button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 220:-
good woman that kept it; so I lay there two nights, and went -
Oct. 13. To visit the Gordale-scar, which lay six miles from Settle: but that way was directly over a fell, and as the weather was not to be depended upon, I went round in a chaise the only way one could get near it in a carriage, which made it full thirteen miles, half of it such a road! but I got safe over it, so there is an end, and came to Malham (pronounced Maum) a village in the bosom of the mountains, seated in a wild and dreary valley. From thence I was to walk a mile over very rough ground, a torrent rattling along on the left hand; on the cliffs above hung a few goats; one of them danced, and scratched an ear with its right foot, in a place where I could not have stood stock-still.
For all beneath the moon.
As I advanced, the crags seemed to close in, but discovered a narrow entrance turning to the left between them; I followed my guide a few paces, and the hills opening again into no large space; and then all further way is barred by a stream that at the height of about fifty feet, rushes from a hole in the rock, and spreading in large sheets over its broken front, dashes from steep to steep, and then rattles away in a torrent down the valley; the rock on the left rises perpendicular, with stubbed yew-trees and shrubs starting from its sides, to the height of at least 300 feet; but these are not the thing; it is the rock to the right, under which you stand to see the fall, that forms the principal horror of the place. From its very base it begins to slope forward over you in one black or solid mass without any crevice in its surface, and overshadows half the area below its dreadful canopy: when I stood at (I believe) four yards distant from its foot, the drops which perpetually distil from its brow, fell on my head; and in one part of its top, more exposed to the weather, there are loose stones that hang in the air, and threaten visibly some idle
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gazetteer links
button -- Gordale Scar
button -- Malham
button -- Settle

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