e. Yet, though clustered together, every valley has its distinct
and separate character: in some instances, as if they had been formed in
studied contrast to each other, and in others with the united pleasing
differences and resemblances of a sisterly rivalship. This concentration
of interest gives to the country a decided superiority over the most
attractive districts of Scotland and Wales, especially for the
pedestrian traveller. In Scotland and Wales are found, undoubtedly,
individual scenes, which, in their several kinds, cannot be excelled.
But, in Scotland, particularly, what long tracts of desolate country
intervene! so that the traveller, when he reaches a spot deservedly of
great celebrity, would find it difficult to determine how much of his
pleasure is owing to excellence inherent in the landscape itself; and
how much to an instantaneous recovery from an oppression left upon his
spirits by the barrenness and desolation through which he has passed.

But to proceed with our survey;--and, first, of the MOUNTAINS. Their
_forms_ are endlessly diversified, sweeping easily or boldly in simple
majesty, abrupt and precipitous, or soft and elegant. In magnitude and
grandeur they are individually inferior to the most celebrated of those
in some other parts of this island; but, in the combinations which they
make, towering above each other, or lifting themselves in ridges like
the waves of a tumultuous sea, and in the beauty and variety of their
surfaces and colours, they are surpassed by none.

The general _surface_ of the mountains is turf, rendered rich and green
by the moisture of the climate. Sometimes the turf, as in the
neighbourhood of Newlands, is little broken, the whole covering being
soft and downy pasturage. In other places rocks predominate; the soil is
laid bare by torrents and burstings of water from the sides of the
mountains in heavy rains; and not unfrequently their perpendicular sides
are seamed by ravines (formed also by rains and torrents) which, meeting
in angular points, entrench and scar the surface with numerous figures
like the letters W. and Y.

In the ridge that divides Eskdale from Wasdale, granite is found; but
the MOUNTAINS are for the most part composed of the stone by
mineralogists termed schist, which, as you approach the plain country,
gives place to limestone and freestone; but schist being the substance
of the mountains, the predominant _colour_ of their _rocky_ parts is
bluish, or