A night's refreshing rest at the inn, where several nationalities oddly combine to make up one complex sign--the fierce Saracen, the thick-lipped negro, the English huntsman in his coat of Lincoln green!--and we sallied forth on a glorious day of early autumn to make our first acquaintance with Dovedale. Leaving the town at the extremity furthest from the railway station, we found ourselves on a well-kept, undulating road, skirted by fair pastures on either hand; the absence of cornfields being a very marked feature in the landscape. Turning into pleasant country lanes to the left, we soon reached the garden gate of a finely-situated rural inn, the "Peveril ut' the Peak," whence a short cut would have led us over the brow of the hill into Dovedale; but we were anxious to visit Ilam, and therefore made a détour as far as the "Izaak Walton," so well known to brothers of the "gentle craft." A little farther, and we were in the identical Happy Valley of Rasselas, where we found a charming little village, with schoolhouse and drinking-fountain, park and hall and church, and every cottage a picture. [Illustration: 0116] Two little rivers meet here, one of them the Manifold, the other and larger the Dove; and after a hurried view of the lovely vale, we lost no time in making our way to the entrance of the far-famed Dale. As most of our readers will know, the Dove divides Staffordshire from Derbyshire: we took the Derbyshire side, entering at a little gate on the river bank, and leisurely and with many a pause pursued a walk with which surely in England there are few to compare. The river is a shallow, sparkling stream, with many a pool dear to the angler, and hurrying down, babbling over pebbles, and broken in its course by many a tiny waterfall. On both sides rise tall limestone cliffs, splintered into countless fantastic forms--rocky walls, towers, and pinnacles, and in one place a natural archway near the summit, leading to the uplands beyond. And all up the sloping sides, and wherever root-hold could be obtained on pinnacle and crag, were clustered shrubs and trees of every shade of foliage, with the first touch of autumn to heighten the exquisite variety by tints which as yet suggested only afar off the thought of decay. The solitude of the scene served but to enhance its loveliness. For that road by the river side is no broad well-beaten track. No vehicle can pass, and even the pedestrian has sometimes to pick his way with difficulty. The stillness, on the day of our visit, was unbroken save for the murmur of the water, the twitter of the birds, and the rustling of the branches in the gentle breeze. The blue sky overhead, and the sunlight casting shadows upon the cliffs and the stream, completed the picture; and if the memory of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton haunted their favourite stream, it so happened that we encountered none of their disciples.