A classic English river, tributes have been paid to the Wharfe from the days of the Romans. In our own time Wordsworth got from it the inspiration for some of his finest verse, and Turner found it yield subjects to him in generous abundance for his matchless drawings. Camden must have lingered by the Wharfe. He knew it better than any other early writer. There is evidence, in what he says about it, that he penetrated into those regions where its interest to the modern tourist too often ends, but where to the naturalist, the antiquary, and the artist, some of its choicest features begin to reveal themselves. In his quaint way, in his "Britannia," he tells us that "if a man should think the name of the stream to be wrested from the word Guerf, which in British signifieth swift or violent, verily the nature of the river conspireth with that opinion." Camden's description of the Wharfe is proof that he saw it chiefly in its mountainous aspect. He speaks of it as "a swift and speedy streame, making a great noise as it goeth, as if it were froward, stubborn, and angry." And he further speaks of it as being "verily a troublesome river, and dangerous even in summer time also," which he himself had some experience of, "for it hath such slippery stones in it that our horse had no sure footing on them, or else the violence of the water carried them away from under his feet." The Wharfe is joined, at a point about fifteen miles from its source, by the Skirfare. Both rivers run on a parallel course from the direction of the Cam fells, and are close enough to each other to have a common interest. The Skirfare passes through what Wordsworth, in the "White Doe of Rylstone," using the ancient name, calls "the deep fork of Amerdale." "Amerdale" has for a long period, however, given place to "Littondale," Litton being the name of a village on the banks of the stream. Running north of the Skirfare, and starting from a point a few miles further west, the Wharfe passes down Langstrothdale in the fell country, and then through Kettlewelldale to the point of junction with the Skirfare. The name Langstrothdale has a Celtic ring, and has not inappropriately been translated to mean the long valley. From here are supposed to have come the two scholars of Soleres Hall at Cambridge, mentioned in Chaucer's "Reve's Tale"-- "Of oo towne were they borne that highte Strother, Efer in the North, I cannot tellen where." The spot is, however, pretty clearly identified otherwise by Chaucer himself, the dialect he uses in this tale in connection with the scholars bearing a close resemblance to the Langstrothdale folk-speech. It is a speech deserving the attention of the philologist, agreeing as it does in many of its peculiarities with early English forms.