Keswick, and its Lake.—Lodore Waterfall.—Ascent of Skiddaw.
From Penrith to Keswick is four leagues and a half; and as we were told there was no place where we could breakfast upon the way, we lay in bed till a later hour than would otherwise have beseemed pedestrians. The views were uninteresting after such scenery as we had lately passed, yet, as we were returning to the mountainous country, they improved as we advanced. Our road lay under one very fine mountain called Saddleback, and from every little eminence we beheld before us in the distance the great boundaries of the vale of Keswick. At length, after walking five hours, we ascended the last hill, and saw the vale below us with its lake and town, girt round with mountains even more varied in their outline, and more remarkably grouped, than any which we had left behind. It was beginning to rain; and to confess the truth, we derived more satisfaction from the sight of the town than from the wonders around it. Joyfully we reached the inn to which our trunks had been directed from Ambleside, but our joy was in no slight degree damped by the unwelcome intelligence that the house was full. Was there another inn?—that was full also; the town was crowded with company: but if we would walk in they would endeavour to procure us beds. In a few minutes word was brought us that they had procured one bed, if we had no objection to sleep together,—and if we had, it seemed there was no alternative. We were assured, for our comfort, that strangers had sometimes slept in their carriages. Accordingly we were conducted to our apartment, which proved to be at the house of the barber.
The Barber in England is not the important personage he is in our country; he meddles with no surgical instruments, and the few who draw teeth practise exclusively among the poor, and are considered, as degrading the profession;—still the barber is a person of importance every where. Our host was as attentively civil as man could be, and partly out of compliment to him, partly from a fancy to be shaved in the English fashion, I submitted my chin to him. Barbers-basons, it seems, are as obsolete here as helmets, and Don Quixote must in this country have found some other pretext for attacking a poor shaver. Instead of rubbing the soap upon the face, he used a brush; this mode of operating is not so cleanly as our own, but it is more expeditious. We find him of great use in directing our movements here. He has been a sailor; was in the famous action against the Comte de Grasse; and after having been in all parts of the world, returned at last to his native place, to pass the remainder of his days in this humbler but more gainful employment. His wife was as active as himself in serving us; our trunks were presently brought up,—the table laid,—dinner brought from the inn;—and though we might have wished for a larger apartment, which was not to serve for bed-room as well, yet the behaviour of these people was so unlike that of inn-waiters, and had so much the appearance of real hospitality, that the gratification of seeing it was worth some little inconvenience. The room is very neat, and bears marks of industrious frugality;—it has a carpet composed of shreds of list of different colours, and over the chimney-piece is the portrait of one of the admirals under whom our host had served.
It rained all night, and we were congratulated upon this, because the waterfall of Lodore, the most famous in all this country, would be in perfection. As soon as we had breakfasted a boat was ready for us, and we embarked on the lake, about half a mile from the town. A taste for the picturesque, if I may so far flatter myself as to reason upon it from self-observation, differs from a taste for the arts in this remarkable point,—that instead of making us fastidious, it produces a disposition to receive delight, and teaches us to feel more pleasure in discovering beauty, than connoisseurs enjoy in detecting a fault. I have sometimes been satiated with works of art; a collection of pictures fatigues me, and I have regarded them at last rather as a task than as a pleasure. Here, on the contrary, the repetition of such scenes as these heightens the enjoyment of them. Every thing grows upon me. I become daily more and more sensible of the heights of the mountains, observe their forms with a more discriminating eye, and watch with increased pleasure the wonderful changes they assume under the effect of clouds or of sunshine.
The Lake of Keswick has this decided advantage over the others which we have seen, that it immediately appears to be what it is. Winandermere and Ulswater might be mistaken for great rivers, nor indeed can the whole extent of either be seen at once; here you are on a land-locked bason of water, a league in length, and about half as broad,—you do not wish it to be larger, the mirror is in perfect proportion to its frame. Skiddaw, the highest and most famous of the English mountains, forms its northern boundary, and seems to rise almost immediately from its shore, though it is at the nearest point half a league distant, and the town intervenes. One long mountain, along which the road forms a fine terrace, reaches nearly along the whole of its western side; and through the space between this and the next mountain, which in many points of view appears like the lower segment of a prodigious circle, a lovely vale is seen which runs up among the hills. But the pride of the Lake of Keswick is the head, where the mountains of Borrodale bound the prospect, in a wilder and grander manner than words can adequately describe. The cataract of Lodore thunders down its eastern side through a chasm in the rocks, which are wooded with birch and ash trees. It is a little river, flowing from a small lake upon the mountains about a league distant. The water, though there had been heavy rains, was not adequate to the channel;—indeed it would require a river of considerable magnitude to fill it,—yet it is at once the finest work and instrument of rock and water that I have ever seen or heard. At a little public-house near, where the key of the entrance is kept, they have a cannon to display the echo; it was discharged for us, and we heard the sound rolling round from hill to hill,—but for this we paid four shillings,—which are very nearly a peso duro. So that English echoes appear to be the most expensive luxuries in which a traveller can indulge. It is true there was an inferior one which would have cost only two shillings and sixpence; but when one buys an echo, who would be content, for the sake of saving eighteen pence, to put up with the second best, instead of ordering at once the super-extra-double superfine?
We walked once more at evening to the Lake side. Immediately opposite the quay is a little island with a dwelling-house upon it. A few years ago it was hideously disfigured with forts and batteries, a sham church, and a new druidical temple, and, except a few fir-trees, the whole was bare. The present owner has done all which a man of taste could do in removing these deformities: the church is converted into a tool-house, the forts demolished, the batteries dismantled, the stones of the druidical temple employed in forming a bank, and the whole island planted. There is something in this place more like the scenes of enchantment in the books of chivalry than like any thing in our ordinary world,—a building, the exterior of which promised all the conveniences and elegancies of life, surrounded with all ornamental trees, in a little island the whole of which is one garden, and that in this lovely lake, girt round on every side with these awful mountains. Immediately behind it is the long dark western mountain called Brandelow: the contrast between this and the island, which seemed to be the palace and garden of the Lady of the Lake, produced the same sort of pleasure that a tale of enchantment excites, and we beheld it under circumstances which heightened its wonders, and gave the scene something like the unreality of a dream. It was a bright evening, the sun shining, and a few white clouds hanging motionless in the sky. There was not a breath of air stirring,—not a wave, a ripple, or wrinkle on the lake, so that it became like a great mirror, and represented the shores, mountains, sky, and clouds so vividly, that there was not the slightest appearance of water. The great mountain-opening being reversed, in the shadow became a huge arch, and through that magnificent portal the long vale was seen between mountains and bounded by mountain beyond mountain, all this in the water, the distance perfect as in the actual scene,—the single houses standing far up in the vale, the smoke from their chimneys,—every thing the same, the shadow and the substance joining at their bases, so that it was impossible to distinguish where the reality ended and the image began. As we stood on the shore, heaven and the clouds and the sun seemed lying under us; we were looking down into a sky, as heavenly and as beautiful as that overhead, and the range of mountains, having one line of summit under our feet and another above us, were suspended between two firmaments.
*****
This morning we enquired as anxiously about the weather as if we had been on shipboard, for the destined business of the day was to ascend the great Skiddaw. After suffering hopes and fears, as sunshine or cloud seemed to predominate, off we set with a boy to guide us. The foot of the mountain lies about a mile from the town; the way for the first stage is along a green path of gradual and uninterrupted ascent, on the side of a green declivity. At the northern end of the vale there is another lake, called Bassenthwaite, closed in like a wedge between two mountains, and bounding the view; the vale, with both its lakes, opened upon us as we ascended. The second stage was infinitely more laborious, being so steep, though still perfectly safe, that we were many times forced to halt for breath, and so long that before we had completed it the first ascent seemed almost levelled with the vale. Having conquered this, the summit appeared before us, but an intervening plain, about a mile across, formed the third stage of the journey; this was easy travelling over turf and moss. The last part was a ruder ascent over loose stones with gray moss growing between them,—on the immediate summit there is no vegetation. We sat down on a rude seat formed by a pile of these stones, and enjoyed a boundless prospect,—that is, one which extended as far as the reach of the human eye, but the distance was dim and indistinct. We saw the sea through a hazy atmosphere, and the smoke of some towns upon the coast about six leagues off, when we were directed where to look for them: the Scotch mountains appeared beyond like clouds, and the Isle of Man, we were told, would have been visible had the weather been clearer. The home scene of mountains was more impressive, and in particular the Lake of Bassenthwaite lying under a precipice beneath us. They who visit the summit usually scratch their names upon one of the loose stones which form the back to this rude seat. We felt how natural and how vain it was to leave behind us these rude memorials, which so few could possibly see, and of those few in all human probability none would recognise,—yet we followed the example of our predecessors. There are three such seats upon the three points of the mountain; all which we visited. It is oftentimes piercingly cold here, when the weather is temperate in the vale. This inconvenience we did not perceive, for the wind was in the south,—but it brought on rain as we were descending, and thoroughly wetted us before we reached home.
After dinner, as the rain still continued, and we could not go further from home, we went to see an exhibition of pictures of the Lakes, a few doors distant. There were several views of one called Waswater, which is so little visited that our book of directions is silent concerning it. It seemed to us, however, to be of so striking a character, and so different from all which we have yet seen, that we consulted with our host concerning the distance and the best mode of getting there, and have accordingly planned a route which is to include it, and which we shall commence tomorrow.
The people here wear shoes with wooden soles. D., who had never seen any thing of the kind before, was inclined to infer from this that the inhabitants were behind the rest of England in improvement; till I asked him whether in a country so subject to rain as by experience we knew this to be, a custom which kept the feet dry ought not to be imputed to experience of its utility rather than to ignorance; and if, instead of their following the fashions of the south of England, the other peasantry would not do wisely in imitating them.
