The Head of Buttermere and High Crags--(_Cover_) Near Ferry Nab, Windermere--(_Frontispiece_) The Island, Grasmere The Old Mill, Ambleside The Middle Reach of Ullswater--“After Rain” Windermere from Orrest Head The Langdale Pikes Windermere from Furness Fell Waterhead and the Langdale Pikes, Windermere Ambleside and Wansfell Stock Ghyll Force, Ambleside Grasmere Lake and Village Grasmere Church Rydal Water and Nab Scar Thirlmere and Helvellyn Keswick and Derwentwater Derwentwater from Friar’s Crag--“A Rift in the Clouds” Friar’s Crag, Derwentwater The Head of Derwentwater Derwentwater and Skiddaw Borrowdale and the Bowder Stone Buttermere and Crummock Lakes Crummock Water--“Solitude” “The Devil’s Elbow” The Head of Ullswater Ullswater from Silver Point Stybarrow Crag, Ullswater Striding Edge, Helvellyn Kirkstone Pass and Brothers’ Water Coniston Water and the Old Man Wastwater--“A Gathering Storm” An Ascent of the Needle, Great Gable Furness Abbey Beautiful Lakeland. CHAPTER I. An Appreciation: The Cause and History of Lakeland. It may be fearlessly asserted that those portions of the counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire known as the Lake District, contain more natural beauty, more literary associations and more diversity of charm than any other similar area of the whole of the Earth’s surface. Within the small space of thirty square miles, scenes of the wildest grandeur and the most tranquil beauty exist side by side. From the grim recesses of Scawfell and Great Gable one can pass in two or three hours to the placid haunts of Windermere. The stern solitudes of Wastwater can be visited upon the same day as the peaceful shores of Derwentwater, “set like a gem amid the encircling hills.” The moors and bare corries of Scotland, the foliage-clad slopes and llyns of North Wales, the lakes and valleys of Switzerland, all have their counterpart and seem to meet in Lakeland. Indeed, the diversity of the landscape in so small a tract of country is nothing short of marvellous. This diversity is perhaps the feature that first impresses a stranger, but almost at the same time the compactness of the whole claims his notice. Here one picture succeeds another without pause. Half an hour’s walk will accomplish as great a change as would half a day’s walk in most of the other beauty spots of the country.