i7<^ Krom CTonfston 



fresh mountain winds are always passing hither and thither, 

 and the purest streams are for ever heard gushing down from 

 the heights, and the whole area is made up of slopes and 

 natural channels, there are fever nests, equal to those found 

 in the dampest levels of low-lying cities. The general 

 absence of poverty makes the way to amendment open and 

 clear. There can hardly be a safer or a more profitable in- 

 vestment than cottage^builbmg in these districts, for a good 

 dwelling is as easy to turn into money as a banknote. The 

 railroads, which some have so much feared, will be no 

 small blessing if they bring strangers from a more enlightened 

 region to abolish the town-evils which harbour in the heart 

 of the mountains. Meanwhile every systematic scheme of 

 drainage is a promise of better things to come. 



TO BROUGHTON, BLACK COMBE, VALLEY OF THE 

 DUDDON, ESKDALE, STANLEY GILL, AND WASTWATER. 

 (23 Miles). . 



The road to be followed after leaving Coniston, passes 

 through Torver, and diverges from the lake, overlooking 

 a region in which the hills sink into heathery undulations, 

 which again subside into a wild alluvion which stretches t(5 

 the estuary. There is, as was before mentioned, a railway 

 from Coniston to Broughton, but this description is given 

 as it originally stood for the sake of what follows. The 

 travellers must see the Duddon, and, in order to get to it, 

 they and their carriage must go to Broughton. When it is 

 high water, the scene is fine : but the vast reaches of sand 

 at low water are dreary. The coast-railway is seen crossing 

 the estuary, — its cobweb tracery showing well against the 

 sand or the water. Near at hand Broughton Tower rises 



