Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/109

 [ 97 ]

whose feet the turnpike creeps for several miles, but is at length made amends for this long tract of " hopeless sterility," by a grand prospect of St f John's vale to the left; Derwentwater and its au- gust portal, the gorge of Borrodale beyond; the town, and rich vale of Keswick, sweetly reposing at the feet of Skiddow, and other mountains of huge height and fantastic forms; and the lake of Bassenthwaite, mountain-locked, in the distance to the right. Through the vale below, the riverGreta, swelled at this moment with the tribute of a thousand streams from the adjoining hills, (the effect of a sud- den violent storm) proved by its stupendous noise its fair title to the name it bears, which is, literally trans- lated, the roarer. Adjoining to the road, on the left, near the point where this scene first bursts upon the eye, is a Druidical monument in very good pre- servation, consisting of a circular arrangement of thirty-eight stones, twenty-seven yards in diameter, and a small parallelogram \v : thin it, attached to the eastern side, six yards in length; forming pro- bably an ancient place of British superstition, and planted in the happiest sanation possible for a temple, upon a flat-topped hill, encircled by objects of all others in nature the best calculated to excite impressions of awe and astonishment some of the rudest and most sublime mountains imaginable.

VOL. II. II

�� �