CHAPTER IX 

 DERWENTWATER 



DERWENTWATER (Keswick Water, Daaran 

 Water) is at once the most beautiful and most 

 treacherous of all the lakes. 1 Its beauty is mainly 

 due to its setting, and the five islands which stud 

 its surface ; its treachery to the contrary winds 

 which sweep down the many valleys which more 

 or less converge upon it. 



Derwentwater is nearly three miles in length, and 

 its extreme breadth is r2i miles greater than 

 that of any other lake. Its altitude is 238 feet, 

 it is the shallowest of the lakes, its mean 

 depth being 18 feet only. Around none of the 

 lakes of the district are the mountains so finely 

 grouped as around Derwentwater on every side 

 they encircle the lake. Of these the mighty mass 



1 Since this was written a terrible accident has occurred 

 upon Derwentwater. By this the lives of five young women 

 belonging to a "Home Reading Union" were lost. This 

 accident is all the more regrettable, as it might have been 

 prevented. The boat, in which were eight persons, was 

 swamped owing to being overladen and caught in rough 

 water. It is strange that, with the most treacherous sheets 

 of water in the country, the supervision of boats in the Lake 

 District is of so lax a description. 



