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ruin, in all shapes and in all directions: something farther we
turned aside into a coppice, ascending a little in front of
Lowdore water-fall: the height appeared to be about 200 feet, the
quantity of water not great, though (these three days excepted)
it hath rained daily for near two months before; but then the
stream was nobly broken, leaping from rock to rock, and foaming
with fury. On one side a towering crag, that spired up to equal,
if not overtop, the neighbouring cliffs (this lay all in shade
and darkness) on the other hand a rounder, broader, projecting
hill shagged with wood, and illuminated by the sun, which glanced
sideways on the upper part of the cataract. The force of the
water wearing a deep channel in the ground, hurries away to join
the lake. We descended again, and passed the stream over a rude
bridge. Soon after we came under Gowdar-crag, a hill more
formidable to the eye, and to the apprehension, than that of
Lowdore; the rocks at top deep-cloven perpendicularly by the
rains, hanging loose and nodding forwards, seen just starting
from their base in shivers. The whole way down, and the road on
both sides, is strewed with piles of the fragments, strangely
thrown across each other, and of a dreadful bulk; the place
reminds me of those passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you
to move with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the
air should loosen the snows above, and bring down a mass that
would overwhelm a caravan, I took their counsel here, and
hastened on in silence.
Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.
The hills here are clothed all up their steep sides with oak,
ash, birch, holly, &c., some of it has been cut forty years ago,
some within these eight years: yet it is all sprung again, green,
flourishing, and tall for its age, in a place where no soil
appears but the staring rock, and where a man could scarce stand
upright. Here we met a civil young farmer overseeing his reapers
(for it is now oat harvest) who conducted us to a neat white
house in the village of Grange, which is built on a rising ground
in the midst of a valley; round it the mountains
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