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or from Carlisle through Nithsdale and Kilmarnock to Glasgow ? Each scheme had its advocates; each party said "the traffic will pay for one line only, and our's is that one;" and each group of advocates asserted that all the other schemes were really impracticable. Alas for prophecy! When the capitalists found the money, the engineers found the skill and the workmen; and we now see that not only one, but all of these schemes (except the route over Carter Fell) are placed in such a position as to be almost certainly carried out before many months have elapsed. But then, to start from Carlisle towards Edinburgh and Glasgow, required that the gap of seventy milesseventy miles, too, of very severe country-between Lancaster and Carlisle should be filled up; and until this difficulty was vanquished, the easier route by the east coast seemed likely to bear away the palm.

Here it was that the genius of Joseph Locke showed itself. He grappled with the mountain region of Westmoreland, and looked steadily at the summits and the valleys which had deterred others. Whether to bend round by Kirkby and Appleby, or to keep more westward by Kendal and Penrith; whether to tunnel under the bleak Shap Fell, or to ascend the passes between its summits by steep inclines, or to avoid it altogether by a detour; whether to make tunnels and viaducts and embankments, or steep gradients, the ruling method of overcoming the inequalities of the country-these were some of the questions which the engineer had to propose to himself; and the manner in which he has solved them is among the most remarkable features in the railway system. Perhaps there is no other example in England of so difficult a country having been furnished with a railway at so small an expense per mile. One man planned it all; one contractor executed it all; and it is a striking example of the sagacity and skill which now mark these great undertakings, that the engineer's estimate was far below what any one had before dreamed of; that the contractor undertook the operations within the engineer's estimate; and that the contractor fulfilled even more than his promise for the amount originally agreed upon, and was only beaten a few weeks as to time by difficulties over which he had no control in obtaining possession of the land.

The Lake district was benefited, in some sort accidentally, by this railway scheme. The great object in view was to get to Scotland; and if Kirkby and Appleby had happened to present more favourable features, doubtless that route would have been chosen. But, as it is, the great national route (for so it really deserves to be called,) passes close upon the eastern margin of the Lake district. The three stations of Milnthorp, Kendal, and Penrith, are, respectively, only a few miles eastward of the three Lake towns of Ulverstone, Ambleside, and Keswick; and thus does the locomotive plough its way along, almost within sight of Cartmell, and Helvellyn, and Saddleback, and Skiddaw on the left, and having the summits of the north-west Yorkshire mountains on the right.

Such, then, is the railway along which our tourists are about to progress on their way towards Windermere. The distance from Lancaster is but very short when the Sands come in sight; and as the railway passes along almost at the very edge of the sands from Hest Bank to Carnforth, a distance of three or four miles, we have ample opportunity of seeing this remarkable expanse. Pass near it at one time, and you see a widely-spreading sandy track, on which a four-horse coach can travel without difficulty; pass it a few hours later, and you see the whole covered with several feet of water, with vessels sailing almost at the very spot where the stage-coach had been. A glance at the map of England will show how all this arises. There is a river called the Ken, which, having its source near Shap Fell, in Westmoreland, flows past Kendal into Morecambe Bay, near Milnthorp, and there mixes with the waters of the Lune, which comes by way of Kirkby-Lonsdale and Lancaster. These rivers have brought down in the course of ages so much sand and fine mud, that the wide estuary between Lancaster and Furness is being gradually filled up, insomuch that when the tide is out the bed of the sea is laid bare, and can be crossed at a very considerable distance from the shore. The road across these sands has been one of the routes from Lancaster towards the western Lakes and Whitehaven for many ages; and many stories of "hair-breath 'scapes" are told concerning travellers being overtaken by the tide while crossing. The poet Gray, in one of his letters to Dr. Wharton, gives an account of a journey which he took into the Lake district, in 1767. Writing from Lancaster, he says:—

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Oct. 11. Wind S.W.; clouds and sun; warm and a fine dappled sky; crossed the river (Lune), and walked over a peninsula three miles to Pooton, which stands on the beach. An old fisherman mending his nets (while I inquired about the danger of passing these sands) told me in his dialect a moving story; how a brother of the trade, a cockler (as he styled him), driving a little cart with two daughters (women grown) in it, and his wife on horseback following, set out one day to pass the Seven Mile Sands, as they had frequently been used to do; for nobody in the village knew them better than the old man did. When they were about half-way over, a thick fog rose; and as they advanced they found the water much deeper than they expected. The old man was puzzled; he stopped, and said he would go a little way to find some mark he was acquainted with. They stayed a little while for him; but in vain. They called aloud; but no reply. At last the young women pressed their mother to think where they were, and go on. She would not leave the place; but wandered about, forlorn and amazed. She would not quit her horse, and get into the cart with them. They determined, after much time wasted, to turn back, and give themselves up to the guidance of their horses. The old woman was soon washed off, and perished. The poor girls clung close to their cart; and the horse, sometimes wading and

sometimes swimming, brought them back to land alive, | traveller on these twenty miles of railway northward but senseless with terror and distress, and unable for many days to give any account of themselves. The bodies of their parents were found soon after (next ebb), that of the father a very few paces distant from the spot where he had left them."

But the romance of the Lancaster sands is rapidly passing away. The local traditions of the neighbourhood narrate the fate of three men, who sank instantly in a soft part of the sands at one moment; of a man on horseback, who sank suddenly while yet on his horse, and remained mounted while dead; and of others who were washed away by the rapidly encroaching tide. There has for many years been an "Over Sands" coach, which, starting from Lancaster at an hour depending on the state of the tide (and therefore varying from day to day), proceeds from Lancaster to Hest Bank, then about eight or nine miles across the sands (when the tide is out) to Ken's Bank, and thence across Furness to Ulverstone; and there are also guides, on horseback and on foot, to pilot travellers across two rivers, the Ken and the Keer, whose narrow and shallow channels traverse the sands; the guides receiving a fee of a few halfpence for their services. But the establishment of steamboat transit from Fleetwood to Furness, in connexion with railways at either end, and the project of a branch railway from Milnthorp to Ulverstone, will in all probability render this "Over Sands" route less and less frequented in future years, until by-and-by we shall perhaps only hear of it as an almost forgotten feature in the ante-steam epoch.

Passing northward by the railway towards Kendal, we begin by degrees to see the low hills replaced by hills of greater elevation, and those by others which deserve the name of mountains. The elevated ridge which forms the eastern margin of Westmoreland, and the western margin of Yorkshire, bounds the view on the right for many miles, and forms a background to a scene studded in the mid-distance with many hills of smaller elevation. When the sun is near the horizon, either in morning or evening, the shadows and varied tints of lights thrown on these hills are often very beautiful; and a pretty contrast is afforded by the green fields, and the whitish stone houses and fencewalls.

From the part of Lancashire which borders on the sands, the railway diverges somewhat farther inland, keeping for the most part somewhat above the general level of the ground, but passing occasionally in a cutting, wholly avoiding tunnels. Passing near the small towns of Borwick, Burton, Beetham, and Milnthorp, it approaches at Leven's Park near to the river Ken and to the Lancaster and Kendal Canal; and all three then keep company along a pretty valley to the town of Kendal. Here, at about two miles from Kendal, we part from the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, and enter upon the new little pleasure line of the Kendal and Windermere, which passes through Kendal on its way to the Lake. It is obvious to a

of Lancaster, that the engineer has not had to contend against such difficulties as those which meet him further north. It generally happens that the grandeur of scenery, and the difficulties of engineering, go handin-hand through the same district; and in the case now before us, there is just enough of both these elements to give a foretaste of greater things further on.

The Windermere Railway crosses one or two of the main streets of Kendal by a viaduct, and if the visitor can spare time to walk through this chief of the Westmoreland towns, he will find many picturesque spots to engage his attention in the environs; while there are evidences of busy industry in the town itself. The Ken flows past the town with a sufficient descent of stream to give the river a rippled and sparkling and cheerful aspect. It is true that a walk along the banks, within the precincts of the town itself, brings into view more dyed wool and tanned hides, than green fields or trees or flowers; but we must bear in mind that Kendal is the Halifax of Westmoreland. In days long gone by, 'Kendal-Green' took rank among the noted varieties of woollen manufacture; and there are still linseys and serges and druggets produced there in considerable quantities. The rapid Ken is a common wash-house for all their manufacturers, who cleanse their dyed hanks of worsted yarn in the stream; and as the tanners hang up their hides and skins, and the laundresses their snowy white linen, on plots of ground on either bank, the whole assumes a remarkable appearance. There is very little smoke to give a murky atmosphere; and the river flows so rapidly as quickly to carry off all impurities, so that the river is much more pleasant to the eye than the dirty and dyestained Irwell of Manchester. The remains of the old castle on the hill (the birthplace of Queen Catharine Parr), and the three or four churches, are all deserving of a passing glance.

As our object is to get to the border of the beautiful Lake as soon as possible, we will not stop long at Kendal. And here we find that a few hundred yards suffice to open to us the lovely basin in which Windermere is situated: even while at Kendal, the gracefully rounded hills which bound the lake on the east meet the view; and in the valleys between them we catch a glimpse of the hills on the other side of the lake; so that, without seeing the lake itself, we have good means for knowing where it lies. If we would know what kind of geological formation lies beneath us, we need only glance at the sides of the cuttings through which the railway is carried: slate meets the view on all sides, in huge blocks whose cleavageplanes bear a general parallelism one to another: even the stations, too, tiny as they are, when compared with those of the busy southern counties, show how plentiful slate is in this district; for they are built mainly of blocks of slate, wholly irregular in shape, but cemented into a very durable and, if we may use the term, a very country fied looking wall.

But where does the railway end? Does it go direct

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to the shores of the Lake? and if so, does it approach | be their route) through a beautiful country towards

the Lake at Bowness or at Ambleside or at Newby Bridge? What kind of answer may be given to these questions when the scheme is in full working order, remains to be shown; but at present the 'terminus' is such as, perhaps, no other line in England can show. The railway ends no where that is there is no town at the terminus, nor does the tourist clearly see how or where or when he is to get to the haunts of his brother men, or to the Lake which is the object of his trip, although he soon finds that he is only about a mile from Bowness. Let us not, however, quarrel with the infantine and undeveloped state of the terminus. All will be right in time. Town, inn, station, omnibus; we may forgive or forget them all, while walking down the lovely slopes of the hill which lead to the Lake. We see it spreading out before us in a broad sheet as we descend from the station; Belle Isle, or one or other of the little holmes' or islets which speckle the lake, meets the eye towards the south-west; while the hills on the western margin, which separate Windermere from Easthwaite Water, form the background of the picture.

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But what is that, snugly embayed in a little inlet of the lake, within sight of all the more elevated houses at Bowness? A steamer? Yes: there lies the little 'Lady of the Lake,' waiting to take her passengers up to Ambleside, and downward to Newby Bridge. And beyond | her, the Lord of the Isles,' whose greater tonnage shows that a larger party of pleasure-seekers may be accommodated. Here, then, we come to another phase in the steam-system which marks the present age; and here is furnished an example of that mutual support to which allusion was recently made in our little work ('The Sail and the Steamer'): that is, the support which railways and steam-boats render to each other, in cases where the railway has a terminus on the shores of sea, lake, or river. Two steam-boat systems, and three railway systems, have now just been brought to a state of practical operation, in relation to Lake Windermere and its vicinity; and it is interesting-not merely to the tourist, but to the man of observation who watches the steps whereby commercial enterprise is developed -to trace the relative bearings of the links of this chain.

First, then, there is the little Kendal and Windermere Railway, which, starting from the Lancaster and Carlisle line at Oxenholme, extends two miles to Kendal, and then about eight more to Elleray. At Elleray the terminus is a mile or so from the spot where the steam-boats take up their station: whether the railway will ever be carried down the slope of the hills to the water-side, remains to be seen; but in the meantime, omnibuses ply from one point to the other. At three different periods of the day, one of the two steamers starts from her moorings at Bowness, and steams down the tranquil and pure Lake to Newby Bridge, or rather to a spot a little northward of the extreme end of the Lake. Here coaches or other vehicles are on the spot, to convey the steam-boat passengers (if such

Dalton-in-Furness-about a two hours' ride. At Dalton is a station of the recently-opened Furness Railway, which will perhaps, by-and-bye, be extended through Ulverstone to Windermere itself. Along this railway, only a portion of which is yet opened, the tourist is conveyed to Piel pier at Rampside, at the north-west margin of Morecambe Bay. From Rampside, at proper states of the tide, a steamer wafts him across the Bay to Fleetwood, a distance of twelve miles, which is performed in an hour and a half; and from Fleetwood the Preston and Wyre Railway continues the route on to Preston, where the network of English railways is reached.

By this singular combination of modes of travelling, a tourist can reach from Fleetwood to Ambleside for a fare of somewhere about eight shillings. One 'booking' suffices for the whole all the Companies act in concert. The twelve miles of steaming from Fleetwood to Piel-pier; the seven or eight miles of Furness Railway, past the far-famed Abbey to Dalton; the coach to the south end of Windermere; and the steamers from south to north along the Lake itself to Ambleside, a distance altogether of somewhere between forty and fifty miles,-all are included in one route, and the hours are timed, so as to make the necessary junctions or meetings suitable for each other. With regard to actual speed or certainty, this mixed route is not comparable for an instant with the continuous railway route by way of Lancaster and Kendal; but 'tis pleasant to have it in one's power to vary the route, and to traverse in returning a district of country different from that visited in the out-journey; and it is in this point of view that the two-fold routes of reaching Windermere are well deserving the notice of those who are in search of the hills and vales and lakes of Westmoreland.

A visit to Windermere is a thing to be ever after remembered along with the very happiest of our reminiscences of natural scenery. Christopher North has entitled one of his vigorous sketches, 'A day at Windermere,' and in it he has dashed off, with the splendid daring of genius, brilliant representations of many of the most characteristic and beautiful features of the queen of English lakes. They who may be tempted by the opening of the railway to spend a day at Windermere will do well, before setting out on their journey, to refer to the first volume of his 'Recreations.' They will there be shown how poetic feeling, while it can add a new grace to the noblest object, can clothe the humblest in glorious apparel; and he must be cold indeed who does not catch somewhat of the glow of the author, and look on the several scenes with a new interest, for the light in which he has displayed them.

But Professor Wilson has left much unnoticed: his sketch embraces but a small share of the multitudinous beauties of Windermere, and the rambler thitherward will need some more comprehensive guide. That need we are desirous in some measure to supply. We

make no pretension to add new sketches that may range along with his. Ours is an easier and a humbler enterprise. We merely intend to indicate plainly-though without guide-book particularity-some of the more note-worthy points about the "Fairy Lake," and show how a day or two may be pleasantly spent in its neighbourhood.

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It happens commonly with whatever is pre-eminently famous for beauty-whether a lovely woman, a fair scene, or a noble picture,-that the first view is disappointing. So is it often with the cliffs and islands of Winander.' Especially is Windermere disappointing to one unaccustomed to lake and mountain scenery. A vague indefinite notion has been formed which, under ordinary circumstances, is seldom realized. The lake is declared to be deficient in grandeur, the mountains are not near enough to the sky. Or worse, it is visited on a cold, dark, and misty day, and scarce anything is seen at all. In either case, or in any case, there is a sovereign remedy-patience-the first and main qualification for the mountain traveller. You have only to wait, and a change will come. Wander awhile among the mountains, and gradually they will let you into many of their secrets. Day by day, and hour by hour, will the feeling of their might and majesty dawn more and more upon you, till, when their full glory is felt, you will wonder that ever you could have thought slightingly of even the meanest of them. And so of the weather. Do not imagine that because it is at this moment unfavourable, it will be so presently. In this region half-an-hour produces the wildest changes. In the morning early you start out,-after discreetly providing the inner man with a goodly Westmoreland breakfast,-hoping for a tolerable day of wandering. The sky is grey, the mist hangs heavily on the fells, but you trust it may clear up, and go on blithely. But the mist remains. Occasionally you climb the crags; once or twice you venture to a mountain summit; still the prospect is as dreary as that which met the anxious gaze of the ancient mariner:—

"The mist is here, the mist is there, The mist is all around :"

and you feel that, pretty as it is in a picture, graceful as it is in poetry, and much as it sometimes adds to the beauty of real scenery, you could be content to part with it for ever, so that it would leave you now. Steadily, steadily however the mist thickens, till you learn to think better even of a London fog. Anon the sky darkens, and first a slight and then a heavy rain sets in; and wet, and weary, and dull, you are glad ere mid-day is well over to take shelter by the snug hearth of a village inn. You order, for sorrow is dry though your clothes are damp, a noggin of hot whiskey, and, by the help of eggs and rashers and oaten cakes, manage to while away the dreary moments and get rid of a little ill temper.

Feeling refreshed, you resolve to make the shortest cut to your own inn, and sally out pouring maledictions alike on the mists and the mountains-which you vow to quit by the next conveyance; when lo!

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before you reach the door, you catch sight of a streak of blue sky, and yonder is the peak of the fell with the mists crumbling away from it, and rolling hurriedly down its sides. Another and another mountain summit becomes visible. You hasten to ascend the nearest ; and behold! the wide landscape is alive and gladdening in the brightness, and the blue lake rejoices as one newly awakened, and a glorious prospect spreads before you, such as shall live in your memory for ever. are the moments worth journeying for. It is not the most beautiful nor the grandest scene that is always the most memorable; but to be at one of those noble places, and see it in one of those seldom-caught moments, that is worth years of ordinary sight-seeing. And these moments often occur at times the most unpromising. . . . The moral here of all this moralizing, is simply this:-imprimis, when you are at Windermere do not fancy because you are at first disappointed that it is not equal to its reputation; and secondly, if the weather appears to be unpropitious, do not shut yourself up in the inn-unless you have French boots on, or are afraid of rheumatism.

Sometimes, however, Windermere reveals her loveliness at the earliest moment. "The first smile of Windermere salutes your impatient eyes, and sinks heart. You know not how beautisilently into your ful it may be-nor in what the beauty consists; but your finest sensibilities to Nature are touched-and a tinge of poetry, as from a rainbow, overspreads that cluster of islands that seems to woo you to their still retreat.

And now

'Wooded Winandermere, the river-lake,'

with all its bays and promontories, lies in the morning light serene as a sabbath and cheerful as a holiday: and you feel that there is a loveliness on this earth more exquisite and perfect than ever visited your slumbers even in the glimpses of a dream." (Wilson.) But we must quit these heroics, and enter upon more prosaic details. Windermere is generally classed among the lakes of Westmoreland, but in fact the greater part of it belongs to an out-lying slip of Lancashire. About four miles of the eastern shore and the whole of the western is in Lancashire, while only the upper eastern side is in Westmoreland; that county however claims all the islands. The lake is eleven miles long, and above a mile across where widest, but the average width does not exceed twofifths of a mile. The greatest depth, which is opposite Ecclesrigg Crag, is about forty fathoms. It is fed by the rivers Brathay and Rotha, which unite about half a mile before they fall into Windermere; in its course the lake receives several small tributaries on either side; and it escapes by the Leven into the Irish Sea at Morecambe bay. In looking at a map of the district, it will be seen that the lake consists of two great reaches, united by a narrow neck just above the ferry. These reaches are very different in character. The lower reach is the longer, but it is narrower and straighter and less broken by bays and promontories than the other, and the mountains bordering it are less elevated

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and striking in character. No part of the lower reach much exceeds half-a-mile in width, while in the upper there is scarcely any part so narrow. In speaking of Windermere as a picturesque object, it is only the upper part that is commonly meant, and only that portion is usually visited. The lower half has much that will repay the examination of a leisurely tourist; but it is so far excelled in grandeur and in beauty by the other, that those who can afford but a short time to Windermere will do well to devote it almost entirely to the part above the Ferry. (Cut, No. 1.)

Windermere is the largest of the English lakes, but is at the same time, in proportion to its length, the narrowest. Hence it has come to be called in common parlance, as well as by poets, the River-lake. Some writers and tourists have ventured upon comparisons between it and other lakes, and have pronounced it inferior. They have found it wanting in width and therefore in grandeur. The character which the poets bestowed upon it in their admiration, they have converted into its reproach. It is too river-like. The dwellers on Derwent-side have taken up the note, and the little men of Coniston-water have reechoed it. Is it then too narrow? Not an inch say we, as boldly as ever Christopher cried out against the

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Fairy-lake. At first the rough dark fells over which the road passed, and the rude way-side cottages engaged your attention; then one and another of the Lake fells marched out before you,-the loftiest of their peaks most likely crowned by clouds, and when at length you caught the first glimpse of the Lake itself, it was just where the larger islands seemed planted in the blue water especially to carry the delighted eye from the rich woods at your feet to the luxuriant groves on the opposite shore,-which in their turn united easily with the fine background of mountains softened by distance into a perfection of harmony with the rest of the landscape: and then presently a turn of the road spread before you the broad expanse of the upper Lake with its magnificent frame of mountains, rising peak behind peak, and forming altogether a very vision of loveliness. The railway traveller must lose much of this. The preparation of the somewhat dreary approach, and the gradual opening of the peculiarities of the lake scenery must at least be wanting. The writer of the first portion of this paper-that portion which describes the approaches to the Lake, has well described what the railway-traveller can see. By whatever mode the traveller comes, he must at any rate work his way upwards. Journeying northwards the scenery is continually increasing in majesty and interest, while there is something far from pleasing in descending from the grandeur of the higher part to the comparative tameness of the lower. As the loftiest mountains are all situated in the centre of the lake district, the grandest views must of course be obtained when the observer turns in that direction. Thus, as Wordsworth has pointed out, "In the vale of Winandermere, if the spectator looks for gentle and lovely scenes, his eye is

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