j©ail 0n 'yM'manbermcre* 27 



STEAMBOAT TRIP. 

 (24 miles, inclusive of the visit to 'The Beacon.') 



The next thing to be done is to take a survey of the whole 

 lake by a steamboat trip. During the summer, the steamers 

 make several trips ; so that the stranger can choose his own 

 hour, and go down or up first, as he pleases. In accordance 

 with the rule of lake approach, we should recommend his 

 going down first. He embarks at the pier at Bowness, and 

 is carried across to ^Elje ^ettg, where the boats touch. 

 Passing Ramp Holm on the left, and the pretty villa of Fell- 

 borough on the right-hand shore, the course is southwards 

 for four miles, the lake being enclosed between hills gradu- 

 ally lower and lower, until we reach the Midland Railway 

 Station, called Lake Side, about which the shores are beauti- 

 fully wooded and of ordinary elevation. 



The Swan Inn at ^E^einbg ^tftge,"^ is nearly a mile from 



* The best work that the whole neighbourhood could undertake would 

 be the lowering of the weir which carries off the overflow. The inun- 

 dations which take place on all the low-lying lands, even up to Rydal, 

 from the insufficiency of the outlet, has much increased since drainage 

 has been introduced. The excellent and indispensable practice of land 

 drainage must be followed up by an improvement in arterial drainage, 

 or floods are inevitable. The water, which formerly dribbled away in 

 the course of many days, or even weeks, now gushes out from the drains 

 all at once ; and, if the main outlets are not enlarged in proportion, the 

 waters are thrown back upon the land. This is the case now in the 

 neighbourhood of Winandermere, — the meadows and low-lying houses 

 at Ambleside, a mile or two from the lake, being flooded every winter 

 by the overflow of the lake first, then of the river, and then of the tribu- 

 tary streams. There is a weir below Newby Bridge, to serve a Corn 

 mill. Now the time of weirs and watermills is coming to an end. In 

 these days of steam-engines, it is not to be endured that hundreds of 

 acres should be turned into swamps, for the sake of a water-power which 

 pays, perhaps, thirty or forty pounds a year. We say this of watermills 

 generally ; and, in regard to the need of sufficient arterial drainage, we 

 speak of the shores of Winandermere in particular. The expense of 

 carrying off the utmost surplus of waters in the wettest season would be 

 presently repaid, here as anywhere else, by the improved value of land 

 and house property, relieved from the nuisance of floods. 



