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themselves at the foot of the glen, disturb the solemn solitude
with which the eye and mind have been entertained, and point out
your return to society; for now you approach the village of
Buttermere, which is situated between the lakes and consists of
sixteen houses. The chapel here is very small, the stipend not
large, for though twice augmented with the queen's bounty, it
exceeds not twenty pounds per annum. This is one of the cures Mr.
Pennant mentions; but the perquisites of the clog-shoes,
harden-sark, whittle-gate, and goose-gate, have no better support
than in some ancient, and probably idle tale.
The life of the inhabitants is purely pastoral. A few hands are
employed in the slate quarries; the women spin woollen yarn, and
drink tea. Above the village, you have a view of the upper lake,
two miles in length, and short of one in breadth. It is
terminated on the western side by the ferruginous mountain
already mentioned. A stripe of cultivated ground adorns the
eastern shore. A group of houses, called Gatesgarth, is seated on
the southern extremity, under the most extraordinary amphitheatre
of mountainous rocks that ever eye beheld. Here we see
Honister-crag rise to an immense height, flanked by two conic
mountains, Fleetwith to
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