Part 10

=Swarthbeck=, in Westmorland, and on the east shore of Ullswater and the west slope of _Arthur's Pike_, would appear to be identical with the 'chasm' noticed by Mr. Radcliffe in 1795. 'Among the boldest fells that breast the lake on the left shore are _Holling Fell_ and _Swarth Fell_, now no longer boasting any part of the forest of Martindale, but showing huge walls of naked rock and scars which many torrents have inflicted. One channel only in this dry season retained its shining stream. The chasm was dreadful, parting the mountain from the summit to the base.' It occurred to Messrs. T. and E. Westmorland, of Penrith, to explore it, and they found it to be a capital little climb. They published a bright and vigorous account of their climb in a Penrith paper, in consequence of which a good sprinkling of climbers have been induced to visit it. The writer has cause to remember the steepness of this gill, for on one occasion, just as the last few feet of the climb were being done, the alpenstocks, which had been a great impediment all the way up, slipped and fell, and were afterwards found on the scree at the very bottom. The steamers stop at Howtown, about a mile further up the lake, and the inn at that place is much the most convenient place to start from.

=Tarn Crag= (Cumberland, sh. 57) is a precipitous bit of not very sound rock, perhaps 200 to 300 ft. in height, rising on the south-west side of Bowscale Tarn. There is a better-known crag of this name just by Scales Tarn on Saddleback, and, in fact, they are exceedingly numerous, which is natural enough, seeing that it is essential to every genuine tarn that it should be more or less under a precipice of some sort.

=Toe-scrape.=--May be defined as 'foot-hold at or below its minimum.'

=Tors=, on _Dartmoor_ (q.v.).--The word is also found in Derbyshire, though not there applied to quite the same kind of rock. The Ordnance also give it in some instances in the North of England; but there it is by no means clear that they have taken pains to distinguish it from the sound of the word 'haw' when there is a final _t_ in the preceding word. What, for instance, they call Hen Tor may be in reality Hent Haw. In Scotland _tor_ is, of course, a common component in place names.

A few of the more interesting _tors_ are--

_Belliver Tor._--Turn squarely to the right two miles from Two Bridges on the Moreton Hampstead Road.

_Blackingstone Rock._--A true tor, though not on Dartmoor. It is a fine piece of rock two miles east of Moreton Hampstead. It is of loaf-like form, and gave a difficult climb until a staircase of solid and obtrusive construction was put there.

_Brent Tor._--A curious cone of volcanic rock a long mile south-west of Brentor Station, and fully four miles north of Tavistock.

_Fur Tor._--About six miles in a northerly direction from Merivale Bridge, Two Bridges, or Princetown.

_Hey Tor._--Four miles west of Bovey Tracy; was quite a nice climb, but has been spoilt by artificial aids.

_Links (Great) Tor._--About two miles east of Bridestow station.

_Longaford Tor._--Strike off to the left about halfway between Two Bridges and Post Bridge.

_Mis Tor (Great and Little)._--Two miles north from Merivale Bridge. They are fine objects, especially the larger.

_Row Tor._--On the West Dart some four miles north of Two Bridges. It has a very striking block of granite on it.

_Sheep's Tor._--About two miles east of Dousland Station. It is finely shaped.

_Shellstone Tor._--Near Throwleigh, about halfway between Chagford and Oakhampton.

_Staple Tor._--Under a mile north-west from Merivale Bridge, and four miles east of Tavistock.

_Vixen Tor._--One mile from Merivale Bridge, or four miles north from Dousland Station. It is near the Walkham River, and is almost the only tor which has a distinct reputation as a climb. It is got at by means of the cleft shown in the illustration. Here it is usual to 'back up.' The struggles of generations of climbers are said to have communicated a high polish to the surface of the cleft.

_Watern Tor._--Five or six miles west of Chagford, on the left bank of the North Teign. It has three towers of friable granite much weathered.

_Yar Tor._--Halfway between Two Bridges and Buckland-in-the-Moor; it has a curiously fortified appearance.

=Vixen Tor.=--One of the finest of the Devonshire _Tors_ (q.v.).

=Walker's Gully= is the precipice in which ends the East Scree, between the _Pillar Rock_ and the _Shamrock_. It is named after an unfortunate youth of seventeen who was killed by falling over it on Good Friday, 1883. He had reached the rock with four companions, and found there two climbers from Bolton, who had been trying for nearly three hours to find a way up, and were apparently then standing in or near Jordan Gap. Seeing Walker, they shouted to him for advice as to the ascent. He thereupon endeavoured to join them by sliding down on the snow; but he had miscalculated the pace, and when he reached the rock at which he had aimed, it was only to find that his impetus was too powerful to be arrested. He shot off to one side, rolled over once or twice, and then darted away down the steep East Scree, passing the Bolton men, who could not see him owing to that position, and disappeared over the precipice.

=Wallow Crag=, a long mile south of Keswick, is abrupt but not high, and somewhat incumbered by trees. It contains _Lady's Rake_, and _Falcon Crag_ is really a continuation of it. Both are too near Keswick to please climbers, who do not enjoy having their every movement watched by waggon-loads of excursionists.

=Wanthwaite Crags= (Cumberland, sh. 64) rise on the east side of the stream which flows, or used to flow, from Thirlmere. There is good climbing in them, and they are easily reached from Keswick (1 hour), or Grasmere, taking the Keswick coach as far as the foot of Thirlmere; and Threlkeld station is nearer still (half an hour). The rocky part has a height of 600 to 700 ft. Bram Crag, just a little south, is really part of it.

=Wastdale.=--There are two valleys of this name, one near Shap in Westmorland, and the other and more famous in Cumberland, at the head of Wastwater. It is the Chamouni of England, and would be the Zermatt also, only it lacks the charm of a railway. Fine climbs abound among the various fells which hem it closely in. (See under the heads of _Scafell_, _Lingmell_, _Great Gable_, _Pillar_, _Yewbarrow_, _Steeple_, _Red Pike_, and _Great End_.) A well-filled 'Climbing book' is kept at the inn, where also are some fine rock-views and a very complete set of large-scale maps. Men with luggage must drive up from Drigg Station; those who have none can walk over _Burnmoor_ from Boot Station in one hour and a half or less.

=Westmorland=, as a climber's county, is second only to Cumberland. Langdale is perhaps the pick of it, but about Patterdale, Mardale, and Kentdale abundant work may be found, and there are few parts of the whole county which have not small local climbs of good quality set in the midst of charming scenery. Defoe's account of it is extremely amusing:

'I now entered _Westmorland_, a county eminent only for being the wildest, most barren, and frightful of any that I have passed over in _England_ or in _Wales_. The west side, which borders on _Cumberland_, is indeed bounded by a chain of almost unpassable Mountains, which in the language of the country are called _Fells_.... It must be owned, however, that here are some very pleasant manufacturing towns.'

The notion of lake scenery being rendered tolerable by manufacturing towns is one which may be recommended to the Defence Society; but Mr. Defoe has not done yet:

'When we entered at the South Part of this County, I began indeed to think of the mountains of Snowden in North Wales, seeing nothing round me in many places but unpassable Hills whose tops covered with snow seemed to tell us all the pleasant part of England was at an end.'

=Westmorland's Cairn= is a conspicuous object at the edge nearest to Wastwater of the summit plateau of _Great Gable_. There is a wide-spread impression that this cairn, which is built in a style which would do credit to a professional 'waller,' was intended to celebrate a climb; but Messrs. T. and E. Westmorland, of Penrith, who built it in July 1876, wished to mark a point from which they 'fearlessly assert that the detail view far surpasses any view from _Scafell Pikes_, _Helvellyn_, or _Skiddaw_, or even of the whole Lake District.' At the same time the short cliff on the edge of which the cairn stands is full of neat 'problems,' and it is customary to pay it a visit on the way to Gable Top after a climb on the _Napes_.

=Wetherlam=, in Lancashire, is about 2,500 ft., and has some crags on the north side among which here and there good climbing may be found. They can be reached in about an hour and a half from either Coniston or the inn at Skelwith Bridge. In an article signed 'H.A.G.' (i.e. Gwynne), which appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in April 1892, the following description of a part of it is given: 'On the west face there is a bold cliff that stands between two steep gullies. The cliff itself can be climbed, and in winter either of the gullies would afford a good hour's hard step-cutting. Just now, after the late snowstorm, the mountaineer would have the excitement of cutting through a snow-cornice when he arrives at the top. The precipice itself is fairly easy. I happened to find it in very bad condition. All the rocks were sheeted with ice and extremely dangerous. In one part there was a narrow, steep gully ending in a fall. It was full of snow and looked solid. I had scarcely put my foot on it when the snow slipped away with a hiss and left me grabbing at a knob of iced rock that luckily was small enough for my grasp. This climb, however, in ordinary weather is by no means difficult.'

=Whernside=, in Yorkshire, was considered even as late as 1770 to be the highest mountain in England, 4,050 ft. above the sea.

=White Gill=, in Langdale, Westmorland, nearly at the back of the inn at _Millbeck_, derives its chief interest from the loss of the two Greens there, so graphically described by De Quincey.

This and the other gills between it and _Stickle Tarn_ afford good climbing up the walls by which they are enclosed.

=Winter Climbs.=--Only a few years ago a man who announced that he was going to the Lakes in the depth of winter would have been thought mad. Exclamations of this kind are even now not unfrequently called forth at that season of the year; yet they seem to have little or no effect in diminishing the number of those who year by year find themselves somehow attracted to the little inns which lie at the foot of Snowdon or of Scafell Pikes.

On Swiss mountains winter excursions have been made even by ladies, and perhaps the British public was first rendered familiar with the idea by Mrs. Burnaby's book on the subject. But, in truth, the invention is no new one, and those bold innovators who first dared to break through the pale of custom and to visit North Wales or the Lakes in mid-winter were richly repaid for their audacity; for there is hardly any time of year at which a trip to Lakeland is more thoroughly enjoyable.

In the first place, there is no crowd. You can be sure that you will get a bed, and that the people of the house will not be, as they too often are in the summer time, too much overworked to have time to make you comfortable, or too full of custom to care much whether you are comfortable or not. Out of doors there is the same delightful difference. You stride cheerily along, freed for a time from the din of toiling cities, and are not harassed at every turn by howling herds of unappreciative 'trippers.' The few who do meet on the mountains are all bent on the same errand and 'mean business'; half-hearted folk who have not quite made up their minds whether they care for the mountains or not, people who come to the Lakes for fashion's sake, or just to be able to say that they have been there, are snugly at home coddling themselves before the fire. You will have no companions but life-long lovers of the mountains, and robust young fellows whose highest ambition is to gain admission to the Alpine Club, or, having gained it, to learn to wield with some appearance of dexterity the ponderous ice-axes which are indispensable to the dignity of their position. Then what views are to be had through the clear, frosty air! How different are the firm outlines of those distant peaks from the hazy indistinctness which usually falls to the lot of the summer tourist! What sensation is more delightful than that of tramping along while the crisp snow crunches under foot, and gazing upward at the lean black crags standing boldly out from the long smooth slopes of dazzling white! There is no great variety of colour; for the rocks, though a few are reddish, are for the most part of grey in varying shades; yet there is no monotony.

It is true that January days have one fault; they are too short. Or shall we not rather say that they seem so because--like youth, like life itself--they are delightful? They would not be too short if they were passed (let us say) in breaking stones by the roadside. After all, the hills hereabouts are not so big but that in eight or nine hours of brisk exertion a very satisfactory day's work can be accomplished. In short, youth and strength (and no one can be said to have left these behind who can still derive enjoyment from a winter's day on the Fells) can hardly find a more delightful way of spending a week of fine frosty weather.

=Wrynose.=--The pass between Dunnerdale and Little Langdale, and the meeting-point of the three counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire.

It would seem that we are poorer than our ancestors by one mountain, for all the old authorities speak of this as a stupendous peak. _Defoe's Tour_ (1753) says: 'Wrynose, one of its highest Hills, is remarkable for its three Shire Stones, a Foot Distance each.' The name properly understood would have put them right. The natives pronounce it 'raynus,' and I have not the least doubt that it represents 'Raven's Hause.' Indeed, in early charters the form 'Wreneshals' is actually found, and the intermediate form 'Wrenose' is found in a sixteenth-century map.

=Yewbarrow= (2,058 ft.; Cumberland sh. 74) is a narrow ridge a couple of miles long, which, seen end-on from the shore of Wastwater, has all the appearance of a sharp peak. There is climbing at the north end about _Door Head_ and _Stirrup Crag_, while towards the south end there are two very interesting square-cut 'doors' in the summit ridge, apparently due to 'intrusive dykes,' and beyond them the little climb called Bell Rib End.

=Yorkshire= (see _Attermire_, _Calf_, _Craven_, _Gordale_, _Ingleborough_, _Malham_, _Micklefell_, _Penyghent_, _Pot-holes_, _Whernside_)--a county whose uplands fall naturally into three great divisions, only one of which, however, demands the attention of the mountaineer. The chalk _Wolds_ in the East Riding, and the moorland group formed by the _Hambleton_ and _Cleveland Hills_, may be dismissed here with a mere mention. The third division, which constitutes a portion of the _Pennine Chain_, and, entering the county from Westmorland and Durham on the north, stretches in an unbroken line down its western border to Derbyshire on the south, approaches more nearly to the mountain standard. Even in this division, however, only that portion which lies to the north of Skipton attains to any considerable importance. It is in this latter district--in _Craven_, that is, and in the valleys of the Yore, the Swale, and the Tees--that we must look for the finest hill scenery in Yorkshire. Most of these mountains consist of limestone, capped in many cases by millstone grit, and of such summits some twenty-five or thirty rise to a height of 2,000 ft. Very few of them, however, exhibit individuality of outline, and, with the exception of the low lines of limestone precipice which occasionally girdle them, and of the wasting mill-stone bluffs which, as in the case of _Pen-hill_ or _Ingleborough_, sometimes guard their highest slopes, they are altogether innocent of crag. If any climbing is to be found at all, it will probably be among the numerous 'pot-holes,' or on the limestone 'scars,' such as _Attermire_ or _Gordale_, which mark the line of the Craven Fault. The _Howgill Fells_, north of Sedburgh, form an exception to the above remarks. (See _Calf_.)

Although the climber may find little opportunity to exercise his art among the Yorkshire mountains, yet the ordinary hill-lover will discover ample recompense for the time spent in an exploration of these hills and dales. The ascent of _Micklefell_, of _Great Whernside_, of _Penyghent_, or of _Ingleborough_, whilst not lacking altogether the excitement of mountain climbing, will introduce him to many scenes of novel character and of astonishing beauty. It is only fair to mention that the Yorkshire waterfalls are second to few in the kingdom.

It is necessary to add a word or two with regard to the coast. The rapidly wasting cliffs to the south of Flamborough are too insignificant for further notice. Flamborough Head, where the chalk attains to a height of 436 ft., is noticed elsewhere. (See _Chalk_.) The line of coast from Flamborough to Saltburn, passing Filey, Scarborough, and Whitby, presents an almost unbroken stretch of cliff, which, however, will find greater favour with the landscape-lover than the climber. These cliffs, which consist chiefly of the oolite and lias series, are throughout crumbling and insecure, and are very frequently composed of little more than clay and shale. _Rockcliff_, or _Boulby Cliff_, however, near Staithes, merits a certain amount of attention. In addition to not a little boldness of outline, it enjoys--or, at any rate, enjoyed--the reputation of being the highest cliff (660 ft.) on the English coast.

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... Transcriber's note: Inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original. ...