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a sight of this lake from the high road, but the western
side ought not on any account to be passed by without a
perambulation. This mere is fed by two streams; the main one
rising in Wythburn Head; the other, not much inferior, pours
down a rocky gill, after issuing out of Harrop Tarn, a
marshy water of considerable size, situated at the foot of a
precipice, in a coom on the western side of the valley.
'There sometimes doth the leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crag repeats the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;
Thither the rainbow comes - the cloud -
And mists that spread the flying shroud.'
In order to see this vale from its western side, cross the
meadows from the inn to a few white cottages, enlivened by
the green leaves of the cheerful hollin tree, called the
City, a corruption undoubtedly from some more homely
epithet; thence the road, not suitable for modern carriages,
leads under towering precipices and crags to an eminence or
rather promontory jutting into the lake, from which
Helvellyn appears to rise directly and perpendicularly out
of the water. In front, is the upper lake and alpine
bridges, separating it from the lower reach, with the
wood-crested How and Naddle Fell on one hand, on the other,
the black and storm-shattered fronts of Fisher and Raven
Crags; and often between these rocky frames Blencathra hangs
suspended in aerial blue. In a coom on the left, between
Bull Crag and Fisher
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