ngs. We gazed around again, and yet
again, unwilling to lose the remembrance of what lay before us in that
lofty solitude; and then prepared to depart. Meanwhile the air changed
to cold, and we saw that tiny vapour swelled into mighty masses of cloud
which came boiling over the mountains. Great Gavel, Helvellyn, and
Skiddaw, were wrapped in storm; yet Langdale, and the mountains in that
quarter, remained all bright in sunshine. Soon the storm reached us; we
sheltered under a crag; and almost as rapidly as it had come it passed
away, and left us free to observe the struggles of gloom and sunshine in
other quarters. Langdale now had its share, and the Pikes of Langdale
were decorated by two splendid rainbows. Skiddaw also had his own
rainbows. Before we again reached Ash-course every cloud had vanished
from every summit.

I ought to have mentioned that round the top of Scawfell-PIKE not a
blade of grass is to be seen. Cushions or tufts of moss, parched and
brown, appear between the huge blocks and stones that lie in heaps on
all sides to a great distance, like skeletons or bones of the earth not
needed at the creation, and there left to be covered with never-dying
lichens, which the clouds and dews nourish; and adorn with colours of
vivid and exquisite beauty. Flowers, the most brilliant feathers, and
even gems, scarcely surpass in colouring some of those masses of stone,
which no human eye beholds, except the shepherd or traveller be led
thither by curiosity: and how seldom must this happen! For the other
eminence is the one visited by the adventurous stranger; and the
shepherd has no inducement to ascend the PIKE in quest of his sheep; no
food being _there_ to tempt them.

We certainly were singularly favoured in the weather; for when we were
seated on the summit, our conductor, turning his eyes thoughtfully
round, said, 'I do not know that in my whole life, I was ever, at any
season of the year, so high upon the mountains on so _calm_ a day.' (It
was the 7th of October.) Afterwards we had a spectacle of the grandeur
of earth and heaven commingled; yet without terror. We knew that the
storm would pass away;--for so our prophetic Guide had assured us.

Before we reached Seathwaite in Borrowdale, a few stars had appeared,
and we pursued our way down the Vale, to Rosthwaite, by moonlight.

Scawfell and Helvellyn being the two Mountains of this region which will
best repay the fatigue of ascending them, the following Ver