i8o [Krcm ©Toniston 



Robert Walker. There are changes even here. There is a 

 school-house, warmer in winter than the church, but there is a 

 decline in the number of attendants at church. The Wes- 

 leyan chapel at Ulpha has drawn away some ; the tastes 

 for Sunday diversion, which has found its way over the hills 

 from Coniston has estranged more ; and the descendant and 

 successor of the good pastor says that ' the old stock are 

 gone and the new famiHes are different/ Thus is the large 

 world's experience reflected in this little vale ! 



^n^eMelti is three miles from Ulpha Kirk. There is a 

 small and very old-fashioned inn, where everything is clean 

 and comfortable. This is a good place to sleep in, (if the 

 traveller is fortunate enough to find the rooms unoccupied), 

 when "JZSfalna j^car is to be crossed. The finest part of 

 the Duddon scenery is here, and there is a charming walk 

 by the 0tep|3mg::0tone0, celebrated by Wordsworth, and up 

 and over the moor, to descend upon Eskdale. 



Our present object is, however, to ascend the moor by 

 the carriage-road at Ulpha Kirk, and push on towards Esk- 

 dale and Wastwater. As soon as the enclosures are passed, 

 up springs the lark, and freely run the rills, and keen is the 

 air ; while the mountains look like ghosts as they appear 

 by degrees above the high foreground of the moor. It is 

 a rare incident in the Lake District to meet with a larfe. 

 Only on a wide expanse of moorland can it happen, 

 for in the valleys the birds of prey allow no songsters. 

 The eagles are gone (or nearly), and a few ravens are left 

 among the crags ] but there are hawks hovering in every 

 vale, so that those who would hear the lark must go out 

 to such 'f)laces as ^irfeer X^oor, The mountain-group 

 in front is that which has been remarked upon before as the 

 centre of the region. It is the lofty nucleus whence the vales 

 diverge (as Wordsworth observes after Green) * like the 



