stance and was much hurt and cut violently, as if stabbed about the neck and other places with a chisel, whence he was unable to return to the mine for two weeks."

We were now at the foot of MAM TOR, one of the seven wonders of the Peak, and yet we saw nothing wonderful about it, for we could not persuade ourselves of the fact that it is incessantly shivering away without any diminution of its bulk. It is an immense hill composed of a very flaky substance, and sometimes in winter, during a severe frost, the decomposition is so rapid, that the shivering mountain as it

called, keeps up a continual discharge, accompanied with a gentle noise, resembling the sound of a river passing over its pebbled bed, as it comes upon the ear softened by distance. I once, during the stillness of a November night, heard the rush of this mountain very distinctly in my bed-room in Castleton, and I listened to the murmurs that it made, but was utterly unable to discover the cause.

From the top of Mam Tor, one thousand three hundred feet above the level of the vale below, we had a delightful view into EDALE, which a modern tourist has described as "a place in which the inhabitants, secluded in the bosom of the mountains from the bustle of the world, appear to enjoy all the quiet and security that pervaded the happy vale of Rasselas." The view from this eminence is not of a common description: the most striking features of the Peak of Derbyshire---its loftiest hills, and some of its loveliest dales, are included in the prospect.

From the summit of Mam Tor a walk of a mile brought us to the entrance into the WINNATS. One of the peculiarities of the scenery

of Derbyshire is the sudden transition from barrenness to cultivation, and from bleak and rugged eminences to delightful and luxuriant vales. This rapid change is no where more strikingly exemplified than in the approach to Castleton from Chapel-en-le-frith. The road is carried over a long range of bleak mountain ground until it arrives at the western extremity of the Winnats, or Wind-gates---poetically called by some writers "the portals of the winds."

The Winnats is a deep and narrow defile, nearly one mile in length: through this horrid chasm the road winds into the valley below amidst huge crags, and towering pinnacles, and piles of massive rock, that form an impassable barrier on each side of the way. Wild and savage in appearance as this ravine is, it is not entirely devoid of beauty: a number of elegant plants are scattered amongst the crags, and the mosses and lichens that chequer their sides, blend their unobtrusive hues with the more gaudy colouring of the flowers by which they are surrounded. In some places the rocks are perpendicular, in others they are frightfully steep, and difficult of ascent even for any animal whatever; yet sheep are frequently seen grazing on the tops and sides of the loftiest projections, where apparently there is no space to stand on I have sometimes felt giddy at beholding them, and have trembled with apprehension lest they should suddenly be dislodged from their insecure and scanty pasturage, and dashed to pieces amongst the stones below. These useful little animals are often very happily introduced in landscape: the repose and stillness of a scene are improved by the presence of a flock of sheep at rest; but here they have a contrary effect: on the bleak sides of the Winnats they can only occupy a situation of peril, where they increase the impression of danger and make the place more terrible.

Proceeding onward through the chasm, it gradually contracts: the two sides approximate nearly together, and lift their rent and broken summits so high into the air, that they appear to meet and form an insuperable barrier to any farther progress. The irksome feeling of being close pent up in a narrow rift of rock is thus forcibly impressed upon the mind; a turn in the road, however, soon dissipates the idea of confinement; the borders of the pass gradually recede until the dale, in which the villages of Castleton, Hope, and Brough, tranquilly repose, burst upon the sight. The eye can hardly wander over a more delightful scene than is here displayed: such a landscape, even under circumstances less favourable, would be seen with pleasure, but heightened in effect by abrupt transition and striking contrast, it powerfully arrests attention, and sometimes exalts admiration into rapture.

It was a fine sunny day as we passed through the Winnats, and whilst my companion was sketching by the side of a rocky projection, which protected him from the strong current of wind that sweeps, sometimes irresistibly, through this yawning chasm, I took a situation in a recess amongst the crags high above the road, that afforded equal shelter. It was now mid-day, and all was still around us; not a sound was heard, save occasionally the wild scream of the hawk as it fluttered about its nest in a fissure of the rock far above us. The place I occupied was near the turn in the road where the rocks on the right rise in vast masses to the clouds. The clamour of the hawk interrupted my meditations, and drew my attention upwards, when I beheld a creature "fashioned like myself" on the extreme verge of the highest rock in the Winnats, but I could scarcely imagine the appearance real. The dark outline of a human form was alone distinguishable, and standing as the figure did against the sky, with no familiar and well