After a weary while we took the train for
MATLOCK,
via Ambergate, and arrived of the former place late in the afternoon.
The village of Matlock is situated on the banks of the Derwent, in a
delightful little nook among the hills, which rise above it in steeps,
and in precipitous crags, and shut out the world so effectually that I
wonder how the railway ever found it out. Indeed, it does make its
approach to this region through a long tunnel. It was a beautiful, sunny
afternoon when we arrived, and my present impressions are, that I have
never seen anywhere else such exquisite scenery as that which surrounds
the village. The street itself, to be sure, is commonplace enough, and
hot, dusty, and disagreeable; but if you look above it, or on either
side, there are green hills descending abruptly down, and softened with
woods, amid which are seen villas, cottages, castles; and beyond the
river is a line of crags, perhaps three hundred feet high, clothed with
shrubbery in some parts from top to bottom, but in other places
presenting a sheer precipice of rock, over which tumbles, as it were, a
cascade of ivy and creeping plants. It is very beautiful, and, I might
almost say, very wild; but it has those characteristics of finish, and of
being redeemed from nature, and converted into a portion of the adornment
of a great garden, which I find in all English scenery. Not that I
complain of this; on the contrary, there is nothing that delights an
American more, in contrast with the roughness and ruggedness of his
native scenes,--to which, also, he might be glad to return after a while.
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