For introduction to these choice bits it is needful, of course, to leave the main thoroughfares and take one of the innumerable by-paths which lead away to the lonely and impressive silence of the moors, which, though desolate and sometimes bleak, have a profoundly delightful influence upon the mind. Their interest is heightened by the portions which are vividly green with bog-moss, being the birthplace of important streams. No slight matter is it to stand at any time where rivers are cradled. Here the flow of water is at once both east and westwards--a phenomenon witnessed several times in the English Apennine, and always bidding the traveller pause awhile. The Ribble and the Wharf begin this way; so do the Lune and the Swale: playmates in childhood, then parting for ever. Similarly, in Cliviger Dean the two Calders issue from the same fragment of watery waste, destined immediately for opposite courses. Hard by, in a stream called Erewell, at the foot of Derply Hill, on the verge of Rossendale, may be seen the birthplace of the Manchester Irwell. The promise given at Newborough in regard to the scenery of East Lancashire is thus perfectly fulfilled. It does not terminate either with Cliviger, being renewed, after passing Pendle, all the way to the borders of Westmoreland. Ward-stone, eight or nine miles south-east of Lancaster, part of the Littledale Fells, has an altitude exceeding even that of Pendle. Asking for the best portions of the Lancashire river scenery, they are soon found, pertaining to streams not really its own--the Lune, approaching from Westmoreland by way of Kirby Lonsdale, to which place it gives name; and the Ribble, descending from the high moorlands of Craven, first passing Ingleborough, then Settle, and Bolton Abbey. The only two important streams which actually rise within the confines of the county are the Wyre and the much-enduring Irwell. Lancashire is rich in home-born _minor_ streams, a circumstance said to be recognised in the ancient British name of the district,--literally, according to Whitaker, the "well-watered,"[37]--and many of these, the affluents in particular, do, no doubt, lend themselves freely to the production of the picturesque, as in the case of the Darwen,[38] which glides almost without a sound beneath Hoghton Tower, joining the Ribble at Walton; and the Wenning, which, after bathing the feet of a thousand water-flags and forget-me-nots, strengthens the well-pleased Lune. Tributaries,--the little primitive streamlets which swell the affluents,--since they begin almost always among the mountains, are at all times, all over the world, wherever they run, in their youth pure and companionable. One joyous consideration there is open to us always, namely, that if we go to the beginning of things we are fairly well assured of purity; whatever may be the later history, the fountain is usually a synonym for the undefiled, as very pleasantly