Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/118

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coomb of Grasmere, a solemn wood in front, and the truncated form of the Melbeck mountain to the right: black crags, climbing above each other to the clouds, form the back ground: a higher point lets in a view of the other lake, with the agreeable addition of human habitations and cultivated farms a most pleasing variety amid such rude and soli- tary scenery.

Passing through the village of Buttermere, we ascended to the singular valley of Kiseadale, whose dreary heights, bare of every natural ornament, gave additional zest to the delight we experienced on looking from its other extremity on the inde- scribably beautiful vale of Newlands; rich, diver- sified, and cheerful, terminated by Derwentwater and its accompaniments; which we kept in view till we reached the town, after an interesting ex- pedition of twenty-four miles. But perhaps the finest view of Keswick-lake is caught on the road to Grasmere (to which we now proceeded) from the point of elevation about a mile and a half from the town, whence every mountain and rock, the solemn near objects of Derwentwater, and the beau- tiful distant ones of Bassanthwaite, are all taken in by the eye at one glance. Dipping from hence into St. John's Vale, we followed an admirable road for five or six miles, through a country not

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