CHAPTER I.

An Appreciation: The Cause and History of Lakeland.

It may be fearlessly asserted that those portions of the counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire known as the Lake District, contain more natural beauty, more literary associations and more diversity of charm than any other similar area of the whole of the Earth’s surface.

Within the small space of thirty square miles, scenes of the wildest grandeur and the most tranquil beauty exist side by side. From the grim recesses of Scawfell and Great Gable one can pass in two or three hours to the placid haunts of Windermere. The stern solitudes of Wastwater can be visited upon the same day as the peaceful shores of Derwentwater, “set like a gem amid the encircling hills.”

The moors and bare corries of Scotland, the foliage-clad slopes and llyns of North Wales, the lakes and valleys of Switzerland, all have their counterpart and seem to meet in Lakeland. Indeed, the diversity of the landscape in so small a tract of country is nothing short of marvellous. This diversity is perhaps the feature that first impresses a stranger, but almost at the same time the compactness of the whole claims his notice. Here one picture succeeds another without pause. Half an hour’s walk will accomplish as great a change as would half a day’s walk in most of the other beauty spots of the country.

It is no doubt a fact that there are isolated prospects elsewhere which are as beautiful and impressive as these, but in most cases they are separated by tracts of intervening country which are deadly dull. Here is no dulness. The feasts of beauty are as great on the way from Derwentwater to Ullswater, or between Coniston and Windermere, as they are at these prospects themselves. The indefinable line of beauty is omnipresent. From end to end and from side to side of this favoured spot there is scarcely an unlovely feature, if we except the quarries and mines which mar some few localities.

It may be thought that because the higher mountains barely top three thousand feet the sense of space and immensity will be lacking. But really this is not so. The truth is that the proportions of a mountain are determining factors of greater moment than its mere height in feet or its bulk. Who that has traversed Kirkstone Pass or skirted the edge of Buttermere on a hazy August day, can doubt this? The atmospheric conditions of Lakeland lend a sense of altitude and suggestiveness such as the clearer air of great mountain ranges rarely conveys. This exquisiteness of proportion impressed Wordsworth so greatly that he actually compared the beauties of Lakeland with those of Switzerland, and, needless to say, our homeland lost very little in the comparison. Wordsworth may be thought to be a biassed authority, yet it is the repeated testimony of a very great number of travellers that, whilst they have seen wilder, more sublime and grander scenes elsewhere, they have seen nothing so beautiful as Lakeland.

And such is my own impression. My vocation takes me for a month or two every year to Switzerland, yet not a summer passes but I return from the glacier world of the great Alps feeling, as Penrith is neared and glimpses of the Langdale Pikes and the sweep of St. Sunday’s

Crag over Ullswater are caught, that I have seen nothing better in all my wanderings abroad. Indeed, it ought to have been Lakeland’s own poet, and not Kingsley, who wrote

“While we see God’s signet Fresh on English ground, Why go gallivanting With the nations round?”

It is hardly the province of a work like the present to treat of the geology of this beautiful district, but it may prove of interest to touch concisely upon the processes which have conduced to the formation of such a wonderful whole.

Why are Skiddaw and several of the hills in the north of Lakeland rounded in contour and possessed of no precipices worthy the name? What accounts for the cliffs and jagged outlines of the Langdale Pikes, the Pillar, or Scawfell? Wherefore all the various beautiful and retiring dales and side valleys, and, most pregnant question of all, whence came the Lakes themselves? No appreciative or thoughtful visitor but must have pondered upon these things and been somewhat puzzled. Many, I know, have dismissed the matter by concluding that the whole district is due to some vast upheaval of bygone ages. No such simple explanation will cover all the facts.

The earliest causes of Lakeland were complex and various. It has several times been submerged beneath the sea, when layer upon layer of mud and sediment was deposited to the thickness of thousands of feet. Skiddaw, Saddleback and others of our Northern fells are composed of these layers of soft rock. Weathering processes have rounded their contours and left to them the graceful flowing outlines which we now admire. Volcanoes also have played no unimportant part. Violent eruptions took place near Keswick and to the south of it and ejected material--boulders, huge masses of rock and fine dust--the greater part of which fell again almost vertically and deposited rock to the depth of at least twelve thousand feet. This has since been exposed to climatic influences, and been greatly reduced in bulk. The mountains of Borrowdale, Scawfell and Great Gable, amongst others, are formed of this volcanic _débris_; hence their hard, jagged and precipitous nature. A great part of them was ejected from Castle Head, the favourite view-point above Keswick, which is beyond doubt the crater of an extinct volcano.

Thus we see that the Lake District is mainly composed of two different kinds of rocks, one of a clayey and easily-moulded nature, the other of an unyielding volcanic type, jagged and angular. It is very greatly due to the juxtaposition of these two different types that the Lake District possesses such diversity of outline. So much for the rocks of which the mountains are formed. But how came they to assume their present shapes? The answer is fairly simple. The Lake District, as we know it to-day, was quite recently, that is in a geological sense (a little matter of ninety-three million years ago!) a vast dome-like tract situated about four-thousand feet above the level of the surrounding country. After it had finally emerged from the sea, rain in torrents fell upon this dome. Rivers were formed. These followed the usual downward course of water, and as they flowed they slowly wore definite channels for themselves. Down these channels they swept, carrying with them small pebbles and earth which wore away the softer rocks underneath. This went on for millions upon millions of years. Hundreds of streams flowing in various directions, eating the rock out and bearing it in minute particles to the sea, left the higher grounds untouched and it is these higher grounds which we now know as the mountains of Lakeland.

And now as regards the Lakes themselves. Influences into

which it would be tedious to enquire led to the warm winds and waters of the Gulf Stream being cut off from the district. The atmosphere became intensely cold. Instead of warm rain as heretofore, snow fell. This heaped up thicker and thicker until it compressed into ice which, in the form of glaciers, began to slide down the valleys previously hollowed out by the streams. The great Glacial Period set in. The glaciers tore up stones, earth and rocks and carried them along in their course. These great file-like masses of rock-embedded ice scooped out huge hollows in the river beds beneath.

Then the Gulf Stream again brought its benignant influence to bear upon the district. Warmth came and rain fell again. The glaciers began slowly to melt and disappear: the rivers resumed their normal flow. At once the great hollows were filled with water and it was these water-filled hollows which first constituted our lakes. Since that time the lakes have in many cases been altered in shape. For instance, Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite were in times past one lake, but the _débris_ brought down and deposited by the river Greta has divided it into the two beautiful sheets of water with which we are now familiar. Incidentally, the glaciers had a great influence upon the shape and contours of our mountains, rounding, polishing and smoothing them into their present forms.

Such is a very incomplete _resumé_ of the happenings of by-gone æons which have given to us our lovely district.

It would be pleasing could we follow its history with such certainty, but this is where Lakeland falls short. Of legend, folklore and historic records it possesses comparatively little. In early times this wildly secluded corner of England was given over for the most part to swamps, wild beasts and dense forest. Its earliest inhabitants were the Brigantes, one of the tribes of aboriginal Britons. Tacitus mentions them in a half-hearted uncertain manner and their dealings with the Romans, but as to the extent to which they occupied the district, or in what numbers, is not known. Several of the local names of villages and mountains were given by them, and these place-names, together with some few relics, are the strongest confirmation we have of the existence here of these early Britons.

The Romans who followed after them left numerous proofs of their occupation--bridges, roads, stations and various articles of household use. What the Romans did in Lakeland is not clear. Perchance they were enticed here by the suspected mineral wealth of the mountains, or were engaged in subduing the savage Brigantes. Perhaps, being cultivated people, they rowed about on Windermere, held pic-nics on Belle Isle or lazed about the countryside admiring the beauties of nature! All this is the merest conjecture.

After the Romans had left Britain, and the Danes and Saxons had usurped the rest of England, the Lake District was probably held by the Lakeland Britons as one of their last strongholds and places of refuge. The tourist passing over Dunmail Raise--the high pass between Grasmere and Thirlmere--is shown to this day the heap of stones marking the grave of Dunmail, the last of the Cumbrian Kings. Near here, in the year 945, he and his gallant band gave battle to the Saxon King Edmund. Dunmail held the high ground for some considerable time, fighting valiantly until he was treacherously attacked in the rear and ultimately cut down. Thus disappeared the Britons from Lakeland. So goes the story, and the heap of stones on Dunmail Raise certainly gives local confirmation. It is said, also, that Dunmail’s crown was sunk in Grisedale Tarn, but here corroborative evidence is lacking for it has not yet been recovered.

Under the Heptarchy, Cumberland and Westmoreland no doubt witnessed their share of border warfare, but at this time, and for long after the Norman Conquest, the Lake District itself appears to have

been the abode of outlaws and was practically unvisited. Later, the Abbots of Furness allotted great portions of land in their domain to their “villeins.” This gave a lead to the Feudal Lords who gradually followed suit, and thus the outlying parts of the district became dotted with farms and homesteads. These ultimately encroached further and further into the mountains.

With nobody to dispute their ownership, these “small holders” built stone walls up the mountain sides to mark the boundary of their claim and to form enclosures for their stock. These walls, hundreds of years old and apparently meaningless to us to-day, still form a very characteristic feature of the scenery. It may be thought by some that they are a disfigurement, but if so this is due to the cutting down of much timber and woods which no doubt formerly hid them from view. In any case they are grey, lichen-covered, and in entire keeping with the district. From this period onward, whilst guarding their homes and possessions from predatory bands of freebooters, the Lakeland yeomen or “statesmen” steadily improved their holdings, cleared the forests, reclaimed the marshes and gradually gave to the countryside the aspect it wears to-day.

It was about the year 1700 that people first began to take an interest in its scenery, the poet Gray being, in 1767, the first person of note to visit it. His writings and descriptions of the scenery did much to make it known to the outside world. Indeed, he was the real discoverer of Lakeland, the precursor of those bands of tourists who, in yearly increasing numbers, visit it for the sole purposes of feasting upon its beauty and drinking in its elevating and healthful influences.