We found pleasant rooms here, and established ourselves for the night.
From this point we have a view of the beautiful lake, and of Skiddaw at
the head of it. The cascade is within three or four minutes' walk,
through the garden gate, towards the cliff, at the base of which the inn
stands. The visitor would need no other guide than its own voice, which
is said to be audible sometimes at the distance of four miles. As we
were coming from Keswick, we caught glimpses of its white foam high up
the precipice; and it is only glimpses that can be caught anywhere,
because there is no regular sheet of falling water. Once, I think, it
must have fallen abruptly over the edge of the long line of precipice
that here extends along parallel with the shore of the lake; but, in the
course of time, it has gnawed and sawed its way into the heart of the
cliff,--this persistent little stream,--so that now it has formed a rude
gorge, adown which it hurries and tumbles in the wildest way, over the
roughest imaginable staircase. Standing at the bottom of the fall, you
have a far vista sloping upward to the sky, with the water everywhere as
white as snow, pouring and pouring down, now on one side of the gorge,
now on the other, among immense bowlders, which try to choke its passage.
It does not attempt to leap over these huge rocks, but finds its way in
and out among then, and finally gets to the bottom after a hundred
tumbles. It cannot be better described than in Southey's verses, though
it is worthy of better poetry than that.
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