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Journey to Christianbury
Crag
Mr URBAN,
AS you frequently entertain your readers with topographical
curiosities, I send you a view and description of a natural
rock in Cumberland, called Christen-bury
Craiggs. *
The rock is situated at the top of a mountain, very
difficult of access, at which I had often looked through my
telescope from a place three and twenty miles distant. The
view at length so much excited my curiosity, that I
determined to gratify it by a nearer examination; however,
as it was early in the spring when I first formed this
resolution, and as the ways are scarce passable, even in
summer, I waited till the beginning of August, and
then set out on my expedition.
I took a guide with me to Beu-Castle, a parish on the
northward extremity of Cumberland, in which there is
neither town nor village, but a few wretched huts only,
which are widely scattered in a desolate country. After a
journey of 20 miles, sometimes wading an hour together in
water up to the horses girts, though the bottom was
tolerably sound, we came to the church. At a small distance
I discovered a hedge alehouse, which I knew must serve me
for an inn, but when I entered it I was not more disgusted
with the dirt and darkness of the room into which I was
introduced, the floor of bare earth, and the bed less
eligible than clean straw, than I was with the noisy mirth
of some boors who had been drinking till the were drunk.
However, as I knew it was bootless to complain, I appeared,
as well as I could, to be content, that I might not
displease my host. The clergyman, indeed, was so obliging as
to offer me his room at the parsonage, but as I was
unwilling to give trouble, I declined it.
In the evening I acquainted mine host with the intent of my
journey, and at my request he procured me another guide, who
undertook to conduct me up the mountain to the craiggs. When
I rose at four o'clock the next morning, I found him ready.
The weather was extremely bright and serene, which greatly
favoured my purpose, and after we had proceeded about two
miles, we came to a place where there were a few more
hovels, called the Flat. After some talk with my guide, I
discovered that he was very diffident of the success of our
expedition, and of his own ability to procure me safe
conduct; and therefore, as we were now in sight of the
precipices, I hired a boy that kept sheep upon them to walk
with us, at least as far as we could use our horses. By his
direction we came into an hollow, through which the river
Line runs, among innumerable precipices. In this
hollow we were obliged often to cross the water to avoid the
falls, and going sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the
other, we made about a mile of winding way, and at length
came into a kind of plain,
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