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flowing down the steep into the lake is called (as others in
the district are) Sourmilk Ghyll; and it issues from
Bleaberry, or Burtness Tarn, on the side of Red Pike. The
pretty domain near the margin of the lake is Hasness
(General Benson's.) Then comes Gatesgarth,- the farmstead
whence the road to Scarf Gap is taken, by which, as we have
told, London gentlemen and Kendal ladies have run into such
extreme danger. From Gatesgarth begins one of the wildest
bits of road in the district. It climbs Buttermere Vale, by
an ascent at first gradual, and latterly extremely steep, to
the base of Honister Crag. It is a vast stony valley, where
sheep and their folds, and a quarryman's hut here and there,
are the only signs of civilization. There are no bridges
over the stream (the infant Cocker), which must be crossed
many times; and where there are no stepping-stones, the
pedestrian must wade. Every body walks up the last reaches
of the ascent,- so steep and stony is the narrow road, and
so formidable its unfenced state. The dark, stupendous,
almost perpendicular, Honister Crag frowns above; and as the
traveller, already at a considerable height, looks up at the
quarrymen in the slate quarries near the summit, it almost
takes his breath away to see them hanging like summer
spiders quivering H from the eaves of a house.
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