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everything sunny and dry, perhaps; but here he sees, by the
minute diamond drops resting thick on the grass, that a
cloud has lately stooped from its course, and refreshed the
verdure in this retreat. It looks very tempting - this
bright sheet of water; but no creature now comes to drink,
unless a sheep may have strayed far from the flock, and in
its terror may yet venture to stoop to the water, with many
a start and interval of listening, till, at the faint sound
of the distant sheep dog, it bounds away. The solitude is
almost equally impressive whether the traveller comes up
from the one dale or the other; but perhaps the most
striking to him who comes from Wastdale, because he has
rather more lately left the dwellings of men. He ascends
from Wastdale Head, by the steep path clearly visible from
below, up the side of Great Gable. At the top of the pass,
the view behind is extremely fine,- the dale lying 1,000
feet below, while the precipices of Scawfell rise 2,000 feet
over head. The rill from Sprinkling Tarn is close by, and it
leads to this Sty Head Tarn, where the boars used to come to
drink. Long after the boars were gone, the eagles came
hither: and this was one of their last haunts. The eagles
which gave their name to the crag in Borrowdale, being
disturbed, settled themselves on a rock at Seathwaite, and
at length crossed the ridge into Eskdale. The disturbance
was of course from the shepherds, who lost so many lambs as
to be driven desperate against the birds. There was no
footing on the crag by which the nest could be reached; so a
man was lowered by a rope sixty yards
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