but we well remember the long stretch of naked sand so quickly covered by the galloping tide, and the giant shape of Criffell guarding the whole expanse of water from out which it appeared to rise, so that the prophecy ascribed to Thomas the Rhymer, “In the evil day coming safety shall nowhere be found except atween Criffell and the sea,” seemed in truth a hard saying. Our abode was a solitary house on the northern bank, and, save for the wild ebb and flow of the waters, all was peace. On the right was the open sea, not much ploughed of passing keel; straight across was the indented Cumberland shore, well tended and fertile, but not more so than the inland from our cottage. How plainly it comes back as one takes up the pen!

so sings quaint and courtly Drummond of Hawthornden. It is before these and the other Solway tributaries “lose their names” that we wish to write of them, touch on their beauty, and repeat again some of the brave tales, weird traditions, and choice songs that hallow their fields. And first as to the Firth itself. The Solway opens so rapidly on the sea that it is hard to draw the line between it and the ocean. We shall not try. The Cumberland side falls rapidly off, and presents a larger coast to the open water. Its rivers are not numerous, but in the Eden it possesses one of great interest and importance. The coast-line of the three counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown forms the northern shore. It has many streams. We do not go beyond the Cree, which runs into Wigtown Bay, and of which we shall count the Bladenoch a tributary.

The Solway is noted all the world over for its swift tide: “Love flows like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide,” says Scott in one of his best-known lines. A spring-tide, urged by a breeze from the south-west, speeds along at a rate of ten miles an hour. A deep, hoarse roar is heard twenty miles away, a swirling mist glittering with a number of small rainbows is seen on the sea, a huge wave of foam comes into sight, and this resolves itself into a volume of water six feet high—the vanguard of the ocean itself, which follows, a great mass in violent perturbation. The Solway near Annan is crossed by a long railway bridge. Some years ago this bridging of the Firth was considered a remarkable engineering feat, but now that you rattle in express trains over the Tay and the Forth, the Solway viaduct seems a very trumpery affair. In the old days, when communication was slow and costly, and when, maybe, folk were bolder, how strong the temptation to make a dash for it across the sand! And yet how dangerous! Dense fogs would arise of a sudden, quicksands abounded, and had a nasty trick of shifting their place ever and anon. How easy to miscalculate time or distance! Imagine the feeling of the unfortunate traveller, midway across, when there fell on his ear the sullen roar of the advancing tide! Fatal accidents were frequent, especially to those returning from Cumberland fairs with their brains heated and their judgment confused by hours of rustic dissipation. You remember the graphic account in “Redgauntlet” of Darsie Latimer’s mishap on the northern shore, and his rescue by the Laird of the Lakes on his great black steed. Scott in his novel gives a vivid account of the salmon-fishing on the Solway: how horsemen with barbed spears dashed at full gallop into the receding tide, and speared the fish with wondrous skill. This picturesque mode is long out of date, and stake nets, which, when the tide is out, stretch like huge serpents over the sand, are now the principal engines of capture. The Solway has somewhat dwindled of late epochs; geologists report it as receding seaward at the rate of a mile a century, which is lightning speed for that species of alteration—but ’twas ever a hasty Firth!

The EDEN is our first river. During its course of thirty-five miles it has much variety of pleasant scenery; whereof let Wordsworth tell:—