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well supplied with this article from Ingleton, it was soon
deserted.- Being so near the top of Whernside, we ventured to
ascend to the summit. The prospects were not diversified with
many pleasing objects, being surrounded almost on all sides with
brown and blue chaotic mountains. We had a peep into the pleasant
vale of Dent beneath us, which made us wish to see it all.
Pendle-hill appeared over the top of Ingleborough, which gave us
a high idea of our own elevation, this latter mountain being much
higher than the former. We were surprised to see four or five
tarns, or pools of water, on a plain very near the summit of
Whernside. Two of them were large, being two or three hundred
yards in length, and nearly of the same breadth (for one was
almost circular, but the other oblong.) There was a very thin bed
of coal almost on the top of this mountain, and we were told
another corresponded with it on the top of great Colm, a lofty
mountain on the other side of that branch of the vale of Dent
called Dibdale.- We were told some curious anecdotes of the vast
cunning and sagacity of the sheep-dogs in this country, in
discovering the sheep that had been buried under large drifts of
snow for some days, and that must inevitably have perished with
hunger, or been drowned with the melting of the that vapour, if
not discovered by these useful animals.
We now shaped our course back to Winterscales, and from thence to
a public-house called Gearstones, by the side of the turnpike
road, at the bottom of the mountain Cam. Here we refreshed
ourselves, and left our horses, while we went about half a mile
to the south, to explore another subterranean wonder of nature
called Catknot-hole. The entrance into it is at first not above
three or four feet high, but almost immediately increases to as
many yards. We had not gone out of sight of day before we were
obliged to wade up to the mid leg a few yards, through a little
pool made by the rill that comes out of this cave. The passage
grew narrower, but wide enough to walk along with ease, except in
one or two places, where we in danger of daubing our clothes with
a red slime. We proceeded above a quarter of a mile, when the
road grew wider, but the roof was so low that we could
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