All the sternness of it is
softened by vegetative beauty wherever it can possibly be thrown in; and
there is not here, so strongly as along Windermere, evidence that human
art has been helping out Nature. I wish it were possible to give any
idea of the shapes of the hills; with these, at least, man has nothing to
do, nor ever will have anything to do. As we approached the bottom of
the lake, and of the beautiful valley in which it lies, we saw one hill
that seemed to crouch down like a Titanic watch-dog, with its rear
towards the spectator, guarding the entrance to the valley. The great
superiority of these mountains over those of New England is their variety
and definiteness of shape, besides the abundance everywhere of water
prospects, which are wanting among our own hills. They rise up
decidedly, and each is a hill by itself, while ours mingle into one
another, and, besides, have such large bases that you can tell neither
where they begin nor where they end. Many of these Cumberland mountains
have a marked vertebral shape, so that they often look like a group of
huge lions, lying down with their backs turned toward each other. They
slope down steeply from narrow ridges; hence their picturesque seclusions
of valleys and dales, which subdivide the lake region into so many
communities. Our hills, like apple-dumplings in a dish, have no such
valleys as these.
There is a good inn at Lodore,--a small, primitive country inn, which has
latterly been enlarged and otherwise adapted to meet the convenience of
the guests brought thither by the fame of the cascade; but it is still a
country inn, though it takes upon itself the title of hotel.
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