The Prose Works of William Wordsworth eBook

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[47] Mr. Green’s Guide to the Lakes, in two vols., contains a complete Magazine of minute and accurate information of this kind, with the names of mountains, streams, &c.

[48] No longer strictly applicable, on account of recent plantations.

From this little Vale return towards Ambleside by Great Langdale, stopping, if there be time, to see Dungeon-ghyll waterfall.

The Lake of

CONISTON

May be conveniently visited from Ambleside, but is seen to most advantage by entering the country over the Sands from Lancaster.  The Stranger, from the moment he sets his foot on those Sands, seems to leave the turmoil and traffic of the world behind him; and, crossing the majestic plain whence the sea has retired, he beholds, rising apparently from its base, the cluster of mountains among which he is going to wander, and towards whose recesses, by the Vale of Coniston, he is gradually and peacefully led.  From the Inn at the head of Coniston Lake, a leisurely Traveller might have much pleasure in looking into Yewdale and Tilberthwaite, returning to his Inn from the head of Yewdale by a mountain track which has the farm of Tarn Hows, a little on the right:  by this road is seen much the best view of Coniston Lake from the south.  At the head of Coniston Water there is an agreeable Inn, from which an enterprising Tourist might go to the Vale of the Duddon, over Walna Scar, down to Seathwaite, Newfield, and to the rocks where the river issues from a narrow pass into the broad Vale.  The Stream is very interesting for the space of a mile above this point, and below, by Ulpha Kirk, till it enters the Sands, where it is overlooked by the solitary Mountain Black Comb, the summit of which, as that experienced surveyor, Colonel Mudge, declared, commands a more extensive view than any point in Britain.  Ireland he saw more than once, but not when the sun was above the horizon.

    Close by the Sea, lone sentinel,
      Black-Comb his forward station keeps;
    He breaks the sea’s tumultuous swell,—­
      And ponders o’er the level deeps.

    He listens to the bugle horn,
      Where Eskdale’s lovely valley bends;
    Eyes Walney’s early fields of corn;
      Sea-birds to Holker’s woods he sends.

    Beneath his feet the sunk ship rests,
      In Duddon Sands, its masts all bare: 

* * * * *

The Minstrels of Windermere, by Chas. Farish, B.D.

The Tourist may either return to the Inn at Coniston by Broughton, or, by turning to the left before he comes to that town, or, which would be much better, he may cross from

ULPHA KIRK

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The Prose Works of William Wordsworth from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.