conquering the difficulties that every now and then seemed as if they would bar our progress. Sometimes we had to leap; sometimes to proceed cautiously on a narrow ledge of rock; sometimes to climb high on the bank, aiding our ascent by taking hold of roots and branches of trees; while we had as often to descend again by the same means, amid precipices, which, in my cooler moments, I would have thought it foolhardiness to attempt. We were rewarded for our trouble by many exquisite glimpses of scenery; and I was more and more confirmed in a long-cherished opinion, that for the enthusiastic admirer of nature, there is often more varied beauty to be discovered in a small mountain-stream of this kind, than in a widely-extended landscape.

We proceeded together to Keswick on the following day, where we parted company; but before describing this part of the tour, it will be more regular that I should dwell upon the neighbourhood of Ambleside, and the three beautiful excursions made by every traveller who has the time to spare, and which are amongst the most celebrated of all the lovely spots in the lake district. The first is into the vales of Great and Little Langdale, the second to Patterdale and Ulleswater, and the third to Ulverstone and Furness Abbey. I made all of them afterwards, and give an account of them now in their proper places.

The road to Langdale leads by a small place called Clappersgate, alongside of the river Brathay, until about two miles from Ambleside, where it branches into two, the one leading to Little, and the other to Great, Langdale. Taking that which conducts to Little Langdale as the most picturesque, and also the most convenient, we pass two falls, or "forces," the one called Skelwith, and the other Colwith Force. They are both beautiful, the last more especially, and well worth "hunting" by any one who has the eye of a poet or a painter, and stout limbs besides. The road passes close to a tarn called Elter Water, and at one point affords a fine view of that small lake, and also of Loughrigg Tarn. Great and Little Langdale are almost parallel to each other, being separated by a ridge called Lingmoor. Blea Tarn, a small sheet of water in Little Langdale, situated in a vale high amid the mountains, has been described by Mr. Wordsworth, in his poem of The Excursion;

Behold!

Beneath our feet a little lowly vale—
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
Among the mountains; even as if the spot
Had been from oldest time by wish of theirs
So placed, to be shut out from all the world.
Urn-like it was in shape-deep as an urn
With rocks encompass'd.

The view of the noble assemblage of mountains comprising the Langdale Pikes, is here most striking

F

and magnificent. Beyond Wall End, in a fissure of the mountain and surrounding high and picturesque rocks, is Dungeon Gill, a small stream which

has its source in the "Pikes." The Gill forms a fine fall down a cleft of the mountain; and a huge piece of rock, which some convulsion of nature has hurled from above, has fallen upon the fissure, and become so wedged in as to form an arch over the torrent, and a very remarkable object.