EXTINCT FORESTS OF LANCASHIRE. , 163 



" ' The Lancashire Witches ' is a standing toast at every 

 public dinner in Lancashire ; but it is now applied to a 

 race of the finest and handsomest women in England, 



" We turn gladly to some more pleasing and civilised 

 scenes connected with these forests. 



" In the centre of the forest of Pendle, on a high eleva- 

 tion, is the source of the river Irwell. For centuries it 

 must have been surrounded by woods ; and many a time 

 the dun-deer may have stopped to drink of its waters, 

 or the forest-keepers wandered by its banks, in blissful 

 ignorance of what the future would disclose of the mighty 

 importance and value of that stream. But now the scene 

 is changed ; the country still to some extent preserves 

 a wild and woodland appearance, but you can stand at 

 the source of the river and watch its current until it has 

 brawled along a few hundred yards, when the infant river 

 is compelled to work and drive the first ipill on its shores. 

 From thence, in its course of about 25 miles, its powers 

 are unceasingly taxed as it flows past the town of Bacup, 

 — the first on its course, — through Rossendale, and on by 

 Bury to Manchester ; and from thence, dirty, weary, and 

 polluted, it flows into the Mersey, and finds oblivion in 

 the Irish Sea. 



" The beautiful valley of Rossendale, though its forests 

 and deer are gone, and the'hunter's and the baying dog 

 are no more heard, yet is still lovely and picturesque. A. 

 single line of railroad connects it with the trunk-line of the 

 East Lancashire. Numerous cotton-mills are seen, much 

 more cheerful-looking, and less smoky, than they are in 

 towns ; pleasant-looking, and cleanly-kept rows of work- 

 men's cottages, here and there larger buildings, evidently 

 belonging to the aristocracy of the dale, and several churches 

 and schools appear on the hill-sides. But perhaps the most 

 interesting and romantic object of all is at the entrance to 

 the dale, being merely a round tower erected on a high 

 hill. Here, it is said, a poor man from Scotland and his 

 sons, halted one day, about the end of the last century, on 



