button to main menu  Martineau's Complete Guide to the English Lakes, 1855

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Page 126:-
grace and beauty. The enclosure of the waters by bare mountains is, however, very fine. The neighbourhood is full of stories, of escapes and strange adventures of such pedestrian tourists as have explored the mountains: but carriage travellers look down from the road, and pass on.
  Black Sail Pass
  lost walker
  mountain guides

We have mentioned the young man who spent the whole of a previous day in walking round Kirk Fell. Worse happened, in October, 1852, to two gentlemen who went, with a pony, but without a guide, from Buttermere to Wastdale Head, by Scarf Gap and Blacksail. In Ennerdale valley, wind and rain met them. They struggled part of the way along Black-sail, when they became bewildered, and soon so exhausted that they had a narrow escape with their lives. But for a brandy flask, which one of them carried, they could not have survived. The pony seems to have sunk as rapidly as the men. These gentlemen have publicly suggested the erection of some conspicuous landmarks, to show the track; and they have uttered their warning, in corroboration of so many others, against crossing mountains without a guide. One of their chief difficulties was the paths being turned into watercourses, and thereby disguised. It was on the same track that the three Kendal young ladies, mentioned by Mr. Green in his "Guide" (two of whom are still living) lost their way, from dismissing their guide too soon, and actually staid all night on the mountain, where, if it had not been fine summer weather, they would have perished. They took a guide over Scarf Gap, and as far as the junction of the three
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button -- "Blacksail" -- Black Sail Pass
button -- (mountain guides, Cumbria)
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