English Lakes.
1909.
Sept 20-27.
  We spent this week in the English Lakes region,
making our headquarters at Rigg's Hotel, Windermere and then
taking trips almost daily to more or less distant places
of interest among which have been Ullswater, Ambleside,
Grassmere [Grasmere], Thirlmere, Derwentwater, and Furness Abbey.
Two of these excursions were made by motor car, the others
by boat, carriage or rail. Thus we have seen a good deal
of the region in a somewhat superficial way. It is very
beautiful and picturesque, more so, I am bound to admit,
than anything we have in New England. Although few of
the mountains exceed 3000 ft. in height they rise almost
directly from levels scarce more than 100 feet above the sea
and hence seem higher than some of our interior peaks & ridges
of much greater elevation. It is said that they were 
formerly wooded to their summit but now they have few
trees except at or near their base. Some of them present 
steeply sloping faces of bare rock or of boulders, half
concealed by grass from base to summit and everywhere dotted with
grazing sheep. Many are essentially gigantic ridges with
narrow, undulating crests miles in length. Others terminate
in sharply pointed or but slightly rounded peaks. The
dome-shape is less common than in our New England mountains.
Most of the lakes are long, narrow & comparatively straight,
with imposing mountains hemming them in closely on every
side and in places rising abruptly from the very edge of
the water. There are few houses about their shores which
with the lower slopes of the mountains are often covered with
woods of oak, pine, spruce, fir & larch. Some of these bordering
forests stretch for miles along the shores and extend up & back