  The present book, it must be understood, treats the English Lakes rather apart from various other elements comprised in what is known as the Lake District. There is so much to say of the waters and their immediate surroundings that no space has remained to describe mountain, pass, and tarn in the manner their beauties merit. Other limits to the book are due to the writer’s promiscuity of taste. I am interested in most things—antiquities, fauna, flora, sports, geology, entomology, and the like; but in not one of these subjects have I that erudite knowledge which might render my work of profit. This book is written to interest those who love out-of-doors without claiming any particular study there. Of the paintings—I can only commend them to notice. In my humblest manner I assert that only an artist who feels the beauty of his environment thoroughly Of the history of the English Lakes little need be said. We are in a backwater, so to speak, of events; only the outer edges of great affairs have touched us. The mountains have been the last home of the invaded after their defeat in the field and their banishment from the accessible level lands. Druidical, and perhaps more ancient, remains are plentiful, along with relics of Roman, Norseman, and Saxon; but these at best only evidence sparse occupation. So far as history shows, no really great campaign has been fought out in our wilds—the battlefield of Dunmail (and only legend fixes that) is almost the only extensive one within the heart of the fell country. Great religious changes—the Dissolution of Monasteries, the Reformation, the rise of Nonconformity—have been far more striking in their results than ever were the fortunes of war. The mountains of Lakeland and Scotland stand blue on a common horizon, and the alarms and reprisals of Border feud were not unknown. But the hardy warriors from nor’ward did not often risk operations here, where conditions were so unfavourable to their feverish but unsustained method of warfare. The Civil War brought strife between the squires, but no great action was fought, yet in outlying districts the name of Cromwell is not forgotten in weird tale. Though the land of the Lakes has been free from war in the sense of great happenings, it has been far from a peaceful country. Our lakes are fifteen in number, ranging from the lordly Windermere and Ullswater, ten and a half and nine miles long respectively, to Loweswater and Rydalmere, which hardly exceed the larger tarns in area. Our mountain ranges contain the most elevated ground in England—Scawfell Pike, Scawfell, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw being over three thousand feet in height, and several others approaching that level. About thirty minor waters are scattered over the area known as the Lake District; but I must not make a guidebook of my volume. My story of the Lakes will be told in the manner it has discovered itself to me. I do not claim originality of method, nor will my reader find much savouring of literary symmetry and style within these covers. My wanderings cover a long series of years, and my recollections are as disconnected as they well can be. I have kept no diary of things seen, and scarcely regret the omission. There is no pile of data to confuse me; trivial impressions have passed away, leaving a harvest of perfect pictures to describe. And if I fail in putting these to paper, my attempt has at least been sincere. Much has been written of the dalesmen. Some writers deprecate everything we have, from our mountains, the faces of which they hardly know and the mysteries of which they have never dreamt of, down to our social customs, which often they have neither witnessed nor studied. To these nothing need be said, but to our over-laudatory friends I must say We have two classes of tourists: “The Strenuous Life” and “The Lotos Eaters,” I divide them by their tastes. Others call them “Visitors,” “Tourists” and “Trippers.” The first they adore—they take a “cottage furnished” perhaps, and anyway are profitable in a staid, comfortable manner; the second they tolerate—he is a man of hotels and boarding houses, here to-day, and to-morrow “away ower t’fell,” but, by reason of his plenty, worthy attention; the third they despise; many seem to think that the day-visitor ought to be put down—by violence preferably. To revert to my own division of our visitors, I feel that my tastes join me in both types. I like the peaceful vales and lakes where the “lotos-eaters” idle the summer hours away, and perhaps the detailed descriptions of so many days of ease may incline the reader to believe that I care nothing for the fells. But I love the breezy uplands, the miles of free moor, the peaks and the crags. FURNESS ABBEY IN THE VALE OF NIGHTSHADE A few words about accommodation and routes of travel are unavoidable. There are huge hotels with fashionable prices, smaller ones that are as comfortable or more so, at a fifth of the cost, and boarding houses in large numbers. But sometimes in August there are more tourists than can be comfortably put up even in our village-towns. However, the Lake District is small, and, if Ambleside be thought full, there is Grasmere not far away and Bowness within five miles. All three places are unlikely to suffer from excess of visitors at the same time. Of the remoter dales let me tell you a story. Two young men wandered into a certain dale-head where there are but two homes for tourists. At the first they asked for a couple of rooms. “We haven’t one to spare.” The way had dealt hardly with them, and at the second they moderated their request to “two rooms, but if quite necessary we don’t mind sharing one.” “Why, bless thee, my lad,” said outspoken old Mother, “ther’s three to ivvery bed, an’ two to ivvery table awreddy. But mappen I can put you up in t’ barn with them others.” The barn across the yard had been pressed into service as a bedroom; but at the prospect these townsmen shivered, thanked the good lady, and walked wearily towards the dale-foot three miles off (where the excess of tourists was still great, though not so marked). The moral is, if you intend to make any place a centre for your journeys Three railway systems touch the Lake District. The London and North-Western runs up one side with its main line, and casts a branch from Oxenholme to Windermere, which is a very popular way to reach the Lakes. From its terminus regular lines of coaches run to Coniston, Ullswater, and Keswick, as well as to Bowness, Ambleside, and Grasmere. A new company is putting on more motor-cars to cope with the traffic between the terminus and Ambleside and Grasmere. The main London and North-Western line at Shap is near Haweswater, an area growing in renown among tourists. At Penrith it is near Ullswater, and regular coaches connect with the steamers there. A company has exploited motor-traffic from Penrith to Patterdale, partly for passengers, partly to carry the output of the Glenridding lead mines. The Furness Railway is the railway of the Lake District. From Carnforth, where it connects with the London and North-Western main line and with the northern arm of the Midland Railway, it sweeps round Morecambe bay to Ulverston. Here it throws branch the first to connect the steam-yachts on The Lake Country is also served by the Cockermouth, Keswick, and Penrith line, as important for the north as the Furness line is to the south. It connects the London and North-Western at Penrith with the Furness at Whitehaven, passing by Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite. At Threlkeld it is nearest Thirlmere, at Troutbeck it is nearest Ullswater, while from Cockermouth the tourist may easily reach Loweswater, Crummock, and Buttermere. The North-Eastern and Midland Railways both It is not my intention to give any space to a description of the internal traffic of the country—it is plentiful and good. WINDERMERE FROM WANSFELL |
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