VI. 



ASCENT OF CONISTON OLD MAN. 



There is one more enterprise which the tourist 

 would not excuse our omitting. He wants to see 



the copper-mine and the series of tarns 

 co^is^oN OLD Q^ Coniston Old Man ; and he hears it 



saidj and very truly, that the prospects 

 are jB.ner than any but those from Scawfell and 

 Helvellyn, — if not indeed, finer than the latter. 



The ascent is best made by following the Walna 

 Scar road which leads from Coniston into Sea- 

 thwaite. When the traveller has left the bright 

 and prosperous environs of Coniston behind him, 

 and entered upon the moor, he begins to feel at 

 once the exhilaration of the mountaineer. Behind 

 him lies a wide extent of hilly country, subsiding 

 into the low blue ridges of Lancashire. Below 

 him he sees, when he turns, here and there a reach 

 of the Lake of Coniston, — gray, if his walk be, as 

 it should be, in the morning : gray, and reflecting 

 the dark promontories in a perfect mirror. Amidst 

 the grassy undulations of the moor, he sees, here 

 or there, a party of peat-cutters, with their white 

 horse ; if the sun be out, he looks absolutely glit- 

 tering, in contrast with the brownness of the ground. 

 It is truly a wild moor; but there is something 

 wilder to come. The Coniston mountain towers to 

 the right ; and the only traces of human existence 

 that can be perceived are the tracks which wind 



