AN IMPRESSION OF AXE EDGE 119 



which arc not found, at all events not all together, nearer 

 to London tiian the Derbyshire hills. 



Axe Edge, where I elected to stay, is not the highest 

 hill in that part, being about eighteen hundred feet above 

 the sea, whereas Kinder Scout rises to quite two thou- 

 sand, but I found it high enough for one who modestly 

 prefers walking and cycling on the level ground. And 

 here I found what I wanted — the bird life peculiar to 

 the district — grouse, curlew, golden plover, snipe and 

 summer snipe, water and ring ouzel. The unlovely town 

 of Buxton is close by, set in a hollow in the midst of 

 monstrously ugly lime works. The little town is also 

 much tortured witli motor cars and is blown on with 

 stinging, suffocating white dust. Happily I was soon 

 off the hated limestone, settled in one of the poor little 

 stony farmhouses in a hollow or valley-head on the 

 adjacent hill, the whole central part of which forms a 

 vast moor or tableland, broken at the borders and cut 

 through with ravine-like valleys, or doughs with deep 

 rocky sides and rushing bums below, the beginnings of 

 the Wye, the Dove, the Dane, and the Goyt rivers. 

 From Axe Edge on one side you look down on Buxton 

 and the hilly limestone country beyond — a naked ugly 

 land with white patches showing everywhere through the 

 scanty grass covering. From this prospect of scabby 

 or leprous-looking hills one turns with unspeakable 

 relief to the immense tableland of Axe Edge, where you 

 are off the lime on the grit-stone formation, harsh and 

 desolate in aspect, but covered with a dense growth of 



