and amended state, but said to have been much more picturesque, though probably more insecure, before the hand of innovation gave it a parapet. It stretches over a rocky cleft, ten or twelve feet above the stream, having a beautiful little cascade above, and a clear pool of water below. It is only about six feet in span, and was formerly scarcely a yard in breadth, but has now been widened to about five feet. It is an arch of rough stone, and still picturesque to the men of this generation, whatever may be said by men of a past age of its former superiority.

We are now on the ascent of a hill with the illfavoured appellation of Sty Head, the summit of which is 1250 feet above the level of the sea, and about 750 above Stockley Bridge. It may be called the lower shoulder or limb of Scawfell, a mountain thirty feet higher than Helvellyn, and the highest land in England. At the top of the first ascent is a small plain, on which lies Sty-head Tarn, which is fed by a small stream from another tarn, called Sprinkling or Sparkling Tarn, some hundred feet higher, and is the source of one branch of the Grange, or Derwent river. The latter tarn is far-famed for its trout. Beyond this, and at an elevation of perhaps 100 or 150 feet higher, a sudden turn in the road unfolds the panorama of Wast Dale and Wast Water, a thousand feet below, and the gloomy but gorgeous hills that encompass them around.

The weather was not clear enough, when I penetrated into this region, to warrant the ascent of Scawfell. From the guide-books it appears that the view from either of the two Pikes of Scawfell is superior to those from Helvellyn and Skiddaw. The southern, an inferior Pike, is 3092 feet above the level of the sea; and the superior Pike, separated from its fellow by a chasm called the Mickle Door, of twelve hundred yards "as the crow flies," rises to the height of 3160. From the former a considerable part of the Lancashire, Cumberland, and Scotch coasts, with the Isle of Man, and Snowdon in Wales, are visible; while the latter affords all these, with Windermere and Derwentwater besides. There is little or no vegetation upon this Fell, and its distance from any house of any entertainment, the rugged ground, and the frequency of mist and storm, throw altogether such impediments in the way of curiosity, that very few have patience or courage enough to ascend it.

ROSTHWAITE CHAPEL.

Wast Water.-Eskdale.-Birker Force.-Stanley Gill.-Burnmoor.-Muncaster Castle.-St. Bees.-Egremont.-Ennerdale, Lowes Water. Crummock Water. Buttermere. Scale Force.-Shelley and his first Wife.-The Druid's Circle.

THE road to Wastdale and Wast Water descends from the pass of Styhead down the side of the "Great Gable," affording a glimpse of the lonely valley of Wastdale Head, and the desolate, sternlooking lake, known as Wast or Waste Water, extending its leaden-coloured expanse between high and sterile mountains. The lake is three miles and a half long, about three quarters of a mile broad, fifty fathoms deep, and like Loch Ness, which is also noted

for its extreme depth of water, has never been known to freeze. The lower end of the lake towards the sea-coast, from which it is not above seven or eight miles distant, has few attractive features, its banks being comparatively tame; and tourists are for the most part recommended to proceed upwards from that direction, that they may obtain a view of the rude sublimities that encompass its upper portion. There is a road only on the north-east shore of the lake, of which it is therefore impracticable to make the circuit as we can do of Coniston, Windermere, Derwentwater, Ulleswater, and the other lakes; but the traveller loses nothing by this. He sees on the opposite shore the rugged hills known as "The Screes," their base washed by the lake, and their gloomy sides covered with huge boulders and debris of rocks, which have been washed down by the torrents, or hurled from their places by storms, or other convulsions of nature.

While in this neighbourhood, few do, and none should omit, taking the opportunity to pay a visit to Eskdale, or Eshdale, if it were for no other reason than to see Birker Force and Stanley Gill. These two waterfalls are often mistaken, the one for the other; and the traveller who has seen the first is not always aware that at the distance of three quarters of a mile, there is another in every respect as fine or finer. Birker Force dashes over a bare precipitous