The
Victoria Regia--Matlock--Dovedale--Beauchief Abbey--Stafford
Castle--Trentham Hall--Tamworth--Tutbury Castle--Chartley
Castle--Alton Towers--Shrewsbury Castle--Bridgenorth--Wenlock
Abbey--Ludlow Castle--The Feathers Inn--Lichfield Cathedral--Dr.
Samuel Johnson--Coventry--Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom--Belvoir
Castle--Charnwood Forest--Groby and Bradgate--Elizabeth Widvile and
Lady Jane Grey--Ulverscroft Priory--Grace Dieu Abbey--Ashby de la
Zouche--Langley Priory--Leicester Abbey and Castle--Bosworth
Field--Edgehill--Naseby--The Land of
Shakespeare--Stratford-on-Avon--Warwick--Kenilworth--Birmingham
--Boulton and Watt--Fotheringhay Castle--Holmby House--Bedford
Castle--John Bunyan--Woburn Abbey and the Russells--Stowe--Whaddon
Hall--Great Hampden--Creslow House.

THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE.

The river Mersey takes its sources--for it is formed by the union of
several smaller streams--in the ranges of high limestone hills east of
Liverpool, in North Derbyshire. These hills are an extension of the
Pennine range that makes the backbone of England, and in Derbyshire they
rise to a height of nearly two thousand feet, giving most picturesque
scenery. The broad top of the range at its highest part is called the
Kinderscout, or, more familiarly, "The Peak." The mountain-top is a vast
moor, abounding in deep holes and water-pools, uninhabited excepting by
the stray sportsman or tourist, and dangerous and difficult to cross.
Yet, once mounted to the top, there are good views of the wild scenery
of the Derbyshire hills, with the villages nestling in the glens, and of
the "Kinder Fall," where much of the water from the summit pours down a
cataract of some five hundred feet height, while not far away is the
"Mermaid's Pool," where, if you go at the midnight hour that ushers in
Easter Sunday, and look steadily into the water, you will see a mermaid.
The man who ventures upon that treacherous bogland by night certainly
deserves to see the best mermaid the Peak can produce. This limestone
region is a famous place. In the sheltered valley to the westward of the
Kinderscout is the village of Castleton, almost covered in by high hills
on all sides. It was here upon a bold cliff to the southward of the
village that "Peveril of the Peak" built his renowned castle at the time
of the Norman Conquest, of which only the ruins of the keep and part of
the outer walls remain. Almos