Various glens of infinite beauty wind up to the heart and shoulders of Helvellyn and Fairfield, which mountains display to the people of Ullswater by far their finest qualities. Across the lake a fine solitude of moor and fell, rising to 2600 feet, spreads far away eastward to Shap, including Martindale, Boredale, Mardale, and the High Street range, which carries the old Roman road to Carlisle (whence comes its name, Ystrad) along its summit. The wild red deer still roam over this wilderness as far as the shores of Ullswater, while as regards foxes they are almost too plentiful everywhere. Nor is there any part of England, no not Leicestershire, though in far different fashion, where they fill a bigger place in the public eye. Of the four or five packs of foxhounds hunted and followed on foot over the fells of Lakeland, one kennelled at Ullswater is among the most notable, if only for its famous huntsman. Every soul in Lakeland as far east as Crossfell, and every frequenter of Ullswater, knows "Joe Bowman", who has just now completed thirty years of such severe service as hunting a pack of fell hounds on foot means. The mantle of John Peel (who hunted a lower country, however, and rode to his hounds) has almost fallen upon him. His stalwart form may even be seen, like that of John Peel's, outside the cover of hunting songs in the windows of Carlisle music shops. If the songs are not sung like the others round the world, the memory of their subject will live among the dalesmen, I'll warrant, to their children's children. For hunting here is actually, not theoretically, democratic. When hounds throw off soon after daylight on a mountain side, and hunt a slow drag for an hour or two till they move their fox, and the field have to follow on foot as best they may, there is not much scope for the dashing and the decorative side of the chase. The fell farmers are all devoted followers, are on familiar terms with all the foxes, their domestic arrangements, and their families, and their probable line of action when pursued. They mostly know the hounds, and can recall their fathers and their mothers and their grandparents, and are steeped in hound lore. The very children about the head of Ullswater know many of the "dogs" personally, and have played with them as puppies. For they are mostly "walked" on the surrounding farms in summer, and when they play truant, which is pretty often, and come trotting through the village after a hunt upon their own account, it is quaint to hear them affectionately invoked by name from window or doorstep as familiar public characters. The necessity for keeping down the foxes gives, of course, an extra zest to the chase in these mountains. There being nothing to prevent and much to stimulate it in this country of late lambs, hunting is carried on vigorously till the middle of May; April, as a matter of fact, being for many reasons irrelevant here the most active month, and the best for seeing the sport.