In this deep retreat the inhabitants of the villages of Rosthwaite and Seathwaite, having at all times little intercourse with the country, during half the year were almost totally excluded from all human commerce. The surrounding hills attract the vapours, and rain falls abundantly; snow lies long in the valleys; and the clouds frequently obscure the sky. Upon the latter village, in the depth of winter, the sun never shines. As the spring advances, his rays begin to shoot over the southern mountains; and at high noon to tip the chimney tops with their light. That radiant sign shows the cheerless winter to be now over; and rouses the hardy peasants to the labours of the coming year. Their scanty patches of arable land they cultivated with difficulty; and their crops late in ripening, and often a prey to autumnal rains, which are violent in this country, just gave them bread to eat. Their herds afforded them milk; and their flocks supplied them with clothes: the shepherd himself being often the manufacturer also. No dye was necessary to tinge their wool: it was naturally a russet brown; and sheep and shepherds were clothed alike, both in the simple livery of nature. The procuring of fuel was among their greatest hardships. Here the inhabitants were obliged to get on the tops of the mountains; which abounding with mossy grounds, seldom found in the valleys below, supplied them with peat. This, made into bundles, and fastened upon sledges, they guided down the precipitous sides of the mountains, and stored in their outbuildings. At the period to which we refer, a hundred years ago, the roads were of the rudest construction, scarcely passable even for horses. A cart or any kind of wheeled carriage was totally unknown in Borrodale. They carried their hay home upon their horses, in bundles, one on each side: they made no stacks. Their manure they carried in the same manner, as also the smaller wood for firing: the larger logs they trailed. Their food in summer consisted of fish and small mutton; in winter, of bacon and hung mutton. Nor was their method of drying their mutton less rude: they hung the sheep up by the hinder legs, and took away only the head and entrails. In this situation, I myself, says Clarke, have seen seven sheep hanging in one chimney.