SKIDDAW.

On the following morning, having engaged a guide, and with horses accustomed to the labour, we began to ascend this tremendous mountain by a way, which makes the summit five miles from Keswick. Passing through bowery lanes, luxuriant with mountain ash, holly, and a variety of beautiful shrubs, to a broad, open common, a road led us to the foot of Latrigg, or, as it is called by the country people, Skiddaw's Cub, a large round hill, covered with heath, turf and browsing sheep. A narrow path now wound along steep green precipices, the beauty of which prevented what danger there was from being perceived. Derwentwater was concealed by others, that rose above them, but that part of the vale of Keswick, which separates the two lakes, and spreads a rich level of three miles, was immediately below; Crossthwaite-church, nearly in the centre, with the white vicarage, rising among trees. More under shelter of Skiddaw, where the vale spreads into a sweet retired nook, lay the house and grounds of Dr. Brownrigg.

Beyond the level, opened a glimpse of Bassenthwaite-water; a lake, which may be called elegant, bounded, on one side, by well-wooded rocks, and, on the other, by Skiddaw.

Soon after, we rose above the steeps, which had concealed Derwentwater, and it appeared with all its enamelled banks, sunk deep amidst a chaos of mountains, and surrounded by ranges of fells, not visible from below. On the other hand, the more cheerful lake of Bassenthwaite expanded at its entire length. Having gazed a while on this magnificent scene, we pursued the path, and soon after reached the brink of a chasm, on the opposite side of which wound our future track; for the ascent is here in an acutely zig-zag direction. The horses carefully picked their steps along the narrow precipice, and turned the angle, that led them to the opposite side.

At length, as we ascended, Derwentwater dwindled on the eye to the smallness of a pond, while the grandeur of its amphitheatre was increased by new ranges of dark mountains, no longer individually great, but so from accumulation; a scenery to give ideas of the breaking up of a world. Other precipices soon hid it again, but Bassenthwaite continued to spread immediately below us, till we turned into the heart of Skiddaw, and were enclosed by its steeps. We had now lost all track even of the flocks, that were scattered over these tremendous wilds. The guide conducted us by many curvings among the heathy hills and hollows of the mountain; but the ascents were such, that the horses panted in the slowest walk, and it was necessary to let them rest every six or seven minutes. An opening to the south, at length, shewed the whole plan of the narrow vales of St. John and of Nadale, separated by the dark ridge of rock, called St. John's rigg, with each its small line of verdure at the bottom, and bounded by enormous gray fells, which we were, however, now high enough to overlook.

A white speck, on the top of St. John's rigg, was pointed out by the guide to be a chapel of ease to Keswick, which has no less than five such, scattered among the fells. From this chapel, dedicated to St. John, the rock and the vale have received their name, and our guide told us, that Nadale was frequently known by the same title.

Leaving this view, the mountain soon again shut out all prospect, but of its own vallies and precipices, covered with various shades of turf and moss, and with heath, of which a dull purple was the prevailing hue. Not a tree, or bush appeared on Skiddaw, nor even a stone wall any where broke the simple greatness of its lines. Sometimes, we looked into tremendous chasms, where the torrent, heard roaring long before it was seen, had worked itself a deep channel, and fell from ledge to ledge, foaming and shining amidst the dark rock. These streams are sublime from the length and precipitancy of their course, which, hurrying the sight with them into the abyss, act, as it were, in sympathy upon the nerves, and, to save ourselves from following, we recoil from the view with involuntary horror. Of such, however, we saw only two, and those by some departure from the usual course up the mountain; but every where met gushing springs, till we were within two miles of the summit, when our guide added to the rum in his bottle what he said was the last water we should find in our ascent.

The air now became very thin, and the steeps still more difficult of ascent; but it was often delightful to look down into the green hollows of the mountain, among pastoral scenes, that wanted only some mixture of wood to render them enchanting.

About a mile from the summit, the way was, indeed, dreadfully sublime, laying, for nearly half a mile, along the ledge of a precipice, that passed, with a swift descent, for probably near a mile, into a glen within the heart of Skiddaw; and not a bush, or a hillock interrupted its vast length, or, by offering a mid-way check in the descent, diminished the fear it inspired. The ridgy steeps of Saddleback, formed the opposite boundary of the glen, and, though really at a considerable distance, had, from the height of the two mountains, such an appearance of nearness, that it almost seemed as if we could spring to its side. How much too did simplicity increase the sublime of this scenery, in which nothing but mountain, heath and sky appeared!

But our situation was too critical, or too unusual, to permit the just impressions of such sublimity. The hill rose so closely above the precipice as scarcely to allow a ledge wide enough for a single horse. We followed the guide in silence, and, till we regained the more open wild, had no leisure for exclamation. After this, the ascent appeared easy and secure, and we were bold enough to wonder, that the steeps near the beginning of the mountain had excited any anxiety.

At length, passing the skirts of the two points of Skiddaw, which are nearest to Derwentwater, we approached the third and loftiest, and then perceived, that their steep sides, together with the ridges, which connect them, were entirely covered near the summits with a whitish shivered slate, which threatens to slide down them with every gust of wind. The broken state of this slate makes the present summits seem like the ruins of others; a circumstance as extraordinary in appearance as difficult to be accounted for.

The ridge, on which we passed from the neighbourhood of the second summit to the third, was narrow, and the eye reached; on each side, down the whole extent of the mountain, following, on the left, the rocky precipices, that impend over the lake of Bassenthwaite, and looking, on the right, into the glens of Saddleback, far, far below. But the prospects, that burst upon us from every part of the vast horizon, when we had gained the summit, were such as we had scarcely dared to hope for, and must now rather venture to enumerate, than to describe.

We stood on a pinnacle, commanding the whole dome of the sky. The prospects below, each of which had been before considered separately as a great scene, were now miniature parts of the immense landscape. To the north, lay, like a map, the vast tract of low country, which extends between Bassenthwaite and the Irish Channel, marked with the silver circles of the river Derwent, in its progress from the lake. Whitehaven and its white coast were distinctly seen, and Cockermouth seemed almost under the eye. A long blackish line, more to the west, resembling a faintly formed cloud, was said by the guide to be the Isle of Man, who, however, had the honesty to confess, that the mountains of Down in Ireland, which have been sometimes thought visible, had never been seen by him in the clearest weather.

Bounding the low country to the north, the wide Solway Firth, with its indented shores, looked like a gray horizon, and the double range of Scottish mountains, seen dimly through mist beyond, like lines of dark clouds above it. The Solway appeared surprisingly near us, though at fifty miles distance, and the guide said, that, on a bright day, its shipping could plainly be discerned. Nearly in the north, the heights seemed to soften into plains, for no object was there visible through the obscurity, that had begun to draw over the furthest distance; but, towards the east, they appeared to swell again, and what we were told were the Cheviot hills dawned feebly beyond Northumberland. We now spanned the narrowest part of England, looking from the Irish Channel, on one side, to the German Ocean, on the other, which latter was, however, so far off as to be discernible only like a mist.

Nearer than the county of Durham, stretched the ridge of Cross-fell, and an indistinct multitude of the Westmoreland and Yorkshire highlands, whose lines disappeared behind Saddleback, now evidently pre-eminent over Skiddaw, so much so as to exclude many a height beyond it. Passing this mountain in our course to the south, we saw, immediately below, the fells round Derwentwater, the lake itself remaining still concealed in their deep rocky bosom. Southward and westward, the whole prospect was a "turbulent chaos of dark mountains." All individual dignity was now lost in the immensity of the whole, and every variety of character was overpowered by that of astonishing and gloomy grandeur.

Over the fells of Borrowdale, and far to the south, the northern end of Windermere appeared, like a wreath of gray smoke, that spreads along the mountain's side. More southward still, and beyond all the fells of the lakes, Lancaster sands extended to the faintly seen waters of the sea. Then to the west, Duddon sands gleamed in a long line among the fells of High Furness. Immediately under the eye, lay Bassenthwaite, surrounded by many ranges of mountains, invisible from below. We overlooked all these dark mountains, and saw green cultivated vales over the tops of lofty rocks, and other mountains over these vales in many ridges, whilst innumerable narrow glens were traced in all their windings and seen uniting behind the hills with others, that also sloped upwards from the lake.

The air on this summit was boisterous, intensely cold and difficult to be inspired, though the day was below warm and serene. It was dreadful to look down from nearly the brink of the point, on which we stood, upon the lake of Bassenthwaite and over a sharp and separated ridge of rocks, that from below appeared of tremendous height, but now seemed not to reach half way up Skiddaw; it was almost as if

"the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight."

Under the lee of an heaped up pile of slates, formed by the customary contribution of one from every visitor, we found an old man sheltered, whom we took to be a shepherd, but afterwards learned was a farmer and, as the people in this neighbourhood say, a 'statesman'; that is, had land of his own. He was a native and still an inhabitant of an adjoining vale; but, so laborious is the enterprise reckoned, that, though he had passed his life within view of the mountain, this was his first ascent. He descended with us, for part of our way, and then wound off towards his own valley, stalking amidst the wild scenery, his large figure wrapt in a dark cloak and his steps occasionally assisted by a long iron pronged pike, with which he had pointed out distant objects.

In the descent, it was interesting to observe each mountain below gradually re-assuming its dignity, the two lakes expanding into spacious surfaces, the many little vallies, that sloped upwards from their margins, recovering their variegated tints of cultivation, the cattle again appearing in the meadows, and the woody promontories changing from smooth patches of shade into richly tufted summits. At about a mile from the top, a great difference was perceptible in the climate, which became comparatively warm, and the summer hum of bees was again heard among the purple heath.

We reached Keswick, about four o'clock, after five hours passed in this excursion, in which the care of our guide greatly lessened the notion of danger. Why should we think it trivial to attempt some service towards this poor man? We have reason to think, that whoever employs, at Keswick, a guide of the name of Doncaster, will assist him in supporting an aged parent.