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

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Page 256:-
Deep was the cave, and downwards as it went
From the wide mouth, a rocky, rough descent:
And here the' access a gloomy grove defends:
And there the unnavigable lake extends,
O'er whose unhappy waters, void of light,
No bird presumes to steer his airy flight:
From hence the Grecian bards their legends make,
And give the name Avernus to the lake.
Dryden.
After viewing for some time, with horror and astonishment, its dreadful aspect from the top, we were emboldened to descend, by a steep and slippery passage, to the margin of this Avernian lake. What its depth is, we could not learn; but from the length of time the sinking stones we threw in continued to send up bubbles from the black abyss, we concluded it to be very profound. How far it extended under the huge pendant rocks, we could get no information of, a subterranean embarkation having never yet been fitted out for discoveries. In great floods, we were told, this pot runs over: some traces of it then remained on the grass. While we stood at the bottom, the awful silence was broken every three or four seconds by drops of water falling into the lake from the rocks above in different solemn keys. The sun shining on the surface of the water, illuminated the bottom of the superincumbent rocks, only a few feet above; which being viewed by reflection in the lake, caused a curious deception, scarcely any where to be met with - they appeared at the like distance below its surface, in form of a rugged bottom: but, alas! how fatal would be the consequence, if any adventurer should attempt to wade across the abyss on this shadow of a foundation! - While we were standing on the margin of this subterranean lake, we were suddenly astonished with a most uncommon noise on the surface of the water, under the pendant rocks. It is called by the country people Hurtlepot boggard, and sometimes the fairy churn, as a churn it resembles. It is no doubt frightful to them, and would have been so to us, if we had not been apprized of the cause: we found it was effected by the glutting of the surface of the water
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