We are in Cumberland, amid the wilds. How did St. Augustine contrive to penetrate to such a region as this? The land is desolate, bleak, solitary. A desert of heathery hills; here and there a reed-fringed stream; in front the wild and stern face of Cross Fell! A seldom-trodden height, this Cumberland mountain, seeming to stand sentinel over all the country round. On its lower slopes, the three great commercial rivers of the North have their rise. We have come here in search of the source of the South Tyne, but a short morning's wandering would lead us also to the sources of the Wear and the Tees. Cross Fell is 2,892 feet above the level of the sea, and to half that elevation we have ascended to reach these moors in which it seems to be set. The "Wizard Fell," some poet has called it. The "Fiend's Fell" it was called of old. To reach it from Alston one must trudge wearily afoot, or hire such vehicle as may be obtainable where travellers seldom come. The road winds about over windy uplands, ever rising nearer to the drifting clouds. A lead-miner's bothie stands beside it here and there, and one is constantly passing places where the miners have "prospected" for ore. All the roadside, indeed, has been explored and broken. The South Tyne is making music all the way, for it flows downward to one's right, and is constantly tumbling over rocks and forming cascades over little precipices. It becomes a hasty, tumultuous river almost immediately after its birth, increasing in volume with a celerity quite wonderful to see, and seemingly impetuous to lose the cold companionship of these bleak and barren hills, which, despite their sternness, are all aglow with colour, and pulsating with rapid waves of light. To the right, brown ridges of high moorland; to the left, slopes more broken, strewn over, as it would seem, with masses of light-purple rock; beyond all, the dark ridge of Cross Fell closing-in the lonely valley. A streak of brighter and fresher green than any that is visible on the hillsides indicates where a hidden thread of water percolates the moss. Then there is a glint of silver here and there. Finally, the eye lights upon a sedgy pool, in the centre of which there is perceptible that throbbing movement which tells of the presence of a spring. This, then, is the source of the South Tyne. Before its waters have travelled far from here they will be crossed by a rude, ancient bridge, and swollen by many a little tributary from the hills.