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page 4
and after forming a short and narrow aestuary enters the sea
below the small town of Ravenglass. Next, almost due west,
look down into, and along the deep valley of Wastdale, with
its little chapel and half a dozen neat dwellings scattered
upon a plain of meadow and corn-ground intersected with
stone walls apparently innumerable, like a large piece of
lawless patch-work, or an array of mathematical figures,
such as in the ancient schools of geometry might have been
sportively and fantastically traced out upon sand. Beyond
this little fertile plain lies, within a bed of steep
mountains, the long, narrow, stern, and desolate lake of
Wastdale; and, beyond this, a dusky tract of level ground
conducts the eye to the Irish Sea. The stream that issues
from Wast-water is named the Irt, and falls into the
aestuary of the river Esk. Next comes in view Ennerdale,
with its lake of bold and somewhat savage shores. Its
stream, the Ehen or Enna, flowing through a soft and fertile
country, passes the town of Egremont, and the ruins of the
castle, - then, seeming, like the other rivers, to break
through the barrier of sand thrown up by the winds on this
tempestuous coast, enters the Irish Sea. The vale of
Buttermere, with the lake and village of that name, and
Crummock-water, beyond, next present themselves. We will
follow the main stream, the Coker, through the fertile and
beautiful vale of Lorton, till it is lost in the Derwent,
below the noble ruins of Cocker-
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