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Page 255:-
[entertain]ing companion and guide, in the curate, who served
them also as school-master. As Dr. Goldsmith observes on a like
occasion,
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with thirty pounds a year.
The first curiosity we were conducted to, was Hurtlepot, about
eighty yards above the chapel. [1] It is a round, deep hole,
between thirty and forty yards diameter, surrounded with rocks
almost on all sides, between thirty and forty feet perpendicular
above a deep black water in a subterranean cavity at its bottom.
All round the top of this horrid place are trees, which grow
secure from the axe; their branches almost meet in the centre,
and spread a gloom over a chasm dreadful enough of itself without
being heightened with any additional appendages. It was indeed
one of the most dismal prospect we had yet been presented with:
almost every sense was affected in such an uncommon manner, as to
excite ideas of a nature truly horribly sublime. When ever we
threw in a pebble, or spoke a word, our ears were assailed with a
dismal hollow sound, our nostrils were affected with an uncommon
complication of strong smells, from the ramps and other weeds
that grew plentifully about its sides, and the rank vapours that
exhaled from the black abyss beneath. The descent of Eneas into
the infernal regions came again fresh into my imagination, and
the following passage out of Virgil obtruded itself on my
memory,-
Spelunca alta fuit, vastoque immanis hiatu
Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro nemorumque tenebris;
Quam super haud ulloe poterant impune volantes
Tendere iter pennis: talis sese halitus atris
Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat;
Unde locum Graii dixerunt nomine Avernum.
Eneid, b.6. l.237.
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[1]
About one hundred yards below the chapel there are the ruins of
an old cave, called Sandpot; the top has apparently sometime
fallen in, and has covered the bottom with its ruins. A large
cascade is distinctly heard through this rubbish. If a descent
were opened, no doubt but a subterranean passage would be
discovered, leading either to the caves above the chapel, or,
more probably, to Douk-cave, on the base of Ingleborough, if not
to both.
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