THE LAKE DISTRICT 73 



tive chiefly of boulders, and the life of the shep- 

 herds in these regions must be as lonely as 

 anywhere in the world. Although bleak and 

 barren and utterly useless for agriculture, the 

 Lake District is used by the stock-owners for 

 sheep and cattle-runs in the summer, what little 

 grass there is remaining fresh and green in those 

 cold and damp altitudes, when on the lowlands 

 all the feed is parched and dried up. During 

 December and January one meets with many 

 flocks of sheep being driven up to the highlands 

 to be turned out on the huge runs, and gathered 

 in again at the approach of winter in April. Even 

 in summer the weather may be intensely severe 

 up here, and the day before I arrived at the 

 Great Lake at midsummer, several hundred sheep 

 had died of exposure in the snow, having been 

 on the road for some days previously, and then 

 being unable to find food or to withstand the cold, 

 when the storm came on. During the few weeks 

 I spent in the Lake District the most perfect sum- 

 mer weather prevailed, but from the accounts 

 given me by shepherds the winter must be terribly 

 severe and bleak ; nevertheless in parts where 

 the grass is more luxuriant stock is kept up there 

 all the year round. 



I travelled to the Great Lake from Bothwell ; 

 the railway goes within about fifty miles of the 

 lake, and the rest of the journey may be taken 

 in the mail cart, which goes through once a week 

 to the south end of the lake, where the trooper 



