Laal brag it is for any man To clim oop Skidder side; Auld wives and barns on Jackasses To tippy twop ma ride. It is true that there are great facilities for procuring gingerbeer on the way, but even that luxury is scarcely an adequate compensation for the complete absence of anything like a respectable rock on the mountain. Keswick has Skiddaw almost entirely to itself, and on the matter of routes it will be enough to say that by the back of Latrigg and the gingerbeer shanties is the easiest way, and by Millbeck and Carlside is the shortest and quickest, being made up of two miles of good road and of two of steep fell as against five miles of easy hillside. The mountain used to enjoy a great reputation, and is put first in Camden's 'Byword': Skiddaw, Lauvellin and Casticand Are the highest hills in all England, and the early climbers of it were deeply impressed with the importance of their adventurous undertaking. Mrs. Radcliffe, in 1795, ascended 'this tremendous mountain,' and says that when they were still more than a mile from the summit 'the air now became very thin,' and 'the way was indeed dreadfully sublime.' On reaching the top they 'stood on a pinnacle commanding the whole dome of the sky,' but unluckily 'the German Ocean was so far off as to be discernible only like a mist.' Even Hutchinson remarks that, on the top, 'the air was remarkably sharp and thin compared with that of the valley, and respiration seemed to be performed with a kind of oppression.' Skiddaw reserves what little natural ferocity it has for _Dead Crags_ on the north side, but there are also a few rocky bits on the side which faces Bassenthwaite Water. =Smoking Rock= is at the head of _Great Doup_, east of the _Pillar Stone_ and level with the ridge of the _Pillar Fell_. For fear of the name being adduced as a proof of recent volcanic action it is well to say that it is so called not as itself smoking, but because a well-known climber of the old school loved to smoke an evening pipe upon it. It affords a pleasant climb taken on the outside straight up from the foot. This was done by a party of four, of whom the writer was one, on June 5, 1889. See a note in the Wastdale Head Visitors' Book at p. 250. =Somersetshire= has little to attract the mountaineer, except the very remarkable limestone scenery on the south side of the Mendips at Cheddar, Ebber and Wookey. There are magnificent cliffs and pinnacles, especially at the first-named place, but not many bits of satisfactory climbing. The cliffs are rotten at one point, unclimbably vertical at another, and perhaps at a third the climber is pestered by clouds of angry jackdaws. Ebber Rocks are rather more broken, but on the whole the climbing is not worth much at either place, though the scenery both above ground and below it is such as no one ought to miss. =Stand.=--See under _Broad Stand_.