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CONISTON OLD MAN.- WALNA SCAR.
There is one more which the tourist would not excuse our
omitting. He wants to see the copper mine and the series of
tarns on Coniston Old Man; and he hears it said, and very
truly, that the prospects are finer than any but those from
Scawfell and Helvellyn,- if not, indeed, finer than the
latter.
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The ascent is best made by following the Walna Scar road
which leads from Coniston into Seathwaite. When the
traveller has left the bright and prosperous environs of
Coniston behind him, and entered upon the moor, he begins to
feel at once the exhilaration of the mountaineer. Behind him
lies a wide extent of hilly country, subsiding into the low
blue ridges of Lancashire. Below him he sees, when he turns,
here and there a reach of the Lake of Coniston,- gray, if
his walk be, as it should be, in the morning: gray, and
reflecting the dark promontories in a perfect mirror. Amidst
the grassy undulations of the moor, he sees, here or there,
a party of peat-cutters, with their crate: and their white
horse, if the sun be out, looks absolutely glittering, in
contrast with the brownness of the ground. It is truly a
wild moor; but there is something wilder to come. The
Coniston Mountain towers to the right,- and the only traces
of human existence that can be perceived are the tracks
which wind along
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