BEING STRAY NOTES OF FIVE YEARS OF TRAVEL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 5, 29 July 1908, Page 18

BEING STRAY NOTES OF FIVE YEARS OF TRAVEL.

By

WINIFRED H. LEYS,

AUCKLAND.

FROM Bowness, having driven through Windermere, and elimbed out of the valley past Orrest Head, where is obtained one of the most expansive views of Lake Windermere, we turn up the gentle Trout beck Valley, from which vale Hogarth, the artist, stole out into the world of fame. Thein the eoaeh makes a long ami tedious climb up and over the Kirkstone Pass. care! O guilt! O vales ami plains! Here, in his own unvexed domains A genius dwells, that can subdue At once all memory of you, — Most potent when mists veil the sky. Mists that distort and magnify; Wliile the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze, Sigh forth their ancient melodies!” So sang Wordsworth of the Kirkstone Pass. It is a wild, yet not a dreary scene, (treat trees bend to the wind, and the hills and the dales of pasture land are dotted and splashed with the fleecy white of the Herdwick sheep. Looking down from one side of the pass is the Hi'di-street range of mountains, so called from the Roman road that winds its way near their summits —a wonderful ami daring piece of Roman engineering. Vet was it any more daring than the motorist who brought his car along with the coach, and toiled and snorted up the steep incline, to tear madly dowin the winding road that leads-past Brothers Water and away across the meadowland to Patterdale? Ah! that demon of the road! We followed him at a slower but more comfortable pace. And. think you, with the toot. toot, echoing and re-echo-ing from hill to bill, that Wordsworth coTtld have stood on the Kirkstone dreaming: “Farewell, thou desolate Domain! Hope, pointing to the cultured plain, Carols like a shepherd-boy”; The idea is, of course, absurd, for poetic sentiment is speedily torn to shreds in the onrush of a motor. Now. I have no prejudice against the motor car. -and can enjoy a spin along a straight hard road as well as anyone; but I cannot help feel-

ing regret for the mad speed at which the motorists >tear along those Cumberland and Westmoreland lanes, ignoring the beauty of rill and mere, endangering the lives of the dalesman’s children, and leaving in their wake an inferno of dust and smell that distracts the poor pedestrian beyond endurance. Ullswater claims the greatest variety of scenery, blending the soft beauty of Windermere with the wilder grandeur

ULLSWATER, DERWENTWATER, AND THE SURROUNDING LAKES.

of Westwater and Coniston Water, and it perhaps comes nearest in likeness to Lakes Lugano and Como. The Old England has its votaries, and so has the Ullswater Hotel at Patterdale, and I think that honestly, one must give the palm to the Ullswater Hotel for the exceptional beauty of both its garden and its outlook. Here the rhododendrons bloom with a profusion to make one gaze in wonder, and bright beds

of begonias make a lively show. While we are waiting on the landing stage at the foot of the garden. Helvellyn and Place Fell look down somewhat gloomily, and then wrap up their faces in a cloud of mist. In spite of Helvellyn’s frowns, we spent a pleasant afternoon steaming up to Pooley Bridge. A little way north from Patterdale we got a splendid view of Helvellyn backing a deep green dale and sulking behind a cloud of rain. Oh! the rain, the rain, the rain! how it dogs one’s steps in the lake district. On Stybarrow’s summit the oak clings persistently. Our little steamer seems buried amid these hills and puffs along like some lost thing anxious to find a way out of this fjordlike lake. To think that Aira Force lies up that valley to our left—Aira Force, flinging spray on to the golden daffodils that called Wordsworth into song upon their gay beauty. By Aira Force a knight and a lovely maiden trysted in the olden days. The knight loved his lady full well, and to prove the strength of his constancy, he went on a great crusade to Syria. Trials and imprisonment kept him away for many weary years, and the lady, pining and fading from grief, walked, even in her sleep, by the singing waters that danced along to Ullswater. So it happened that when the true knight at length returned he found his lady wandering by moonlight at the old trysting-place of Aira Force. He leapt forward and clasped her in his arms. Poor lady, startled from her sleep, she sprang from his embrace, and fell over the crag into the great pool beneath. After her plunged the knight, and he caught her as she was sinking into the depths of the water. For one moment her eyes opened and she recognised her long lost love, then they drooped, and closed, never to open again. By the old tryst-ing-place of Aira Force the knight built a cell, and in melancholy loneliness lived there until he died. Under some conditions Ullswater is the bluest of the lakes and its mountains and ghylls are almost fearful in their purple glory. It is girt with hill and dale at Patterdale, and sloping, mossy banks at Pooley Bridge, and who shall dare say it is not a lovely jewel from end to end. There was a rose show at Ulverston one day. so we took the steamer from Bowness all the way down Lake Windermere to Lake Side, and from there journeyed to Ulverston by train. We had been told that it was the finest rose show hold in the north of England, but it seemed to me that the magnificent sweet-pea exhibits ought to have given the title to the show rather than the roses. However, we gained a certain satisfaction out of the roses when

we found that a large percentage of the starred varieties were blooming in our own garden in New Zealand. But the time came for us to say good-bye to Windermere —Windermere of the wooded shores and islands, the white-sailed boats, and shady roads, where* the soft-tailed bunnies bob up around one in friendly curiosity. And it was with a good deal of regret that we mounted the Keswick coach one morning, wanderers in search of a new camping ground. The road we took was again by Lowwood and Ambleside, and this time we added another poetic memory to our chain, for our eyes searched out the home, almost hidden amongst the coppice, where Mrs. Hernans lived for one summer with her five boys, holding most friendly intercourse with the Wordsworth family at Rydal Mount. Passing all too swiftly through Rydal and Grassmere, we climbed the Dunma il Raise, and looked back over pasture land bordered by mountains and divided up by stone fences. A\vxy at the end we caught a parting gleam of Grassmere. For the rest, until we come to Thirlmere it is through rough and rugged country that we pass, where the stony tops of the mountains show brown through a coat of ferns, and a few of the famous Herdwick sheep are grazing. Then, with the suddenness that is like a prod to our flagging interest, we trot into the woods on the western shores of Thirlmere. and we awake from all drowsiness

in a vain endeavour to recognise the oak. and the ash. the silver birch, the hawthorn, and the larch as they mass together in a wonderful variety of greens. On the eastern shore of the lake is a most baronial looking structure, in which 1 felt some notability must surely dwell, but our driver informed me that it was only the powerhouse for the Manchester water supply that is drawn from Thirlmere. As we came out of the woods and passed under Raven’s Crag, four ravens flew out from the rocks and away across the lake; these, being the first we had seen that day. certainly appeared at the most appropriate moment. The slopes down to Keswick are steep, but they are soon accomplished, and we continued on through the town to the Derwentwater Hotel, at Port inscale, on the shores of the lake. Derwentwater is smaller in extent than Windermere or Ullswater. but it is more bewitching than either. All around it rise uneven mountains, broken up into all manner of shapes, and appearing one behind the other in a most unexpected manner, so removing all possibility of monotony from the landscape. At the northern end is Skiddaw. 3054 feet, one of the highest mountains in England,

and next to Skiddaw is Saddleback, the greater favourite of the climber; well towards the south is Sea Fell. As the sunset glow spreads over the lake the

nature lovers wander down to Friar’s Crag —a point on the eastern shore. From here the lake is spread before you in most impressive expansiveness, but

the Ruskin monument, with the poet’s own words engraved upon it. draws more to Friar's Crag than aught else. "The first thing which I remember, as an event in lift*, was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar’s Crag on Derwentwater" these an* the words engraved upon the stone. The quotation is taken from 'Modern Painters," and Ruskin goes on to say, “the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag, into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever since.’’ What a tribute to Derwentwater! Each lake has its own individuality, and the beauty of Derwentwater is attributable in large measure to the many wooded islands dotted over its circumscribed area. On one there was an old monastery, but its place has been usurped by a modern house; on another the Earls of Derwentwater had their home, but the last of them lost hishead in the cause of the first Pretender, and the old stronghold fell into absolute ruin; and yet another was sanctuary for St. Herbert, a hermit of days gone by. He had lived on Holy Isle that lies oil’ Northumbria. with the sainted Cuthbert. But the monastic life interfered with his meditations, so he searched out the vale of the Derwent and settled on the Isle. Each year his affect ion for St. Cuthbert drew him from his cell on a pilgrimage to Holy Isle. As old age came creeping on them, each sorrowed at tin* prospect of a call that would part them for over. When death came to Cuthbert suddenly one day. as he was teaching his brethren in the monastery, a messenger was dispatched across the water and over the mountains to carry the sad tidings to the hermit on Derwent water. Ere the messenger reached his destination he was met by one other who was hastening to acquaint the brethren with the death of St. Herbert himself. So the reaper

had garnered the two sheaves from these far apart islands, and neither friend was left to mourn for the other. Down at the southern end of the lake is Lodore, and, of course, it was necessary that we should see the falls over which Southey expended so many adjectives. | recently read another description of Lodore, in which the writer speaks of clouds <>f blinding spray making the glen almost impassable; he fortunately adds that the time of his visit was at floodtime. after very heavy rain. The gorge

is very grand, and the masses of rock jutting out one over another seem splendidly planned as the pathway of a thumb-ring torrent; bu‘, on that summer's day. the tiny trickle of water tumbling lazily down the rocky glen seemed x-an-ely worth the two pence we had paid to see it. The river Derwent enters the lake near by. after traversing the lovely Borrowdale. We went this way on the drive io Buttermere alongside the “Cilory of the Vale.” and watching the shaggy -beep upon the rocky uplands. It i- severe for the sheep on the hills of the lake district when the *leet ami snow drive up the dark slopes ami penetrate to the most obscure ghylls ; but the whistle of the wind is the call to the shepherd, and no matter at what time the storm strikes the mountains — l>e it at midnight, daybreak, or mid-day he must bow his head to the gale ami trudge over to the rough ground to collect the straggling flock, ere the bitter cold has frozen them. The dalesmen live far apart, and through the long, dreary winter their lives are hard and uncompanionable. Not so with the red-wing am! the golden eyed duck who find snug quarter- in the ghylls and on the lake shores during those months when their more northern home is uninhabitable. < >f course we climbed the Bowder Stone — a giganti. -tone that some fury, in a

spasm of rage, has rolled into the dale. After this quiet dale the Honister Pass is all the more impressive in its contrasting barrenness. It is an uphill and down dale drive, and with a heavilyladen coach, somewhat tiresome for the horses. Two lady passengers of our rather crowded coach gave us an example of the inconsistency of the feminine mind by insisting on walking down the hills, because they could not endure to see the horses sliding over the stony way, but sitting calmly in the coach when

even an old lady of seventy got out and walked, so as to relieve the weight on the up-hill tug. The little white cross by the wayside tells the story of a most unforeseen fatal accident. On an ill-fated day a young girl came climbing down the hillside, step by step, planting her walking stick in the earth in front of her. There appears to be little risk in such a scramble, but the slope is steep, and the girl, slipping, fell heavily upon her stack. When assistance came to her it was found that her neck was broken, and that death must have been instantaneous. The simplicity of this tragedy adds so much pathos to it. Dainty meadow-sweet throws up its fragrance to this lonely glade, and the tiny feathered wanderers smell its sweetness as they hasten away to the ghylls and the becks on the shores of Crummock Water and Buttermere, where they find a happy home. As we skirted the east bank of Buttermere. birds, many of them strange and unfamiliar to my eyes, flew around us. White-throated blackbirds, peregrines, kestrels, and spar-row-hawks rose out of the brake and sailed away across the water, or up into the blue sky. rejoicing in the unwonted brightness; once, only once. I saw an old kingfisher sitting on a stone, seri-ou-dy contemplating a plunge into the lake in -earch of a dairitv morsel.

We lunched at the hotel at the further end of Buttermere. The sun was delightfully warm that day, and the stroll across the fields to Crummock Water filled us with a heavy drowsiness. On the shores of Crummock Water the man with the boat tempted unwary visitors on to the blue waters of the lake, with the object of seeing a nearby waterfall. But. after the Coniston and Lodore falls, my brother and I felt that summer was not the season in which to visit the lakeland waterfalls, so, instead, we lay down under the trees, and promptly fell asleep. Going back to Derwent water by the shady Newlands makes one wonder how any spot so barren as the Honister could be so near at hand. In the Crosthwaite churchyard, just a mile from Keswick, is the grave of Southey, yet another of the lake-land poets. The friendship between Southey and Coleridge was renewed in the days when the former lived at Greta Hail, near Keswick. Much coming and going there was, too, between Greta Hall and Rydal Mount, for Southey was deeply attached to Wordsworth. When Southey preceded. Wordsworth to the grave, the aged poet of Rydal Mount wrote the memorial verses that are engraved upon the monument, which was then erected to the memory of his friend, in the Crosthwaite Church. There is not very much to bp said about Bassenthwaite Lake, though personally 1 was curious to see the lake by which I might have spent some happy days had tne fate willed it so, and 1 found our afternoon's drive from Derwentw’ater, down the dale and along the Bassenthwaite shore, an exceedingly pleasant one. Also, I can well understand that the owners of the sweet homes upon its shores might excusably grow voluble in its praise, for they see it under all the changes of light and shade at the bud and fall of the leaf. Skiddaw is an easy climb from the Bassenthwaite side, and the view obtained from its summit, of the two lakes—Derwent water and Bassenthwaite, lying within three miles of each other, is a liberal reward for a momentary loss of breath. 1 believe, if you count each one, there are sixteen lakes—without counting the tarns—in what is known as the lake district, but only the dalesman sees them all. When one is travelling there is always something ahead —some new place to be visited and associations gathered. None the less one does not leave tne English lakes gladly just because some other scene awaits our coming. Indeed no! and on our last dav at Derwent-

water I awoke early—3.3o a.m. in fact—for my brother had derided to take some early morning photographs, and I wished to enjoy every moment of the day. Jumping out of bed. I went to look out of the window. Away behind the mountains on the far shore the sun was rising. He had not come into sight, but he had sent forth messengers t» tint the grey and somewhat heavy clouds with pink and gold to warn man that he would soon be here with all his strength and brightness. Everybody was quiet, the very birds were still abed, and deep grey shadows lay on the glassy waters of the lake. It was the promise of a magnificent day—a promise that was in every way fulfilled. However, 1 did not sit by that window for long, just time enough to see many changes in the greypink sky and the shadows on the lake chased away by brilliant sunbeams, and to hear the birds begin to call good morning to one another. Then T crept back into bed and fell asleep, sleeping until a knock on mv door aroused me, and T found my brother returned from his row and carrying in his hand a bunch of forget-me-nots that had nodded their little blue beads to him as he passed from the shores of Derwent water. Next Week : VENICE: THE DREAM CITY.