without sundry digressions and notes of admiration for the purple heather, the clear water of Borrowdale Beck, and the narrowing of the vale, and the height of the mountains. around. We turned aside to the Bowder Stone, an enormous rock"Resembling, as it lay, Right at the foot of that moist precipice, We walked round it, and ascended to the top by a good set of wooden steps. There we sat. One of us lunched, two smoked-all of us speculated. The valley here is lovely in the extreme. The steep isolated height of Castle Crag, wooded to the very top, is before us, and further the bare rough hills that form the western boundary of the dale. Behind us are rude precipitous rocks, going up hundreds of feet; and once on a time the huge block on which we are sitting was up there, and being dissatisfied with its position, came down from the height with a hop, skip, jump, and— thunder! We saw all this, or thought of it, and wished we could have been there at the fall. We went back in imagination to times prediluvian and pre-Adamic, and then descended to-yes, positively, from the Bowder Stone, to-change for sixpence. An ancient dame waylaid us at the bottom, and stuck a printed sheet before our noses, informing us that she kept the Bowder Stone House, and that it (not the house) was so many feet high, and wide, and long, and weighed so many hundred tons, which the guide books tell you all about. We gave her a few pence, and went on dissatisfied and grumbling. But don't think we were mean, dear reader; we have heard of a bishop who gave this same ancient lady the large sum of one halfpenny. The Romans found out this valley, and possessed it, for on the top of Castle Crag they had an encampment whose traces yet remain and yet it has been shut : up for ages, its inhabitants having little communication with the world beyond their mountains, and strange stories are told of their exceeding simplicity. But this is passing away. Many good mansions are erecting near, tourists come from far away, and carry away a good report of the dale, and some associate with it their tenderest recollections; for here we see a young couple apparently unmindful of the things around. They saunter still up Borrowdale; they * "did not mark how the skies in wrath Grew dark above their head. They did not mark how the mossy path Grew damp beneath their tread." But we did. The rain began to descend, or rather the drizzle came, and gloom gathered round Glaramara. We spoke to a photographic artist who had been at Ulleswater with us, and was here now trying his camera on the clouds. At Rossthwaite we looked at some specimens of plumbago got at the mines above, and passed on, and soon we are at Seatollar. Here our paths divide. Our companions will see Wastwater, we go to Crummock. We bid them farewell, and wish them joy of the storm in Sty Head Pass, then turn and ascend the Buttermere Haws. An elderly gentleman alights from a carriage mostly occupied by ladies, and we have some chat on the toilsome ascent through the wood. We turn to look again at bonnie Borrowdale, and when the rain ceased in half an hour, we again encased the umbrella, and leaving our carriage acquaintance, (who did not overtake us for several miles) we went on our upland path, none the less grand in its wildness because of the beauty of the dale we had left. On our left is the frowning front of Honister, and, as we begin to descend, its steep face becomes terrific. This is right weather for a precipice; the gloom adds to the grandeur of the beetling height. We are by the shore of the lake. This is beautiful Buttermere, beyond us is Crummock, so here we stay in the hamlet, and enjoy amazingly thé a la fourchette. SCALE FORCE. Ir was the Victoria Hotel at which we staid at Buttermere, and after doing justice to the fine char from the lake, we rambled in the gloaming down Crummock side. Our pace was a saunter, and the quiet pall of the night, gently dropping on mountain and mere, seemed to require that our thoughts should be stately and slow, and we thought of the gloomy hills fast fading into blackness, and the grey clouds looking every moment greyer and grimmer, and the shadows of the pines darker and darker still; and we listened to the gentle ripple breaking at our feet, and the soft wail of the wind through the trees, till the deep solemnity transfused itself into the soul, and, returning to our quiet parlour, we sat still in the window for a long time staring into the darkness without. Then we called for lights. Then we looked about the room, we read, we wrote, we opened the visitors' book, and found an entry to this effect by some pedestrians who had come to this place by the route we purposed pursuing on the morrow :— "Arrived here from by way of Ennerdale, Floutern Tarn, and Scale Force. * Would advise those who go that route to start early, as there is no path." Consolatory that, thought we; but it will not be the first trackless desert we have passed, so we are off in the morning, There are other entries in that same visitor's book. Short, pithy things some; some miserable attempts at poetry; and we spent half an hour conning them over. There is one relating to the merits of the inn-"Capital place for a saturated traveller; landlord, landlady, Jane and Mary, vie in attention." Another is a good specimen of rhyme. comes after the following names, thus "June 7th, 1858.” "Mrs. Robinson and party." "Jabez Brown and two friends." "The Smiths and the Jones's will come, never fear, It Shall we be infringing copyright by transferring that to our pages? We trust not, but hope the rhymester will see it, and recommend our book to his friends. That Our bed was soft, and what was far better, clean; our limbs were tired, our brain drowsy, so our rest was perfect, our sleep undisturbed. We arose in the morning fresh and lively, and no way indisposed to use a fork at breakfast. duty performed and our bill paid, we have a chat with "mine. host" about distances, paths, and such matters, and we go out with him harnessed for our journey. First through the hamlet (about three houses), then down a dirty lane, Buttermere to the left, Crummock a little to the right. We are instructed to get over a gate, and have our route pointed out to us for some distance, and some plain instructions as to the rest. Here is Sour Milk Gill, streaking the hill with white, and, taking a last look at it, we are soon after skirting the foot of the steep slope. There had been much rain in the night. The clouds are on the Red Pike yet, but old Sol is lifting them up, and though the ground |