I20 Excursions torn 



now ; and the gloom in the scene is from the mass of Hel- 

 vellyn. The stranger leaves the mail-road within a mile of 

 the Horse Head, passes by the cottages called by the boast- 

 ful name of the City of Wythburn, and a few farm-houses, 

 and, soon emerging from the fences, finds himself on a 

 grassy level under the Armboth Fells, within an amphitheatre 

 of rocks, with the lake before, and Helvellyn beyond, over- 

 shadowing it. The rocks behind are feathered with wood, 

 except where a bold crag here, and a cataract there intro- 

 duces a variety. 



^ The best wooded ravine and one of the finest in the Lake 

 Country is Lancey Gill ; the first stream you arrive at comes 

 down from it. Although we have travelled up it a long 

 distance in the fairest company, it is not easy climbing for 

 ladies. But it well repays a little toil. Nowhere, not even 

 at Lodore, are rocks more picturesquely scattered, more 

 beautifully mossed, more drooped over by greenest foliage 

 than here : very soon you come to what appears to be a 

 complete cul-de-sac, — a wall of rock, not only rendering pro- 

 gress impossible, but setting you wondering where the stream 

 can possibly come from ; the tourist here has to take a 

 perfect right angle, and proceeds through a deep and narrow 

 chasm which ladies had better not strive to pass ; there is a 

 circuitous route up the cliff on the left-hand, by which the 

 ravine can be again reached and the expedition resumed. 

 The whole of the way is beautiful : the beck looks like some 

 gallery of Creswick's pictures, with nook and fall, and bower 

 and rock-work, endlessly diversified. At last the rocky 

 summit of a deep pool is reached, which has been the 

 watery home, for several minutes, of more than one over- 

 active young gentlemen of our acquaintance, who slipped in 

 during their perilous passage over the left-hand ledge yonder. 

 No sane person, with life uninsured, would venture upon it ; 



