SCENERY OF THE GOYT.

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picture; and the light-blue haze of a hot summer's day harmonized the whole into loveliness.

Having explored the course of the Goyt to the vicinity of a pleasant village called New Mills, which is most romantically situated on one of the tributary streams of the river, we returned to Mellor Mill, and from thence retraced our steps to Glossop, where we spent the remainder of the day.

SECTION VI.

Return from Glossop.-Peak Forest. - Eldon Hole. -Bagshaw Cavern. Small Dale. · Lime-kiln Fires. Night Scene. Morning in Hope Dale. - Hope-Brough. - The river Derwent.

WE had been much gratified with our excursion to Glossop,

and we left it with a wish to revisit it on some future occasion. Nine miles of tedious road, which we had travelled over only a few days before, lay between us and Chapel-en-le-Frith; and, as we did not anticipate much pleasure in passing a second time over so uninteresting a district, we were secure against disappointment. This road, like many others both in Derbyshire and elsewhere, has been made in despite of both hill and dale. Hardly any set of people commit greater blunders than the projectors and makers of public roads. If a valley interferes in the line of their operations, they shew their utter contempt of the accommodation it offers, and their talent at surmounting difficulties, by clambering up and down every hill that nature has interposed between them and the point of their destination.

We again passed by Chapel-en-le-Frith, and shortly afterwards we made another pause at the ebbing and flowing well; but, during the short time we remained near it, no sensible alteration took place in this extraordinary phenomenon; nor were there any appearances about it which indicated that the water had very recently either ebbed or flowed. Some few years before I observed the rising and sinking of this well twice in the short space of half an hour.

A little beyond this celebrated well we left the Castleton road by a sharp turn on our right, and proceeded to Peak Forest, a little village, surrounded by an extensive tract of land, to which the same name is applied. This forest was anciently called De alto Pecco; and the parishes of Castleton, Hope, Chapel, Glossop, and Mottram in Longdendale, are Isaid to have been once included in it. Within half a mile

of the village is ELDON HOLE, another of the reputed wonders of the Peak of Derbyshire. Unassisted by fable, and

the babbling of the credulous gossip tradition, there is nothing either vast or astonishing in this fissure in the limestone strata: it is a deep yawning chasm, entirely devoid of any pleasing appendages, and altogether as uninteresting as any hole in a rock can possibly be.

Many and marvellous are the stories that have been told of Eldon Hole. Cotton has celebrated it in English verse, and Hobbes in Latin hexameters. Cotton, it appears, endeavoured to ascertain the depth of this fathomless pit; but, according to his own account, he did not succeed: he says,

"But I myself, with half the Peake surrounded,
Eight hundred four-score and four yards have sounded;
And though of these four-score returned back wet,
The plummet drew, and found no bottom yet;
Though when I went to make a new essay,

I could not get the lead down half the way."

There is nothing like a tale of wonder; and this tremendous gulph, which is about twenty yards long, seven wide, and sixty deep, has often excited both terror and amazement. So early as the reign of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester is reported to have hired a man to go down into Eldon Hole to observe its form, and ascertain its depth. The account of this experiment says, " He was let down about two hundred ells, and after he had remained at the length of the rope awhile, he was pulled up again, with great expectation of some discoveries; but when he came up he was senseless, and dyed within eight days of a phrensy." This circumstance is alluded to by Cotton in the following lines:

"Once a mercenary fool, 'tis said, exposed
His life for gold, to find what lies inclosed
In this obscure vacuity, and tell

Of stranger sights than Theseus saw in hell;

But the poor wretch paid for his thirst of gain--
For, being craned up with a distempered brain,
A faultering tongue, and a wild staring look,

He lived eight days, and then the world forsook."

About forty years ago, a Mr. Loyd descended into this gloomy abyss, explored the depths, and the capacity of its interior recesses, and removed the mystery which until then

had hung upon it. A detail of this undertaking was published in "the Philosophical Transactions," vol. Ixi. p. 250. The whole of Mr. Loyd's descent was nearly sixty yards when he reached the bottom of the chasm, where he found several cells of different dimensions, whose sides and roofs were every where covered with stalactites and calcareous incrustations. In one part of the principal cavern he discovered a fissure in the rock, through which a strong current of air proceeded; this, however, he could not examine, as it was nearly filled up with huge stones, that appeared to have been rolled upon it. This aperture, the miners say, communicates with a lower shaft of vast depth, with water at the bottom; if so, Cotton, whose measurement of it to the extent of more than eight hundred yards, was, as he says, "witnessed by half the Peak," may still be correct; but Mr. Loyd's statement induces one to conclude that he actually reached the lower extremity of Eldon Hole at less than sixty yards from his entrance into it.

I must now, with all becoming courtesy, bid adieu to my companion to Glossop, and resume the narrative of my pedestrian excursion from this place to Hope Dale, and from thence to Matlock. From Peak Forest, a walk of a few miles, over wild moorland ground, and newly-cultivated pastures, thinly covered with verdure, brought us to the little village of Bradwell. We had heard much of Bagshaw Cavern, and we wished to visit it; but the day was now fast closing upon us; and, as the entrance into it is not only uninviting, but absolutely repulsive, we determined to press onward to the place where we proposed to pass the night. We had previously seen enough of caverns, and we were too much fatigued to be highly gratified with creeping through narrow apertures to look at spars and stalactites, however beautiful. We nevertheless determined to visit it on some future day, but hitherto that day has not arrived. The entrance into the crystallized grottos at Bradwell is narrow and inconvenient; the passage, however, soon becomes more accommodating, and a man of short stature may grope his way into the caves beyond without much stooping. Different appellations have been given to these subterranean cells: one is called the Music Chamber; another, the Grotto of Paradise; a third, the Grotto of Calypso; and a fourth, I believe, is not yet honoured with a name. Exploring them, a world of novel

NIGHT SCENE IN SMALL DALE.

215

scenery is unfolded, beautiful and fantastic as the mind can possibly conceive: the moving lights of the torch, as they play amongst the transparent crystallizations, and the numerous sparry icicles that depend like lustres from the roof, have a very beautiful, and even a magical effect. This place, however, is not likely to be frequently visited; the timid will shrink from the undertaking with apprehension, and the treasures that it contains must be reserved for those who are not deterred by common difficulties, and can cheerfully submit to the inconvenience of stooping and crawling along the rugged and narrow passages that lead to the inmost recesses of the Peak mountains.

Our nearest road to Hope, where we proposed spending the night, lay through Small Dale, a little village that derives its name from a deep narrow dell, formed by masses of rock thrown together in abrupt knolls and lofty crags. We however preferred keeping on the brow of the hill that overlooks the dale, where we had a good road; and the darkness of the night rendered such an accommodation desirable. The burning of lime is here a considerable trade; and the kilns used for the purpose are situated at the bottom of the dell, one side of which was formed by the rocks where we stood; of the other, aided by a transient light emitted from the fires of the lime-kilns, we caught occasionally an uncertain glimpse: all between was a gloomy vacuity, which the eye could not penetrate. The whole dale indeed was one immense cauldron steaming with smoke, that at intervals was partially illumined - then by momentary gleams and flashes from the fires below curling into mid-air, it rolled over our heads in murky volumes, forming a canopy "as dark as Erebus." The obscurity that pervaded this nocturnal scene, together with the short and feeble emanations of light shot from the kilns in the deep dale beneath, only made darkness more palpable, and powerfully assisted the impressions it produced. We stood to contemplate the picture before us, until some heavy drops of rain, and the hoarse murmurs of distant thunder, warned us to depart. Being yet more than two miles from the end of our journey, the darkness of the night, and the coming storm, induced us to alter our original intention, and spend one more night at Castleton, where we arrived in time to escape being deluged in torrents of rain.

The following morning, as we proceeded on our way to