A while since

8 3/4

1 1/4

.. Down to breakfast at 10 55/60 – Off from Settle at 11 10/60 – Got out at the George Inn (– Pilling) Gisburn at 1 40/60 – Beautiful drive from Settle to Gisburne 11 miles –

t 5 miles from Settle (turned off to the right at long Preston) on our right very prettily situated on the rising ground above the Ribble, Halton-house (Halton West) Mr Yorke’s – let to a Mr Batty from Huddersfield – about 2 miles from Gisburne, the woods about the Park beautiful – a common white gate about a mile from the village opens into a back way leading to the house –

Gisburne a very neat-looking little market town – the church rather anticipant looking on the outside, but nothing particular within – only one monument, and that put up by one of the Listers to one of the Ashtons (styled his benefaction) in 1709 – Going to be a funeral – the church doors therefore open –

Got the clerk’s son, a boy of 13 or 14, for a guide, and walked to the hall – the Gothic approach lodges, close to the village, very handsome – the approach rather too short (perhaps 1/4 mile), but chiefly wooded on both sides, and pretty enough – the hall door open – went in – then walked round to the back part of the house – went into the kitchen, and got a woman servant to show us over the below stairs rooms – the house shewn when the family was not there – Only mylord at home – riding out in the grounds – very infirm – saw a wheel-chair like my late aunt Lister’s that he is wheeled about in – Mr Lister at York with his Craven legion – Miss Lister daily expected from London – the battle of Marston moor, a good painting by Abraham Cooper – Oliver Cromwell, General Lambert, and Captain Lister, all likenesses – Cromwell, 1/2 length by Sir Peter Lely, very good – Dr. Whitaker (in his Craven) mentions this as perhaps the best likeness ever taken of him – the house wants painting and new-furnishing – asked about the upstairs rooms – the woman said the furniture was old and worn out – they were not shewn – the place altogether indicates that its present possessor does not lay out much money upon it – a great deal wants doing – several pictures in oils by Mr Lister, and a new style in oils or resembling them that he has lately learnt in Bath – heads, landscapes – A large view of Gordale, in oils, just finished, taken by Mr Lister the best likeness of the place I remember to have seen –

walked across the park and thro’ the fields to Westby, 1/2 a mile or more, once a village and the original nest, as it were, of our family and Lord Ribblesdale’s – but the village has been taken away – and nothing remains but 2 modern looking cottages – a barn bearing no trace of antiquity, modern dog-kennels, and a large well-walled kitchen garden now in use for the hall – the wild cattle very gentle – milked night and morning, and as quiet as the rest – Midhope, great and little, 2 farm- houses, not so old looking as Westby – a mile beyond Westby – on the moor – nearer to Pendil hill – then the Midhopes must be modern indeed – perhaps recently rebuilt as farm houses – Set out to walk at 1 50/60 – got back at 4 5/60 –

Off from Gisburne at 4 17/60 – Gisburne 11 miles from Skipton, 9 from Colne, and 7 1/2 from Clitheroe – Turned down from the road to the right, and got to Salley abbey and village (4 miles) at 5 10/60 – went a few yards out of one onto the bridge over the Ribble for a distant view of Bolton hall (Colonel Bolton from Liverpool who fought a  duel with ––) mentioned by Dr. Whitaker as the oldest house bishop Pococke ever saw – It was a white-looking gable-ended house, too far out of our way, and possibly not a very direct road – merely a few bits of old walls remaining of Salley Abbey – the neighbouring cottages have widely been built out of its spoils, – but are very shabby – the surrounding beautiful – the monks knew how to choose situations –

From Salley to Clitheroe beautiful drive – the first view of Clitheroe castle very imposing – this castle-capped mound and town beneath it, reminded at 6 35/60 – most beautiful drive from Gisburne to Clitheroe –

went to the castle immediately after ordering dinner and beds – Except a little of the old wall about midway the mound, the shell of a square Tower at the very top of it, and its surrounding wall at 5 or 6 yards distance is all that remains – From this wall immediately surrounding the Tower a very fine view – Pendil-hill very fine – the valley on all sides very rich – the altogether reminded us of Denbigh and the vale of Clwyd – we called Clitheroe (for it is only a miniature likeness) little Denbigh – From Clitheroe to the top of that part of Pendil over which the road goes to Huntroyde Mr Starkie’s, 2 miles – to the farthest and highest point, I should guess to be about 4 miles, going right across from the Town –

Sat down to dinner at 8 – Roast leg of lamb, mashed potatoes – goos[e]berry tarts and cream – all pretty good –

after dinner wrote out pages 34, 35, of this volume of my journal and went upstairs to bed at 12 1/4 – [E two dots O two dots, marking discharge from venereal complaint] – several drops of dischar ge very slightly tinged so that I fancied my cousin coming –

Very fine day – but the road from Settle to Long Preston so dusty, we were quite covered – after leaving Long Preston, the road was more like a by-road (tho’ good) and it was much less dusty (since any dust at all) and much pleasanter –

left margin:

Gisburne.

Westby.

Midhope.

Bolton hall.

Salley-abbey.

Clitheroe.

Clitheroe castle belongs to the old duchess of Bucleugh [Buccleuch]. the castellated house near the castle inhabited by her steward Mr Kerr.

6 1/2

12 50/60

Off from Ingleton to Chapel in the dale, 4 1/2 miles, at 8 – drove my aunt (the black mare) – George and the guide walked by the side the whole way –

An old woman shewed us Hurtle-pot – 6d [pence] admittance for my aunt and me – the place is enclosed with a highish wall. and locked up – descended 2 or 3 steps to the door – a great hole, almost like a jelly bag – a subterraneous passage on the right (looking down from the Entrance) thro’ which the water of the Greta enters the great hole or Hurtle pot – 15 or 16 yards deep in the passage – appeared a yard or 2 deep in the pot – a few very meagre trout occasionally caught in this place – ‘Tis not very bad getting down to the water’s edge in the pot – Jingle pot is only a little distant on the other side of the farm house (John Metcalf’s to whom Weathercote belongs) not enclosed – a long, deep, widish fissure thro which the Greta runs –

a shilling each admittance to Weathercote-cave – walled round and locked up – the owner a respectable looking farmer, shewed us it – descended a flight of steps nearly to the bottom – I scrambled down to the very bottom, and went behind the water which falls 75 feet – falls from just above Mahomet’s stone (as seen from above) not from below this stone as represented in Westall’s drawing – this waterfall beautiful – the spray by the reflection of the sun formed a fine iris – I, by going quite to the bottom, saw a double iris – but people generally go too late, after 12 p.m., and therefore see nothing of this effect which adds greatly to the beauty of the scene – near the fall on the left (looking towards it) quite at the bottom is a recess in the cavern in which I could hardly stand upright – Westall has drawn this too high – hence also issues water into the cave when there is a great deal of water – at these times there is also 2 more water vents, one on the right another on the left – Into the recess in the cavern one can go (creep) a hundred yards but there is too much water now – 2 years ago after a thunderstorm the water filled the whole of this Weathercote cave, and ran over at the top – holes made in it in the wall to let it pass – the Greta runs a mile underground before it comes to Weathercote, and then another mile underground before it gets into its channel on the surface – In favourable years as many as 200 people go to see Weathercote –

Left George to drive my aunt back to Ingleton, took John Metcalf as an additional guide, and at 10 40/60 proceeded forwards determined from what Metcalf said to go both to Gate Kirk and Greenside cave – ca[me] to Hars cave, a pretty little jumble among the rocks where the subterraneous Greta appears a little for a few yards, and then falls down to a lower and hidden course –

came to Gate-Kirk cave at 11 – our candle in the lantern had nearly burnt out – with some difficulty we lighted our 3 candles and crept thro’ the cave – 3 or 4 passages, perhaps 30 or 40 yards long, communicating with each other – could only stand upright in 2 or 3 places full of stalactites – crept thro’ all the rest of the way – the rocks sometimes very slippery and in the main passage obliged to crawl close to the water’s edge – the water perhaps a yard deep – there might be some deeper holes in the passage – Westall has made a pretty drawing of the entrance to this passage – 1/2 h[ou]r in Gate Kirk cave – a little farther on a little girl led the way thro’ a small narrow cavern called Boggard-hole, which neither of my guides remembered that we could creep thro’ – Metcalf said money had been formerly hid there – several fourpenny pieces had been found there – Gate Kirk cave a mile from Weathercote –

went forwards from GateKirk and at 12 1/2 got to lower Forsgill, a beautiful fifteen yards fall of the Greta down a scar something like Dowgill scar near Horton – a little higher up is what they call the upper Fors a pretty fall of 7 1/2 yards – just half the other but very pretty – at Greenside cave the spring head of the Greta, at 1 – what a pity we had nor match, nor tinder box – Metcalf fancied it full of water we might probably have gone a long way if we had had lights he said it was one or two hundred yards long – could stand upright very well – for the few yards we durst venture, no water in the cave, and no dropping from above – Going by these Forsgills was a roundabout, and we all agreed we had walked four long miles from GateKirk – all across the heather made it very fatiguing – saw the 2 covies of grouse, 15 or 16 in each – put up several pairs of old birds –

In mounting across the hill (the pastures and fell below Whernside) saw the little village of Winterskill below on the Greta where very fine trout are caught, weighing 2 lbs. – Gave Metcalf 1/2 crown for his Trouble (he had shewed us Westall’s drawings and recommended Hutton’s (the reverend Mr.) tour in these parts) and we parted at Greenside – these Forsgills are worth seeing – the best way would be to drive from Ingleton to Winterskill (along the Richmond road the road we travelled from Horton on Monday) and thence proceed nearly straight up to the falls, to Greenside cave, and then direct to the top of Whernside –

this was the route my guide James Greenwood and I took after Metcalf left us, and we were at the highest summit in about 20 minutes at 1 1/2 – we missed Chapel in the dale on Monday because the Chapel steeple is so like a large chimney, we mistook it for one, thought the building a house, and instead of turning down about the 22 milestone from Lancaster (about 2 1/2 miles from the house near Ribble head) we drove forward to near Ingleton – walked along the summit of Whernside –

fine view of Ingleborough, and of the road we came from Horton along deepdale, of Saleside etc etc on one side, and on the other of the rich valley (then said the guide there is not a richer valley in England) and town of Dent – the hills beyond Sedbury – Skiddaw – the sands beyond Lancaster etc –

crossed down the other side of Whernside to a cottage near Yordas cave § – got a great thing like a rake (without teeth) to stick candles in, – lighted our 7 candles at the lime-kilns close to the cave, and went in, 1/. each admittance (guides never paid for) at 2 1/2 – reconnoitered the whole cavern in about 1/4 hour – the bottom rather soft, sandy and towards the far end gravelly – here the stream passed thro’, and went along a narrow deepish channel we could not pursue – a drip from the top – fine, spacious, lofty vault – thickly encrusted with fine stalactites – a remarkably fine cavern to those who have never seen the caves in Derbyshire, Castleton etc – I began to feel the cavern rather cold, and gladly escaped to realms of day –

after walking about 1 1/2 mile on the road, turned to the left along the fields, (having just before noticed the springhead of the little river Skell close to the road on our left, and sunk considerably below us) and went across the Thornton-fors a beautiful fall of the Skell of 15 yards or perhaps more altogether; for there is a great tho’ divided fall before it comes to the main one – at this fors at 3 40/60 –

from here to Ingleton along the fields, the walk is most picturesque – the Skell runs along a deep glen wooded down to the bottom on each side, murmurs over its stony bed, and joins the Greta at Ingleton – as we walked along the high ground the finest view of Inglebro’ and his noble rocky abutments, rising in 3 huge steps of white ruggedness – Ingleton picturesquely situated – yet the stone walls along the sides of Inglebro’ rather spoil the majesty of his appearance – they bespeak the avarice and power of man to share and divide even nature’s deserts –

Rambled along Helks wood – peeping here and there at the Skell, here and there at Inglebro’ – gathered the most beautiful white dog rose I ever saw – and wild lilies of the valley – they grow in the beds 10 or 12 yards square – and there are many curious plants in this wood – belonged to a reverend Mr Foxcroft who had a nice place near (at the village of Thornton) – he died lately – left his widow the place for her life, then to his heirs – he was 1st cousin to Mrs Watkinson late of Ovenden, now of Crownest, a poor place, about 3 miles beyond Settle on the Ingleton road –

Got home at 4 1/2 – Dined at Ingleton – Roast shoulder of Excellent mutton – very good dinner Thirsty after so much walking (I had walked full 15 miles 4 or 5 of them over heather) the cold water chilled me – a large basin of hot boiled milk set me right again, and we were off at 7 20/60, and got to our old quarters, the Golden Lion Inn Settle, at 9 1/2 –

wrote out Sunday and part of Monday and went upstairs to bed at 12 – Very fine day – [E two dots O one dot, marking discharge from venereal complaint] –

after returning from Weathercote this morning my aunt had Percy in the gig, and made an attempt to meet me at Yordas cave, but the road was very hilly she was afraid of being too late, and turned back when she had got within a mile of the place –

§ this cave now belongs to Mr Peart the banker of Settle, he having lately purchased the property in which it is situated –

left margin:

Ingleton-caves, Weathercote, etc

Forsgill.

(fall of the Greta).

Whernside.

Yordas Yowdass cave.

Ingleton.

Helks-wood.

8 50/60

12

Down to breakfast at 10 35/60 went to my uncle tolerably this morning for the first time since I left home to do much good which has made me all along feel rather feverish –

we called on Mrs Sutcliffe – Mr Sutcliffe seems the less vulgar of the 2 – but they are a sadly vulgar couple we saw one of their children – he spoke broad Yorkshire – the room dirty, and littered, and untidy past description – Mrs Peart not at all like a gentlewoman, but unless when compared with Mrs Sutcliffe – a good sort of person – her house a very good one, and beautifully neat – a very nice garden and green house into which she shewed us – very civil – her daughter Mrs Robinson, Mrs William Priestley’s particular friends, is an attorney’s wife in the town – her father gave up the business to his son-in-law, the bank at Settle being a better thing – he is very rich – buys a great deal of land – Mrs Robinson not particularly like a gentlewoman but shines among such as Mrs Sutcliffe and perhaps even Mrs Peart –

staid about 10 minutes with Mrs Sutcliffe and 20 with Mrs Peart and got back to the Inn at 12 40/60 – they had all said Weathercote, the cave at Chapel in the dale, was the prettiest thing in the whole neighbourhood – we therefore determined to go to Ingleton, and were off at 1 55/60, and at 4 1/2 stopt at the Bay horse (a pot house) 10 1/4 miles – ordered dinner and beds – Pretty drive – excellent road, but hilly –

Arstwick §, a prettily situated village on our right, soon after we had passed Mr Walkinson’s house (a very poor, whitewashed concern, at a short distance to the left) about 3 miles from Settle – Chapham 3 1/2 miles from Ingleton a very pretty village – the prettiest we have seen – Clapham lodge a tolerably handsome looking modern house – surrounded with fir, Scotch and larch, plantations – good road but very hilly – high rock all along on ur right – the width of the valley is on the left – Ingleton a tolerably neat whitewashed village – neat church –

Had scarcely swallowed my dinner but having got a guide, James Greenwood (past the middle age I should think) set off with him to walk to the top of Inglebro’ at 6 5/60 – at the top at 7 35/60 – down at the slate quarry in 1 5/60 hour – belongs to Mr Hornby of Kirkham as lord of the Manor – bought it of Mr Parker of Browsholm, who bought it of the brother of Mrs Serjeantson (I suppose of Camphill) Gooch, I think –his father left him the manor with all right to mines and minerals Except coals – these he separated from the manor, and left to his daughter Mrs Serjeantson, and she ‘turns out a better fortune than her brother’ – 8 or 9 men employed at the quarry – the slate goes by land carriage to Gargrave, there shipped on the canal – the quarry on the left bank of the Greta a mile from Ingleton – Mr Hornby has a large flax mill, superintended by a nephew of his, at Bentam – Employs there a thousand hands – Got a specimen or 2 at the quarry – home again at 9 40/60, in 1/4 hour from the quarries – all done by blasting – it is the cheapest way – 4 long miles to the top of Inglebro’ – walked it in 1 35/60! – round by the quarries made it 4 1/2 miles back – walked all round to the top of Inglebro’ – said to be a mile –

went upstairs to bed at 11 1/4 very fine day [E two dots O one dot, marking discharge from venereal complaint] –

§ Monday 14 July 1823 this Mrs William Priestley told me the other day, was considered the prettiest village in Craven, and Clapham the 2nd prettiest –

left margin:

Beautiful prospect from Inglebro’ – the mountain was quite clear at the top, but unfortunately it was rather

thick in the valleys, and my view was much impeded tho’ still very fine –

Ingleton.

5 35/60

1

off (from Settle) at 7 12/60 – Got to Horton (Golden lion Inn, opposite the church) at 8 50/60 – 6 miles the rudest road we have Travelled – stone walls all the way – the Ribble on our left – its stony channel frequently almost dry – High white mountains on our left – Penigent to the right 2 miles to the Top of it, starting from Horton – a huge mass rising in bulky majesty from his mountain base – neat white washed church and Inn at Horton –

It surprises me to find such good stabling at all these out-of-the-way places – a Mr Foster, of Chapham, has the largest property of anyone here – The freeholders are all joint lords of the manor –  they wont let the manor for some of the freeholders like to shoot – consequently anyone who likes shoots on it, for none prevents them – and there is always game being close to lord Ribblesdale’s and Mr Farrer’s (of Clapham lodge) preserves – Nothing but stone walls here as about Settle, etc etc –

the Ribble seems to wind more than either the Wharf or Are – 2 or 3 miles from Settle (yesterday) the river made 3 remarkable windings –

and in another place formed a little verdant island pasture – the pastures everywhere very rich – Stainforth a very neat village – mowing there –  the 1st grass cut we have seen –

Set off to Penigent (from Horton) at 10 after a good breakfast of boiled milk – the coffee bad, that my aunt was obliged to take to milk – Excellent bread here as at Malham – good everywhere, but at these 2 places remarkably so – the dry toast capital – 50 minutes getting to the end of the lane leading to Penigent – 200 yards further to the left, Hull pot hole – about 60 yards long by 30 or 40 deep – the water of this cavern (vide the next page line 12). goes down thro‘ Horton – having sunk from the bed of its stream into the Earth, perhaps 50 or 60 yards before it reaches the cavern –

At a little distance to the left higher up, Hunt-pot hole

peerhaps 30 yards by 20 – the fissure § in the cavern, into which the water falls after having made a pretty cascade into the cavern, is about 3 yards wide in the widest part, and perhaps ½ yard wide in the narrowest part where the spray formed a beautiful rain-bow – this water crosses that from the other hole §§, and comes out at Batty-wife hole (vide line 6 from the top of the next page) – About a couple of hundred yards from Hunt pot hole, there is a cavern, entered by ‘a little pot-hole’ – the guide (Christoper Armistead) has been 100 yards into this cavern – might have gone farther, had he had more candles – the cavern 2 ½ yards high, and wide enough for one person to go along –

At the point of an angle, as it were, between Hull pot and Hunt-pot, a small piece of water (a small lake) called Tarn-bar 7 yards deep of water – perhaps 80 yards across, and 3 times that in circumference – we saw it from a distance on ascending the steepish part of Penigent, and perhaps these dimensions that the man Told us may be Too little –

At the top of Penigent, on the great end, at 12 47/60 – Little end ¾ mile off – we had not time to go to this, nor to take pains to go to the opposite edge to look down upon Littondale, and its villages of  Arncliffe, Halton Gill, etc

Looked down upon Horton, Newhouses, Saleside, and about 2 miles from the latter place a farm house called Gawber, in a meadow field 3 or 400 yards below this house, the source of the Ribble, called Ribble-head – Moulton, a long, lofty range of limestone rock

§§ (Sunday 13 July, 1823. How does the man know this? Is this apparent in the cavern, mentioned line 8 from the bottom? I seem just now (4 p.m.) to have some recollection 

white and water-and-weather-worn like that at the top of Malham Cove, stretching along above Horton, and abutting Inglebro’ – Whernside to the right of him – as it were darting out from behind him to continue the line of rampart on that side of the valley –

1/2 mile directly above Saleside Alum pot – a young man from Leeds was nearly lost there yesterday-week – he had gone to see it with a young woman went too near the edge, the sod gave way – he caught hold of some twigs which fortunately did not break, but he hung over the abyss for some time before he could recover himself – he trembled all the day afterrwards – Beyond Gawber (vide line 2 from the bottom on the other side) Batty-wife hole – the water from Hunt pot hole comes out here, and runs into the Ribble – Chapel in the dale 9 miles from Horton –

At the top of Penigent (great end) looking down on Horton, Pendil hill on the left, Inglebro’ right ahead then Whernside (not the Whernside I saw, that is behind us) – Shadows of the clouds on the sides of the hills have a curious effect – a person unacquainted with the thing, might take them for dark green spots on a calm day – but when the wind is high they run along with the clouds very fast – Could just discern the sands above Lancaster, looking over the foot of Ingleborough to the left – Begin to descend Penigent at 1 1/2 – Returned by Dowgill Scar, a pretty little cove at the bottom of which escapes the water from Hull pot hole, and runs down thro’ Horton – In the centre of the cove, about mid height, a large piece of rock overhanging 4 or 5 yards, under which I sat writing this last minute in my note book – Scotch fir and larch plantation here – too much of it – rather hides the cove –

Got back to the Inn at 2 3/4 – Determined to take the guide, go with my aunt in the gig as far as Alum-pot and Ribble-head, and strike right across up to the top of Inglebro’, go down upon Chapel in the dale and meet my aunt there and the see the caverns –

Off from Horton at 2 55/60 – The guide rode behind George on Percy – Got to Saleside ‘short of 3 miles’ from Horton (rough hilly road) at 3 3/4 – my aunt and George waited with the gig at Saleside, a public house, and 2 or 3 cottages –

the guide and I walked right up the hill, and in 1/4 hour came to Alum-pot, the most frightful looking both the guide and I agreed, we had ever seen – perhaps the association of ideas had some influence – we had both of us the man hanging by the Twig in our minds’ eye – we made it out it must have been at the south end near an ash bush – as well as I could calculate by my watch, a stone about 10 seconds in falling to the bottom,

perhaps 30 yards or more by 20 or more – a shallow stream fell into it at the south east corner, and there seemed to be an archway at the North end perhaps an outlet from this tremendous hole – we could not tell – almost impossible to get near enough with safety to have a good view – the hole is very properly entirely enclosed with a highish wall which we ventured to climb over, safely enough, tho’ strictly warned not to do so by the Innkeeper at Saleside –

About 2 miles beyond Saleside stopt at the farm house on our right (called Gawber xxx) – the guide and I turned thro’ the farm yard down a meadow, and crossing in the next field saw Ribble head

very clear, good water – perhaps 1/2 yard deep – no boling up to be seen – perfectly still – a narrow ditch with a little round head –

It was now so late, I gave up all thought of going to the top of Inglebro’ (it would be 4 long miles there and 3 down to Chapel in the dale) gave the guide 4/. with which he seemed well pleased, and got into the gig, and drove off – Perhaps 1/2 mile from here turned to the left along the road to Lancaster by Ingleton, the road to the right leading to Hawes etc and Richmond – soon came to the 24 mile stone to Lancaster (6 from Ingleton) – at the turn into this road we had opened into the valley between Inglebro’ on our left and Whernside on our right, the river Greta running in a shallow stream along its stony bed, apparently dry in many places – Inglebro’ magnificent – abutted by 3 xxx huge steps, as it were, of bare rugged limestone – far superior in appearance to Penigent howver fine, and Whernside – these great mountains and even Pendil hill also, all much the same shape – a torso rising on immense mountain bases – here the valley worthy of North Wales – the finest mountain scenery we have seen in Craven – this is certainly the best side for the ascent of Inglebro’ – Perhaps of Whernside also –

Sleep at Horton – or Ingleton is only six miles off from the place where it appeared as if one ought to ascend – at the mile stone marked 18 miles from Lancaster and 10 to Settle, turned off (tho’ 1/4 mile from Ingleton) to Settle having missed Chapel in the dale § , and being anxious to get to Settle in tolerable time having ordered beds there and a dinner at 8 – we had inquired just before we got to this last mile stone and were told by one of the lime-kiln men that Chapel in the dale was to the right 4 miles back on the road we had come –

Got back to Settle at 8 55/60, and sat down to dinner (2 roast fowls spitted after we got in, very good, etc.) at 9 3/4 – went upstairs to bed at 11 3/4 –

Mrs Peart the banker’s wife Mrs William Priestley’s friend to whom we had brought a letter for Mrs William Priestley, and Mrs Sutcliffe the apothecary’s wife, Mrs Veitch’d sister to whom we had brought a letter from Mrs Veitch, had called on us, and left their card in the morning – Very fine day – [E two dots O one dot, marking discharge from venereal complaint]

left margin:

Horton.

Penigent.

Stainforth.

§ this fissure must be very deep – as nearly as I could calculate by my watch, a stone was twenty seconds in falling to the bottom or in falling till we ceased to hear it –

Alum-pot.

view from Penigent.

Saleside.

Alum-pot.

Gawber, farm-house.

Ribble-head.

Settle.

vide page line 8 from the Top.

§

6 3/4

12

off at 8 with James Lund, our guide, to the cove – about 3/4 miles from the Lister arms – viewed it from the bottom, close under it, stupendous – can form no adequate idea of it at a distance – climbed with some labour and heat up the steep hill on the left (as we looked Towards the cove) for the sun began to shine, and reached the summit – a water worn bed of limestone rock – most curios – something in the glacier-style – scrambled down 3 or 4 yards to the place (just above the water, where our guide had let down 95 yards of line before his plumb reached the stream gushing out at the foot of this tremendous perpendicular precipice – lay down all my length – crawled to the edge – the man held my feet – while I stretched my head over the brink, and looked down – most awful – but as the man observed; this is not the deepest part of the cove – the crag on my left entirely appeared as he had said at last 20 yards higher – there are 2 terraces – but you cannot walk on them all round the cove, since they broken in the middle; and several yards’ width just over and on each side the stream of water form the plain perpendicular down which I looked – about 2 years ago after a breaking up of the snow and violent thunderstorm, the water for 2 days rushed in a current 9 yards broad over the top of this perpendicular, and fell 30 yards broad at the bottom bearing down a wall that stood in the way and tearing off the green sward – there was a beautiful iris formed by the spray, and the sight was ‘very grand’ – the same sort of thing had been known to have happened once before –

Proceeded up the sea of rock along Cawm Scar – a magnificently savage valley – from that crag said our guide pointing to a tremendous precipice, a little boy fell perhaps 30 years ago, and was dashed to pieces – he and his brother were there – he had seen a cowslip which he wished to get, and in plucking it, his foot slipt – 9 or 10 years ago, a stout young man of 18 or 19 had missed his way near the cove, fell down it and every bone in him was broken – Cawm Scar terminated by the cove, is, taken as a whole, superior, I think, to Gordale – it is worthy of North Wales – I can scarcely imagine anything in England can be compared with it – Looking down along the scar to the cove, Pendil hill to the right 20 miles off – Flasby fell 8 miles off – at the bottom of it (behind it) lies Skipton – above Skipton Rumblesmoor a fine background, and continuing the line, white moor up to Pendil-hill – Fountains fell behind the Tarn a fine piece of water a mile across every way – 4 miles round about – you cannot walk directly round on account of the ‘moss’ (boggy ground) to the North west, where the ducks breed –

Lord Ribblesdale’s house (Tarn-house) a sung, neat-looking place, surrounded with fir plantations, is about a mile and half from the Tarn – what they call ‘the sinks’ (of the river Are) about 1/4 mile from the Tarn – at this distance a small stream from the Tarn divides into 2 shallow pools, and sinks thro’ the limestone gravel – you hear a faint underground murmuring of the water, and this water is said to rise, and form the head of the Are 14 or 15 yards from a barn or cattle–shed in a field a little south of Malham, perhaps 1/4 mile from the village – this spring I ran down the field to see, as we passed in leaving Malham – our guide was sure this spring communicated with the Tarn and the sinks; for, whenever lord Ribblesdale’s keeper shut the clew of the Tarn, 6 or 7 hours afterwards the spring ceased – he had tried this several Times – the keeper telling him the hour at which he should stop the clew – and chaff thrown into the water at the sinks, had reappeared at the spring near the barn – at the sinks we saw several young trout, just come to life, about an inch long – waggon loads full of trout along the sinks, and the streams leading to them, in November – they come there from the Lake to spawn – make a little hole with their tails, then deposit the spawn, and cover it up with the gravel – Lord Ribblesdale allows any gentleman to fish in the tarn from the 1st of May to the last of July – but never afterwards – and in August the trout are finest – Fountains fell forms the background of the tarn (there is a pretty good Inn, I believe, not far from it – at all events, a very neat rather gothicised farm-house appeared among some fir-plantation) – the tarn-scar forms the background of his lordship’s house, and, Extending Eastwards shuts in the valley on this side – Grit stone just above the cove (to the left in going), all the rest of the hill limestone – got back to breakfast at 12 –

From Malham to the cove ¾ mil thence to the tarn 1 ½ mile – From the tarn to Tarn-house 1 ½ mile – from Tarn house (Lord Ribblesdale’s carriage road that he had made by the direct road) to Malham 3 miles –

From Malham to Skipton 11 miles – Lord Ribblesdale has a great deal of property about Malham – great part of the village is his – he buys whatever property he can there – both the public houses belong to him – he always goes to the Lister arms – the other Inn is as neat looking, but it is only 2 stories high – the Lister arms is 3, and called the the 1st, that is the best – Lord Ribblesdale’s steward says his lordship has paid off a great deal of money lately – he has still a great deal of property left –

Off from Malham at 1 40/60 – thro’ Malham dale (neat church there to which the Malham people go) Arctow, Otterburn, Long Preston, to Settle – Got into the great road from Skipton to Carlisle a little before Long Preston very good road – Got to Settle (the Golden Lion) at 4 20/60 – 11 miles from Malham to Settle – at 4 ½ went out – walked (one of Mr Hartley’s (our host’s) little boys our guide) to the Top of Castleberg (210 feet high) from which a good view of the town – no church – the people go to Giggleswick church about ½ mile off – A half-penny each person admittance to walk up to Castleberg – private property belonging to Messieurs Birbeck, and (Dawson, I think) walked a little about the town –

sat down to dinner at 7 – wrote the journal of yesterday  very fine day – went up to bed at 11 ¼ – [E two dots O two dots, marking discharge from venereal complaint] – tho I think not more than a few little drops

left margin:

Malham-cove.

Cawm-scar.

(View.)

Tarn & Tarn-house.

Source of the Are.

Distances

Settle.

5

12 3/4

Had a few spoonfuls of boiled milk and a mouthful or 2 of bread and and butter and took George and set off with Mr Proctor at 6 40/60 to Dowkabottom hole –

got there at 7 50/60, having walked about (near) 2 miles on the Littondale road and then turned up the hill on our left, and and gone a mile before we came to the rock-surrounded basin in the large pasture belonging to Mr Tennant of Chapel-house, in which the caverns (close to each other) are situated – to a stranger they would not be easy to find –

scrambled down a narrowish, steepish descent (ladies commonly have and ought to have a step-ladder) into the large one – you descend first into a fine large lofty stalactitic, conical space; then wind thro’ a narrow vaulting varying in height, but where one could everywhere stand upright – no where very wide – from 2 or perhaps 3 yards high to 1 wide – 2 or 3 ascents in the cavern, very steep; and the water worn rock rather slippery – a pool or 2 of shallow water – we went (about near 200 yards Mr Proctor said) till we came to a § small opening barely sufficient for one to creep into – Mr Proctor Told us it was not worth while trying it; for nobody cared to take the trouble as the cavern ended within a yard or 2 of it § – we returned and found we had been just 16 minutes in this cavern – about 1/2 way, in holding up my candle too suddenly, I lost my light – and George slipped and made a famous clatter – On coming out of the larger cavern, we immediately descended the smaller by an easier entrance, tho’ I had not perceived it at all on going down at first – this smaller cavern is a mere sunken cave, one tolerably large, lofty chamber, and very little Except of passage beyond it – this took us only five minutes – no water in it –

On emerging and reconnoitering the rock-surrounded basin, found a small sink in the ground the bottom covered with stones, that some gentleman christened the devil’s oven – the aptitude of the name not obvious – on mounting to the top of the scar called Hawkswick Clouder limestone trap-rock? like the Elwsy rocks near Llangollen as it were, several steps of rock) looked down Littondale – Hawkswick, Arncliff, (just above which Ambar Scar a fine feature in the scenery) – Litton, and Halton Gill, beautifully scattered along the dale at our feet – Pendil hill topmost in the distance – could not see Penigent – Whernside magnificently stretching his shelvy side along the East of Kettlewell-dale,

Returned along Kilnsey pastures – over several walls, to the top of Kilnsey crag, and at 9 50/60 stood wrapt in admiration at the magnificent prospect stretched out before me – A rich valley mountain girt from Kettlewell down to Bolton bridge, Litton-dale opening into it on my left, and yielding its stream (Littondale beck) a Tributary to the broad transparent Wharf here and there retired from its gravelly bed, then foaming round a few large stones scattered in its course, and winding in a thousand mazes till lost to the eye behind the wooded headland on which stands Netherside house – At my feet, our Inn and the 8 or 10 houses forming the village of Kilnsey – Just opposite on the other side of the water the village of (18 or 20 houses) Coniston its little chapel and 3 arch-bridge across the river – the high mountain range called Coniston moor, and Grassington wood and Rilston [Rylstone], bark and Thorpe fell, and the distance closed beyond Bolton bridge by Romalds [Rombalds], pronounced as if Rumbles-moor – to the left of Coniston moor, Whernside majestically rising and shewing a considerable length of Elevation above the mountain-mass from which it springs – It is the trap-rock of Whernside that forms the fine scenery on the right from Kilnsey to Kettlewell – and on the left, next beyond Kilnsey crag, is ‘wind-bank belonging to Mr Barstow of York’ vide the next page line 16 from the top. (of Fulford, that married one of the Joness?) and beyond this wind-bank wood, (till just just close to the town of Kettlewell and there they call it Snipes) and the valley closed by Kettlewell Cam – Langstroth –dale and the Wharf running along it to the left of Kettlewell, and the dale leading to Coverdale to the right – This valley from Kettlewell down towards Bolton bridge is closed by Kettlewell Cam or Kettlewell fell and Rumblesmoor –

Netherside house looks admirably – like an old baronial mansion, finely situated – Descended Kilnsey crag down what they call Hunter’s Stye-nick – very steep struggled, and rather a difficult concern – my aunt met me at the bottom – close to us the remains of what was (in Cromwell’s time) once the spacious family mansion of the Wades Kilnsey hall –

we turned to see a small lead mill – they were stamping the ore with a common mallet (or rather a flat piece of iron fasted to a handle) and melting it in the open fire – came in to breakfast at 10 3/4 – everything very good –

Dowkabottom hole in a large pasture belonging to Mr Tennant of Chapel-house – great part of Hawkswick belongs to him (he has 900 acres, and 3 brothers of the name of Tennant (but no relations to Mr Tennant of Chapel-house) have very nearly all the rest of the town – Mr Tennant and the duke of Devonshire joint lords of the manor – of the lead got in the manor they take one pig in 5, ready made, clear of all Expense – the pigs we saw at Kilnsey were run 123 lbs. the 11 lbs. above the cwt. [hundredweight] were said to be enough to pay for fruitage to Hull – the lords of Coniston manor (all the freeholders are joint lords) only take 1 pig in 13 – there is no lord of Kilnsey – it was Fountains-abbey land – but Lord Grantley takes 10ths on account of the right of the abbey – Mr Tennant married Mr Wilson of Eshton’s sister who left 2 children, a son and a daughter – on which account Mr Wilson had somehow got the management of Mr Tennant’s Estate, and allows him 300 a year – a great debt – perhaps £9,000 on an Estate of 1,700 acres total, in Kilnsey, Hawkswick, and some other place I think – Mr Trueman has 5 or 6 hundred acres at 10/. an acre some of it near the river is worth 40/. an acre but so on the moors not worth 6d (pence) and the farm is too dear as times are at present – Wind-bank (vide line 4 from the bottom of the last page) put up to auction 10 years ago – valued at £5,500 but knocked down at 8,100 – title not good; the present possessor claimed, and got and keeps the property –

the lime made from Kilnsey and Kettlewell stone remarkable for its whiteness – they come from all quarters for it to whitewash their houses with – none burnt at Kilnsey, but burnt at Kettlewell –

Off from Kilnsey at 12 – passed along the foot of Grassington 6 miles from Kettlewell. Bain’s Yorkshire Directory i. 510. and thro’ Linton, and Rilston, to Skipton – Pretty drive as far as Linton – then dullish to Rilston, a pretty village, and thence to Skipton pretty enough – fine approach down upon Skipton –

Stopt there at the Devonshire arms at 3 – a good bustling coach-house – well built house – neat assembly room in it – nice garden at the back – went to the castle – walked about the garden – 2 little girls (perhaps 7 and 8) daughters of the steward Mr Hodgson, allowed by their father to shew us the old uninhabited parts of the castle – those occupied by lord Thanet when he comes down with his family in the autumns not allowed to be shewn to anyone – gave the little girls 6 d (pence) each – looked in at the church windows – saw nothing particular –

off from Skipton at 5 1/4 – Turned short of Gargrave to the right – Got out at Eshton-hall walked in front of the house to look at it – pretty place – rather handsome looking house – thro’ Aredale, and Kirby Malham- dale (a good church there) to Malham, and got out at the Lister arms, the farthest last of the 2 public houses in Malham, at 8 20/60 – a beautiful drive from Skipton – the rocks about Malham particularly the cove a fine object but certainly not so striking at a distance as Kilnsey crag –

At 8 1/2 (as immediately as possible) took a man standing at the Inn door as our guide and went to Gordale – magnificent – climbed up the rock as high as where the water gushes out – a little below this level is a cavern, indeed there a 2 caverns – I must Explore them some time or other – the guide said one was a large one – and no one had ever been to the end of the other – my aunt frightened to see me mount up – and it certainly was tremendous – saw Janet’s cave waterfall, very well worth seeing, very pretty indeed not 10 yards out of our way, but generally overlooked that is not shewn by the guides –

did not get back from Gordale till 10 7/60 and sat down to a good dinner roast leg of lamb ham rasher and eggs etc at 10 20/60 – w[e]nt upstairs to bed at 12 – Very fine day –

drove Percy from Skipton – he did not like to trot the latter 1/2 the way, and I would not push him – he goes as lame as ever [E two dots O two dots, marking discharge from venereal complaint] –hilly road today all along particularly from Skipton to Malham and rather roughish sometimes – They call it 12 miles from Kilnsey to Skipton direct – by Grassington about 13 – the mile posts say from Kettlewell to Skipton 16 miles – that I should think we have come about 14 miles – (Kilnsey 3 miles from Kettlewell vide page 39.)

§ (Sunday 13 July 1823).

From what the guide at Malham (James Lund, one of the 2 shoemakers living in the village) Told us while we were at Gordale, I did not see 1/2 Dowkabottom hole – this small opening led to a finer cavern than that we had gone thro’; and it must have been Mr Proctor's idleness or fear (for the place is rather awkward for a little bit at first, that made him say, it was not worth while to any further – Had James Lund known the place well enough, we should have gone again the next morning – it would only be about eight miles to it over the hills; but the man who would be the best guide (the other shoemaker I believe) who had shewn it to James Lund several years ago, was a strict Methodist, and nothing could persuade him to go with us on a Sunday –

left margin:

View from Kilnsey Crag etc

Grassington

Linton, Rilston.

Skipton

Eshton hall.

Malham.

Gordale.

6 10/60

9 25/60

Downstairs at 7 went to my uncle but still to no purpose – Had a basin of boiled milk and bread and butter and at 7 35/60 set off with a guide to the top of Whernside – Procktor, mate on board the Holmpton Captain Mabb (a Hull private ship in the employ of government) in the West Indies under Lord Rodney – mentioned several names familiar to me – among the rest ‘Dr. Bulcock’ head surgeon of the hospital at St. Lucie (now Dr. Belcombe of York) – he had the place 4 or 5 or 6 years – it was a very good thing – they sewed the dead up in blankets, and threw them into the Sea – it was too much trouble to bury them; and, when only one was dead, they let him wait a little in his blanket to carry out 2 or 3 or more at once –

went thro’ Coniston about 1/2 mile from here – the small church or chapel, which Whitaker speaks of as the oldest building now remaining in Craven, has been thoroughly repaired within these seven years – the roof underdrawn etc etc and now looks so like a thing of yesterday, I did not stop to Examine it –

Got out of the road and had 2 or 3 highish walls to climb – then being on high ground, a fine view of Kilnsey and the crag, and beyond of Litton dale, and Kettlewell-dale – in the former saw the villages of Hawkswick, and Arncliff; Arnbar sear, the village of Litton that gives name to the dale, Halton gill, Foxop, and a single house called Cosh, belonging to one old man jointly with the duke of Devonshire the latter wished to buy the old man’s share, but all the answer he would give was, ‘he is only a foote orit’ meaning the duke had only a 1/4 of it – after Halton Gill and Foxop, Cam-fell. –

On rising a little higher came to a miner sinking a shaft for lead – 23 or 24 yards deep, and then bringing up sandstone grit from under the superincumbent limestone # – he hope of coming at lead very soon – gave me 2 little specimens – by and by came to a great deal of very broken moory ground, vent in fissures on all sides, and very fatiguing to get over – such perpetual jumping about them a great deal of wet ground – the water took all the blacking of my boots, and came in at the buttons –

at last came to what looked like the conical head of Whernside – steepish, but tolerably verdant –, and looked down from the highest summit at 10 3/4 – here no vegetation – the ground looked as if it had been ploughed, so entirely had the running of waters washed away all grass or heather – there was snow on the top only a few days or a week ago – heard the calls of the moorbirds and saw several of them running about – a few scattered nout-berry plants 1/2 way up the mountain, and large beds of them in flower (pink and white like strawberry bloom) all round the foot of the conical head –

Great part of Whernside is in what is called

§ (with a good glass you may see York minster from here – the day tho’ very fine has not been very clear; at least, was not when we were at the top) –

Coniston manor, belonging to all the freeholders in proportion to their freeholds – Mr Noel of Netherside hall (vide page 37.) had had this manor for the last 3 or 4 years but has only paid 1 year’s rent (£ 50) and has behaved very scandalously about it – he was borne at a house in Coverdale, not far from Kittlewell – a large family – the estate sold and divided – he went out in a low station in the India Company’s service – made his money in India or by marrying the widow of a nabob – by whom he has no family –

Mr Yorke’s manor joins to Coniston manor and he is now at law with the Coniston

people about 1500 acres which they claim – this present Mr Y– [Yorke] has left Halton (built by his father) and has come to Bewerley (near Pateley bridge) he has built a great deal since his marriage but has ‘stopt his hand a little for the present’ insinuating he was doing too much for his pocket – he has succeeded his uncle who kept himself always very poor by giving everything away – but the estates were entailed –this Mr Y– [Yorke] lately married – to ‘a lady with more blood than suet’ –

Descended the hill Towards Kettlewell – stopt at a cottage to inquire the way to Dove-cove – went, as we hoped, to the place; but after a very tedious march, could not find the cove – descended thro’ a thick jungle (very fatiguing) towards a stream in Coverdale or the dale leading to it that falls into the Wharf at Kettlewell – crossed this stream along the rough stones lying in it 3 times – got a little wet –

reached the Coverdale road (only frequented by corn badgers) at 1 1/2 mile beyond Kettlewell – Picturesque walk to this miserable little town prettily situated – very small – the land would not keep the people but for the cotton weaving and mining for lead – the pasture ground at the bottom of the valleys most rich and excellent – lets just near Kettlewell for 50/. an acre – the Church just new built – small but neat –

from Kettlewell to Kilnsey (3 miles) very fine – on the right left a bold range of limestone rock, reminding me much of the Elwsy rocks near Llangollen – on the right a bold ascent of wood surmounted with rock terminated by Kilnsey Crag – at the bottom of the dale rich pasture ground meandered by the Wharf, a broadish, shallow stream, here and there foaming round a few largish stones scattered along its bed – the road lies between cobble-stone walls, which mark all the divisions – were there quickwood or any sort of green hedges, instead of these stone walls, the landscape would of course be doubly beautiful – the rich, beautiful green of the pastures strikes me particularly – the land is most Excellent – supports an immense quantity of stock –

my guide (Mr Procktor) ætatis 63, rather maimed in his youth, and so tired I left him at Kettlewell to take his own time; and he did not arrive till 3/4 hour after me – I got back at 1 55/60 –

spoke to our landlord Mr Trueman, who was many years huntsman to Colonel Lloyd at Horsforth who gave him a silver cup commemorative of his faithful services – From what Mr T– [Trueman] said we doubted whether to go immediately to Dowkabottom, or to Dove Cove in a cart – a boy Expected home who could be guide to Dowkabottom at 3 – no boy arrived –

spoke to Mr Proctor – Mr Trueman mistaken about Dove cove – or rather as to seeing the place on the top of the hill called Dove-scar, when the water sinks into the rock, and part reappears at Grassington, part above Kettlewell, there is absolutely nothing to see, and the cove or cavern we looked for must be somewhere, perhaps not more than 3 or hundred yards from where we were this morning, beyond Kettlewell –

Determined therefore to sit quietly at home this afternoon get my writing done, go to bed early, and set off with Mr Proctor to Dowkabottom at 6 tomorrow morning – afterwards proceed to Gordale, etc –

a gig with a gentleman and lady, and a car with 3 or 4 ladies arrived about 4 – all to sleep here – my aunt walked by herself as far as Coniston – George rode out the horses –

tho’ a fine air, and remarkably fine sunless day for my walk, yet a more fatiguing ramble for 6 10/60 hour of surely 13 or 14 miles I never remember to have taken I was much heated – had a basin of hot milk on getting home and am hardly comfortably cool and my things dried on, now at 5 40/60 – after having written all the above of today - In fact, my chemise is still quite humid –

left margin:

Little Whernside. (Coniston).

pages 39.40.41

# Sunday 13 July 1823 there is sandstone above the limestone on the summits of Penigent, Ingleborough, and Whernside the greater near Ingleton.

Kettlewell.

page 40.

Dove-scar.

5 1/4

12

Clean bed, comfortable enough, and I believe well aired tho’ I slept in my drawers flannel waistcoat and great coat for fear of damp – could not go to my uncle yesterday or today which makes me rather feverish –

Off from Ilkley at 7 – very pretty drive very good road to Addingham, 3 miles – Had we gone to the small Inn on our right some distance before we came to the town, we should not probably have been so well off as at Ilkley – a few scattered houses; a neat, rather modern church; and, near it, a large probably cotton mill, form the commencement of Addingham, which then becomes a regular street, Extending considerably up the hill, and puts on the appearance of business –

we missed the turn, about 1/2 way thro’ the town, to the right to Bolton, and went 1/2 mile out of our way, to the top of the hill, within 6 miles of Skipton, which seemed likely to be a bleakish road – turned back – the 2 miles from Addingham to Bolton bridge very pretty

Stopt at Bolton bridge Inn, the Devonshire arms, kept by – Wilson, at 8 1/2 – had a good breakfast – café au lait – could not sleep there tonight – 9 people coming today – at least, there were 9 beds ordered – the mistress did not know what to do – only 2 double bedded and 2 single bedded rooms, without some of the family sat up all night – much consideration what we were to do – Mr Wilson lent us Greenwood’s map of Yorkshire mounted in 3 – the 3 ridings – Determined to see Bolton abbey, and then go forward to sleep at Kilnsey ‘14 long miles’ –

Off at 10 1/2 – Took a guide at the abbey (from one of the cottages near) at 10 55/60 – the nave and its side aisles now a neat church – the choir and transept form a fine ruin – the cloisters gone – one side traceable by the archwork along the south wall of the church § – what used to be the entrance gateway, is now the lodge, fitted up for the reception of the duke of Devonshire when he comes in the shooting season – the view from the Hartington seat (a rustic covered seat near the abbey, to the north) is perfectly beautiful – wood, water rock and ruin form a scene as perfect as the fancy of a Claude could imagine – the scenery as we proceeded northwards, for ever varying, and every variation in this singularly beautiful spot strikingly picturesque – Had we been a week earlier the hues of the foliage would have been more varied; at present they are rather too much mingling into one shade – Mr Carr’s house near the abbey (he is the clergyman, but has charge of the grounds) is in the abbey style, and very pretty – carriages not allowed to go down to the abbey; but the woman allowed us to go, all along the fields and the private road thro’ the woods –

Ludstream island a mile from the abbey – the Strid 2 miles from Ditto then the Hawkstone rock, and near it the Hawkstone seat, then the Pembroke seat, so called from the lady Anne (Clifford) countess of Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery, because overlooking her residence of Barden tower – in ruins – a fine object – went to the woodman’s cottage – returned by a higher and nearer road – the lady Harriet seat. beautiful view of the south nab which is in the deer park. to where we left the gig just above the Strid; drove it thro’ the fields into the high road to Kilnsey, and, afterwards a delightful stroll of 2 hours, set off again – Indeed my aunt had gone in the gig as far as the turn down to the strid –

stopt 25 minutes at Barden tower – something in the style of Kenilworth, but smaller – went into the old woman’s cottage in what appears to have been an entrance to the chapel which she shewed us – very plain – no ornament – Mr Carr preaches there in the morning the 1st Sunday of every month, and in the afternoon of the 3rd Sunday –

Beautiful drive all the way along the drive to Burnsall (but very hilly and in some parts roughish road tho’ tolerable – very fair – on the whole) where I am now writing having arrived at 2 3/4 – the rain which we feared in the morning has kept off – it has been cool and pleasant and we could not have had a day more delightful for our purpose – Percy did not eat quite so well this morning – I fear he is more lame – George says it is in the fetlock – then it is the old sprain – or perhaps in the coffin joint – at all events I have no hope of his even being good for anything again – How shall we get? – we saw Burnsall some time before we arrived – very picturesquely situated along the river – (Wharf) – but a small village – saw looms in a few of the cottages, and the people (women) wearing calico – sauntered out about an hour – along the river side – a neat stone bridge of 3 or 4 arches over it – a wide, shallow stream – pebbly bottom – the water perfectly clear –

sauntered into the church yard – looked thro’ the windows – read the monument of the Battys of Thorpe, the family of the late Mrs Wiglesworth of Townhead – an inscription over the church door, purporting that the church had been repaired in 1612 at the cost of sir William Craven Knight, who had been lord mayor of London – the same sir William founded and endowed the school adjoining into which we sauntered – several children there – all of the lower orders – the building now become old, and shabbyish-looking –

Set off from our Inn (Red lion, John Emsley) where we had sat in a neat double bedded room upstairs – the low room smelling of smoke tobacco etc – set off from our Inn at Burnsall at 4 55/60 a very narrow rough, hilly, road between 2 high amorphous – stone walls – we turned down to Linton by mistake a nice looking village with a shallow stream running thro’ it – to the left a large stone building an hospital, rather to the right a pretty house little lawn and green before it belonging to a Mr Robinson – an intricate road – went along the back of Thresfield, Grassington looking well on our right – at last crossed the great road from Skipton to Pately bridge, the guide post, quite a godsend for there are none hereabouts (scarcely a guide post or mile stone since we left Bradford) marked 11 to Pately bridge 21 to Otley, 10 to Bolton 6 to Kettlewell –

a large whitish building had for some time appeared in the distance on rising ground in the valley – about a mile from this guide post, we passed it close; and struck by its appearance, imitation of the antique, Elizabethan, we fortunately got out at the farther gate, and went the back way to the house – the rough stone of the country Except the portico consisting of 3 arcades, surmounted by the arms of the builder Mr Noel (a man of large property near Kirby Lonsdale, and a place 50 miles below London pronounced Hedgington 1) vide page 39. and dated 1820. the portico stone what we should call tooled – a gothic door studded with nails opens in a handsome square hall (light from a dome at the top) with a gallery round it into which open 4 doors communicating with parallel passages into which open the lodging rooms – Ground floor the hall out of which 4 doors opening, one on the right to the best stair case, and then the other to the drawing room – opposite the great hall or entrance door, the library – the 2 doors on the left opening one to the kitchen etc, and the other to the dining room opposite the drawing room – upstairs the best bed room over the library, and one lodging room and a dressing room opening into the passage on each side of the hall gallery – down the passage leading to the rooms over the kitchens etc a water closet (and another underneath it) and then a bath – capable of being supplied with hot water in 1/4 hour – capital attics – I went out upon the leads – the dome and the chimnies capitally managed –

the house 2 gable ends etc house body and kitchens attached – gable ends and all in straight line save the protection of the portico – garden

(Sunday 13 July 1823 § who married Miss Atkinson (of Linton) an only child, and, by her mother’s side, niece and heir to, Mr Noel of Netherside house; her father Mr A– [Atkinson] made his money as a fringe-maker Mr Robinson is a clergyman brother to Mr R– [Robinson] the attorney of Settle, who married Mrs William Priestley’s friend Miss Peart, daughter to the banker, formerly an attorney of that name at Settle according to Mrs William P–‘s [Priestley’s] account

half-moon shaped – the man who shewed us over the house (not yet finished) a sort of under gardener – Mr N– [Noel] keeps about 20 servants – married but no children, ætatis about 60 – the house stands on fine ground which from the back wooded down to the water’s edge descends steeply – A fine object several times as we wound along our road to Kilnsey whose majestic cragg is from the 1st glimpse caught a very fine feature in the landscape – the drive to Kilnsey very fine – limestone rocks on our right, reminding us of the Elwsy near Llangollen – All who go to Bolton should come here (Kilnsey) –

Stop at the 2nd house the Tennants arms, kept by Harman Trueman – much the best – Ordered our dinner at 8 1/4 having arrived at 7 10/60 – In the mean while walked perhaps 1/2 mile beyond the crag – very fine – Jackdaws building and flying about it –

Got back at 8 1/4 – and sat down to dinner at 8 3/4 – enjoyed it very much – cold roast beef and ditto legs of lamb – Excellent potted trout – gooseberry tarts, Cheshire cheese and old milk ditto which they were surprised at our preferring – Had the master in. Determined to go to the top of Whernside, etc tomorrow – If we had had the weather for wishing for, it could not have been better – no sun and cool and pleasant till from between 5 and 6 to 7 the sun tinged the hills beautifully –

Architect of Netherside house, Mr Webster of Kendal; master builder Mr Gibson of Ditto; – painter Mr Lockwood of Skipton – he had done the plaster work pannels in imitation of oak most naturally and beautifully the pannels in the hall are all plaster above the Skirting board – wrote the latter part of this of today after dinner –

E .. d.. – never enjoyed our dinner more than today – cold roast beef – Ditto some leg of lamb – potted trout (very good) gooseberry tarts and cream, Cheshire and very good old milkcheese – drank nothing but water –

left margin:

§ Put our names down in the abbey book ‘Mrs and Miss Lister, Shibden hall’ –

§§ about 1 mile from here are the remains of a Roman camp. vide

Baines’ Yorkshire Directory i. 442 (Tuesday 12 August 1823.) –

Addingham. §§

Bolton-bridge.

Bolton-Abbey.

Kilnsey. p[ages] 39. 40. 41

the Crag. p[age] 40. 41.

5 5/60

10 1/2

Breakfasted at 6 – my aunt and I off at 6 1/2 – drove the black mare – we walked up the Haugh, and got to Bradford (6 miles from Shibden)

the Sun Inn in 1 53/60 at 8 23/60 – ordered breakfast café au lait – a great pan full of boiled milk set upon the table – very good – far the best Inn in Bradford – these present people have had it just 3 years and one month – the other road is the better for carriages – we have come over, I think, a dozen rail-ways – and the road must be very heavy in winter, – but it is very fair now, and the mare has brought us very well – better than I expected – I wish Percy may do as well –

wrote the above just after breakfast – which is charged 1/8 each 2d [pence] more than usual I suppose for the joram of boiled milk – (Barometer 1 1/2 above changeable Fahrenheit 52° at 6 1/4 a.m.) –

Left Bradford at 10 40/60 – 3 hours and 20 minutes on the road and got to Otley (they call it 10 miles) at 2 stopt at the White Horse – a nice neat, small but comfortable looking house just below the market place – It rained incessantly, sometimes very heavily the 1st 2 3/4 hours – fair and tolerably fine the last couple of miles – the look down the town as we descended the chevin very fine –

about a mile past Apperley turned down thro’ the vista upon the house (Esholt hall) 1/2 mile from us – handsome looking stone (or perhaps stuccoed house) presenting to us 2 pediment surmounted fronts – might have pursued one route close past the house – but durst not venture for fear of being known, and turned back again into the high road – How little Henrietta would think her correspondent from Shibden was so near!

Percy went verily stiff and lame; could hardly trot at all, and we have come foot’s pace all the way but for a little bit within the last couple of miles – down the Chevin (about a mile I should think) very slow indeed for fear of stumbling, and we got down well – wrote the above immediately, and at 2 1/4 just setting off to Explore the town – Ilkley. 7 p.m. got here (drove the black mare) in 1 1/4 hour (6 miles) at 5 1/2 – my watch with our Kitchen clock at home but 1/2 hour before the clocks on the road –

Ilkley a mere village – we are at the Rose and Crown just opposite the church – I staid in the gig while my aunt looked at the rooms, the place is such a mere pot-house, but they look neat enough – the horses tolerably well off, and the gig in the barn with a stage coach that runs to Leeds – our dinner was ordered at 6 1/2 – we walked about Otley till very near 4 – saw the church – my aunt waited in the bell-chamber while I went to the very top of the steeple – very bad getting up at the last – Rich view along the vale in all directions – Farnley-hall (Mr Hawkes) to the north East about 1 1/2 mile from Otley. – but, as we observed in descending the Chevin the ground in front of the house is too much spotted with trees – the chumps remind me of so many Greencakes – the church very neat – remarkably neatly kept – the prettiest country-church chancel I ever saw – a large mass of ivy, trained in at one of the windows, is just stretching to the railing round of the Fawkes’s monuments, and is to be trained all along it – the effect is already singular – the outside of the great East window (indeed if the whole east end) is thickly surrounded with ivy – at the east end of the south aisle, recumbent figures of a lord Fairfax and his lady dated 1620. §

Otley is beautifully situated, and a rather picturesque, and neat small market town – stone-built – Beautiful drive along the right left back of the wharf to Ilkey – the woods of Weston on the left bank very pretty – the house seems indifferent – a confused pile of old building – Burley a long street of a village with one or 2 bindings [buildings] – 2 miles beyond Burley, Denton Park (Sir Henry Ibbetson) on the right, (across the river) looks well – perhaps not sufficiently planted out from the road tho’ at a considerable distance – the left side of the valley on our left much more abrupt than that on our right, topped with moor (Rumbles-moor) and cray – the right terminated by moor land at a distance – must be bleak in winter –

while dinner was getting ready, we walked to the well, about a mile from the Inn, almost directly above it – the water remarkably cold, and quite clear, and tasteless – a poor sort of white washed building containing 2 baths, a better and a worse, the one at 3/. the other at 2/. a week – and a place entered by an outside staircase with 2 3 benches in it – a lady from Pontefract, with a weakness in one knee and one elbow, was just going to have the water showered on them – A roasted hind quarter of lamb, so strong we could scarce eat it – pudding under it tolerable – butter strong – cheese Ditto – Durst not ask for anything to drink but water – never made a worse dinner – yet the people are very civil –

the church opposite seems kept neatly – peeped in at the windows – stalled, not pewed – Called at the clergyman’s meaning to ask him about the antiquities of the place – the Roman station etc but he was out – saw his wife – she had had a fit, and could not stir from her seat – a decent looking woman – the woman at the well (very civil) said the parson could tell us everything – he had a great book giving an account of Everything –

After dinner wrote the last 29 lines of today, dated Ilkley - they are as stupid as myself – we will be off from here very early tomorrow, and breakfast perhaps at Bolton bridge –

went upstairs to bed at 9 1/2 – [E two dots O two dots, marking discharge from venereal complaint] – several drops

left margin:

Bradford

Otley.

Ilkley.

§ Mr Thomas Shaw when church warden removed the lion from the feet of his lordship, and placed it at the top of a monument over his pew – he refuses to replace the lion, and is threatened, they say with a prosecution on this account

5 25/..

11 1/4

ready in 3 /4 hour – saw them all off at 6 20/.. – then went to the barracks near an hour there 88 in 1 stable 28 young in another – fed every 2 hours – ordinary allowance per day 8 lbs. [pounds] avoine 12 fourrage 15 straw (paille) besides sonde (mashes)? at noon – 1 very strong large norman (gray) 3000/. others 1500/. to 2000/. price – all stalons – some as colts bought at 400/. from 15 to 50 mares allowed them per annum – several crosses between this Country breed and barbes – some English horses – the man said they got thicker in the neck by the climate 8 of the horses aux caux – some sent every year – one a very fine gray sent because he coughed a little and they were afraid of his wind – some Turkish horses some de Limoges and some Norman, and some pure breed of the Pyrennees Gray or dark bay pretty little clean legged animals 1 man to 4 horses – all apparently very gentle all done by kindness – the manège not so fine as I expected –

drizzling rain from 6 25/.. – thick no view – back at 7 1/2 wished to be off in an hour – no horses till 2 – breakfast – went to my banker – all business at a stand – choice whether to take 25/. or not – yes! for £50 circular –

appalling news from Paris paid the bill here for us all – always give 6/. to the servants find Jean gives 2/50 more for the servants – so it seems we give altogether 8/50.! Sat writing journal and to my aunt till 2 –

off at 2 6/.. – Tarbes really a nice little town – 3 churches – the cathedral a small poorish concern, nor much of transepts near side aisles at all – the church I was in this morning (St. Anne’s) a poor little place, but almost as good as the cathedral – the steeple that seems to have belonged to a tolerably good church is merely part of what is left and now filled with forage for the cavallery – neat barracks (saw them this morning) built for them very lately – I have been more comfortable at Tarbes than anywhere – have nowhere had so good a room –

drizzling rain Till from 6 25/.. to after 12 – then began to clear a little and on leaving Tarbes fair and streets dry and atmosphere clear enough to leave the mountains pretty distinct – quite a farce to compare them with the alps – Tarbes seems placed at the foot of a wide Extended circular gently rising rich fertile plain stretching out obliquely on the right into a sort of isthmus or neck

the high pyrennees sweeping about 1/5 of the circle left Towards the front – and below them a low range of hill extending all round to the neck closed in by a low range quite in the distance the low range in front covered with wood – the other parts yellow with corn stubble (harvest everywhere since before Bordeaux got in) or ploughed land; or wooded or green under vine cultivation – the lands here seem no where more than 4 feet English at most – look like filons, threads – great deal of bled de Turquie – just out of Tarbes pass thro’ orchards of peach trees oppressed with vines –

Fahrenheit 74° at 2 40/.. and quite cool and pleasant – the dust just agreeably laid – the church of Ibos high squary mass (left) a fine object – 1 small tower – the houses of the town not seen till one mounts the hill – and seems a large one had been taken down as low as the roof of the nave –

at 2 began to feel a little indigestion pain and now at 2 3/4 feel it more was it the mutton last night – I never by any chance touch meat without feeling it, and have it not when I stick to my vegetables! –

as we reach the wooded range of hill 3 traverses up it, get out – walk to the top of the hill and 1/2 way over the ridge in 20 minutes and got a good heating in spite of the fine cool hair for the man urged his horses up as fast as he could without stopping and it was hardish work to get much before him –

mountain side wooded chesnuts – near the top heather – top brackens which completely subdue the heather and merely a bit here and there to be seen thro’ it – a few black sheep (hill and heather always make good mutton) and a few horses, i.e. mares and foals – a little scattered generally straw thatched? village – small enclosures – hedges full of thorn and sloe and wild roses hedge row trees – chiefly oak – a few chesnuts gravelled road – fine oaks each side the road and straw thatched and some blue slated neat farm houses here and there vines, a few peaches and much maize –

picturesque straw thatched cottages – women with their red capulets bound with black spinning with a distaff under their arm and the bobbin Twirling against their aprons – beautifully green pastures – fine chesnut Timber as well as oak, hiding the picturesque cottages –

how I enjoy this – I might be – could fancy myself in England save for the capulets, and odd little low narrow waggons and bells and clumsy gear of my 3 abreast carriage horses –

another village – fête here too and dancing to a fiddle and clarionet – peaches and nectarines in the hedges – have no where seen hedge cut and laid – always or buckheaded rather short or clipped – great many pollard oaks, particularly in hedge rows – these pollard oaks form capital hedges for shelter – wherever not cultivated the top of this ridge covered with bracken, and right look up pretty little valley – mountain-top valley evidently small green enclosures by hedges –

road mended with pretty well broken boulder of mountain (primitive?) limestone – dark coloured, veined with quartz? have only seen one patch of oats – standing and another in swathe nothing but maize and a few potatoes –

at 3 55/.. neat white washed hotel des voyageurs a few little accacias and platannes round it and shearing (a man and woman) a good plot of oats – a man and woman courting by the roadside he putting his hand into her right pocket hole and another pair walk amorously set me wrong between three and four which ended in incurring cross about four

about 1/4 hour on the top of the hill and at 1 1/4 very fine view descend into the beautifully wooded rich charming vale of Pau? sprinkled in all directions with towns villages and pretty thatched white washed cottages and farms – water would make it lovely quite – ‘route bordée et ombragée de bois touffus (pollard oaks) – de chênes and châtaigniers all along – the at 1st thro’ a forest and very beautiful Itineraire Midi page 70 says ‘ou est Toujours dans les riches et fertiles plaines de Tarbes’ – these ‘bois touffus’ pollard oaks are really beautifully and thickly umbrageous – should not have dreamt they could look so well – pollard from a thick trunk perhaps 10 feet high from the ground – small enclosures – pretty low hedges – small dun cows picturesque straw thatched or blue slated white washed cottages – charming (very small dun oxen dragged the little waggons and carts on the Top, the plateaus of the hill – pigs lying and feeding under the oaks –

at 4 29/.. good post house in the very picturesque scattered one long street (trees and gardens between the neat houses) village of Les Bordes-d’Expoey red-dun cows with bells and regular dun mare with one young mule and a brown mare with ditto – green champs Elysée of oaks at this end of the village under which herds pigs lying and feeding – Lombardy poplars – Charming the women here with white bound with black capulets and black aprons and spinning as they walk – lock under the left arm and spinning with left hand and twirling the spindle with right hand – said George 10 sols de payé – oui – said the postillion ce quelque chosée pagata –

off in 8 minutes – all the walling done with boulder stones in a cement chiefly blue slated cottages – vines creeping high in the trees – wood côteau – low line of hills right – higher range wooded at bottom heather at top (right) – groves, as it were of pollard oaks – why pollard? postillion from here whip slung round his shoulder with a large worsted tassel as the german postillions sling their bugle horn – the men wear Ayrshire caps – white with red tassel at the top – or one postillion as have observed before wellington blue without tassel –

I enjoy today’s drive exceedingly –

Long straight road before me from Bordes d’Expoey the hedge row trees generally pollard oaks forming sort of avenue all along – all the women spinning but have only once seen some women heckling short line – woman astride white black bound capulet and white handkerchief and blue coarse linen? small white spotted gown with her long petticoats covering even her toes – I think she had her knees much stuck forming a hump on each side not ungraceful under the petticoat and certainly not looking masculine –

so many people afloat on the road near all the villages must be a general fête? – quite in the basses Pyrenées now – left the high pyrennees on descending the hill into the beautiful valley of Bordes d’Expouey or does mist hide everything (left)? at a little distance (right) a low nicely wooded fertile range which wheels round towards the front of me but soon wears itself out –

a great many of the country waggons on the road – most of them drawn by 2 little dun oxen and 2 little horses wrapped up in linen sheets white first the leaders – the road all along quite gay and in places thronged with waggons and people –

the women that ride have their petticoat slit open fore and aft I see and thus it so covers gracefully will covers the whole leg and foot – get prints of all this and the waggons at Pau – pass malle poste at 5 3/4 – strange to find common sense only among the Pyrennees – where else do the women ride astride! where else do they not torture their horses and themselves by a position equally dangerous to the one leg unnatural and uncomfortable to both? –

at 5 3/4 a little drizzling rain begins – Fahrenheit still 73° – all alive in Pau a fair or fête or what? a fair? enter by long small boulder stone paved street (paved or boulder-stoned as at Tarbes) – desperate to walk on in thin shoes – a sort of gateway (2 posts) spacious street – of splashed dirty white good 3 story houses – full of people carts and business –

at Hotel de France Pau at 6 – heard all the news from Lady Stuart – dinner wrote to my aunt not directed at 7 1/2 – came to my room at 10 20/.. – Fahrenheit 74° at 11

left margin:

Fahrenheit 73° at 4 1/4 p.m.

5 40/60

12 1/2

tolerable motion ready at 7 1/4 – all went to the top? of the

Cathedral – too hazy to see the Pyrennees – home at 8 – breakfast –

off from the hotel de France Auch at 9 – very good Inn – small dinner on well cleaned plate yesterday and handsome china this morning and everything good – dinner well cooked – good vin du pays and champagne –

cathedral fine gothic interior and the richest in gilding (in the chapels) we have seen to say nothing of the magnificent boiserie and painted glass –– in the Sycamore tree and our saviour seeing him and some little white sheep the best of the glass the King Chief canon and has stall never used – the exterior very plain – the two west towers small and poor and the west front spoilt by the putting on of a Corinthian façade –

a pretty esplanade and all the roads having fine avenues many handsome promenades – 2 places – town seems large and pretty good but irregular – the Gers here as every where a narrow inconsiderable river –

man chef de maison in Paris and going per Diligence proper cause taken up by the police for saying the King had left Paris – no papers since dated of Monday last –

very fine sunny morning sortie by nice level flat road thro’ fine avenue of elms along the foot of rounded hill, forming one side the widish fertile valley of various cultivation – hills covered with vines – too little wood for beauty don’t see the river (Gers) – farms – cottages – hedges – Fahrenheit 74 1/2 at 9 a.m.

road as yesterday stoned – mended with gravel– Vicnau single house (farm house like) – changed horses and off at 10 42/.. –

in 3 1/2 minutes after at the top of the hill immediately above Vicnau first view of the Pyrennees – Louisa with me – delighted – could not have distinguished them from clouds – a longish line – none but an eye accustomed to mountains in such distance could have distinguished them – distinguished the pic du Midi, and some snow-clad summits, but the snow not seeming to Extend far down –

Extensive view from Vicnau hill over undulating country parserné d’hibilations under vine and plough – very little wood but in fence rows good farm houses, and hamlets – the last stage rather hilly at last, and this stage very hilly look down nicely up Mirande and enter it by fine long avenue of elms, cross good stone bridge over yellow ochreous Baize, and mount mount steepish hill into the great (splashed yellow on white) goodish picturesque old town – houses projecting largish church –

Fahrenheit 80° at 11 3/4 in shade in the carriage, and 92° in the sun on the cap case –

ground place arcaded as, in Italy and large arcaded building – all the people marched in the middle in their Sunday clothes standing about – nothing particular in costume – Basque or Ayrshire caps often crimson very picturesque town – admire it much –

fine range of undulating country but tops of hills more – generally very pretty one half wooded – few vines – much corn – avenue of elms to some distance beyond the Town –

the language quite different from French today and yesterday – but French spoken to us – Provencale –

Fahrenheit 109° in the sun at 1 p.m.

very undulating stage – from 1 3/60 long straight road and the Pyrennees right ahead – the best view since Vicnau – but they are seen thro’ mist –

the latter 1/2 this stage more wooded than the former and pretty nice little town of Miélan celebrated for its mutton which however is not now so good since the hills have been defriché, which used to produce aromatic 2 herbs

obliged to wait till our horses bait – from 1 1/2 to 2 35/.. walk about – come to the little hotel dawdle – then (2 35/..) Louisa and I sit down to write – had just got comfortably writing when off at 2 57/.. – mud-splashed little town – fine view from the church yard of Pyrennees –

drag down long traversing steep descent out of the picturesque town into wide ascending plain not much wooded – I could sleep very well at such an Inn as where we have been sitting close to the post house –

Fahrenheit 90° in shade in the carriage at 3 10/..

fine view of the Pyrennees stretching along in the distance (left) – very fine country but the summits bare, the snow in patches and to me the mountains not to be compared with alps seen from Berne, or Soleure or Rigi Culm – more wooded and mountainous as we go along hardly at all out of foots pace – asleep a while –

about 3/4 hour from Miélan – look down upon rich green wooded dell – hill covered with brackens richly wooded mountain tops hills – in the distance long curving line of lower Pyrennees backed by the higher – for ever up and downhill but views of green-wooded vales and vine clad hills and wooded summits – fine air too –

Fahrenheit 103° in the sun now at 4 from the Top of hill at 4 7/.. high Pyrennees very fine – the mist so far clearer as to allow us to trace their outline nearer to the bottom – got out and walked 10 minutes down the hill – look down upon the little picturesque town of scattered village of Villecontal? and pass stone bridge over little river Esteux? vines and Indian corn – hedges all along more or less – high mountains (left) very fine on coming down upon Rabasteins more dun cows – not well built, but picturesque little town – all the people at their doors in Sunday clothes but no particular costume –

our 3 carriages (I first) all together quite a sight for them – large place municipale with large odd looking marché in the middle looking like 3 rows of great cart sheds covered in – being square not arcaded, as at Mirande –

Fahrenheit 89° in the sun at 5 1/4 p.m. – hedges – and alder hedges alongside the road – as we near the high Pyrennees they are are certainly fine but there is so little snow mere spots (taches) specks), here and there that I cannot compare them with the high alps – as a range of mountains of course nothing in Scotland can be other than miniatures compared with them, but Ben Nevis as a mountain looked as fine as any of them – the nearer I approach the high Pyrennees the less I compare them to the if now clad Alps – but they are better approached – seen to more advantage? where can one so go up to from a wide plain the chain of alps – these are like a fine cathedral built up – the others like a less fine cathedral in a beautiful close –

road very pretty some time before Tarbes between alder hedges, and woods the high Pyrennees right ahead of us – but oh! no more like alps – not like Mont Blancs – a perfect garden of mais, and vines creeping round fruit trees – pretty neat cottages straw thatched tiled a blue slated house if whitish stone or splashed – out on 1 long wide street with gardens interspersed in front and at the sides up the houses – very pretty and picturesque no! this is not Tarbes but the very pretty village (St. Terreol Auvilbeaux? Aureilhan) and from here the high Pyrennees seen from their feet and very fine – but have I not seen scenery near Snowdon as striking?

lovely evening – no snow hardly on them – we cannot surely see the highest tops – cross handsome stone bridge over broad but almost dry Adom – a mere shallow running stream over its gravelly bed –

very neat wide streeted town – large neat white washed, grande place – nice town had her done – walked out an hour to the cathedral and Prado – the fête of the tutelar saint – 2 fiddles and one clarionet and dancing – great many people in their best, quite gay – the Prado reminded Lady S– [Stuart] of the Enghi at Berne –

dinner at 8 1/2 – came to my room at 11 50/..

Lady S [Stuart] and I tete a tete from ten talking of different things shewing I was knowing enough and she not observation on the contents of Gibbons Rome and all sorts of things being put in Latin and Greek she evidently has no objection to my conversa tion and I see likes to have me as little later than her at Pau tomorrow as possible – very fine day –

left margin:

Capital Inn at Auch

Excellent grapes – the 1st excellent

there were a few little black grapes in the market at Tonneins once some little bad black ones –

peaches and pears and green gages the common fruit

6 50/..

2

Breakfast at 8 40/.. thought I had better send off my wine to England at once – Lady S– [Stuart] agreed – so give up my partnership in her order and determine give a separate one for myself –

Off from Montpellier at 9 22/.. – in about 1/4 hour cross narrow stone bridge over the river Lis not much water or much breadth just now –

Hotel du Midi Excellent – MontP– [Montpellier] a very nice town – streets very narrow – few of them in which 2 carriages can pass – and the places small but the houses good, and the town clean and I would rather live there than in any provincial town I have yet seen in France the Esplanade – and the Peyron are charming – the aqueduct and chateau d’eau very fine the country all around a garden of vines and olives –

Long avenue of Platanus from the town, and thorn hedges on each side the road – very dusty – heaps of well broken lime stone by the roadside to mend it with which must be ground to powder (white dust that so annoys one) in no time – the silvery green of the low-headed olives among the yellow vines, has a singular but not un pleasing effect – the environs of MontP– [Montpellier] are perfectly studded with neat white compagnes – no sea view – the road is too low – the Avenues pretty near along our left – here they use a low stony range (some covered with little fragments of whitish limestone as to look quite hoary and to prevent all verdure but little tufts here and there that perhaps might support a few sheep – like the first part of the ascent of Mont Perdu for stoniness and bareness now at 10 10/.. the hill (left) road side broken away and shews gravel in a red argillaceous sandy soil – a higher range the range of Cevennes is some lieues distant (left) and 1 or 2 of them rise above the rest (those finely seen from the Peyron at MontP– [Montpellier]) and are hoary tho’ streaked with dark green and are fine objects – columbières a small good willow – the soil all the way from Montpellier to ..…. is reddish rather loamy loamy or argillaceous than sandy – the colours of red bark (cinchona) from P– Perzuvian –

does Lady S [Stuart] begin to feel more at her ease with me? yesterday after dinner there was for the moment something playful in the manner in which she said I thought there was a blue sache for me and this morn ing at breakfast she seemed in good spirits and her manner was playful for a minute or two does she begin to like me? the children the servants all seem to like me better and I am certainly in Miss Hirriots good books

I can scarcely write it is everywhere so shaking over the dust-hid pave lovely day – but the rains will follow – no rain here these 7 months –

pass thro’ a new wide street at Lunel and see nothing of the old town – got out and walked forward in search of an Inn to buy Lunch at – found the post house changed – and the old one the Palais royal at the very other end of the town – 10 minutes and that after already waited as long, and the horses being out to made me give up my intention of going into the little old narrow-streeted town and we drove off without our wine – long avenue of platanus – one sees nothing but vineyard –

in 1/4 hour good (rather wider than usual hereabouts) 5 arched stone bridge over the muddy green stagnant looking Vidourle, and on a height (left) finely situated the large good looking village of Grand-Galargues – abundance of villages on the côte (range of low vine covered hill) left – and nice farm houses here and there –

Uchau seems a good modern village – pass thro’ 1 wide good street – in 1/2 hour pass thro’ the larger good village of Bernis – several villages all today, but have passed thro’ very few –

still a garden of vines and olives all the way to Nîmes – the côte covered with vines, villages, and white single houses near us (left) as we approach Nîmes which we enter at 2 35/ – Tricoloured flags hanging out from the houses – pass the amphitheatre in 5 minutes –

all out at 2 3/4 – at 4 50/.. chez Monsieur Perrot – see the dictionnaire des Beaux arts par Aubin L. Millin. Paris chez Desray rue Hautefeuille no. number 4 (1806) – saw the amphitheatre maison canée, and musée de Monsieur Perrot, and walked home by the boulevard, – great many people afloat – men’s minds under excitement – black crape over the Tricoloured cockade –

came in at 6 – Dinner at 6 1/4 – (no time to change my dress) – sat talking Till 12 50/.. at which hour came to my room – we had talked of the amulet phallus I was going to buy today and of a travelling companion she said a husband was the only one to whom I could say anything Humboldt would suit me no said I no foreigner but if I could meet with anyone like herself I should wish for no more she said nothing I wonder what she really thinks of me I said a husband would be an inconvenient companion the risk of half a dozen children a serious thing one could not stipulate against this beforehand then talked of religion and Miss Macls [Maclean’s] grieving over my laxity but when pothered on this subject could not resist seeming more so than I really was –

Very fine day much cooler than yesterday –

left margin:

accustomed to English people – good eating and very clean civil people

no view of the mediterranean from Montpellier to Nismes –

6 40/..

1 ½

out at 8 10/.. ancient professors from 1230 Henricus Deguintonia as many as 51 in one room among them Franciscus Rabelæsius 1537 – 67 in the 2nd room – among the latter Paulus-Joseph Barthez born 11 December 1734 obeo 15 October 1806 and Broussonet (Augustus) the great botanist obeo 28 July 1807 ætatis 45 – and Antonius Fizes obeo 14 August 1705 ætatis 76 the one who when all others failed cured the Dauphin à Paris – among the 67 tho‘ is La Peyronnet who a fait batir la bourse – and the uncle of Chaptal de Pais – Broussonet père et fils – cabinet d’anatomie or conservatoire a monstruosité joined by the end of the back bone – 4 legs 4 arms, 2 heads opposées – one hermaphrodite – femme avec a cancer – preparartions of the head and pudendum masculinum and femininum 2 Salles des tableaux Salle des Colonnes – vaulted – not even yet quite finished – il y manque 6 bustes – it is the passage to the amphitheatre – amphitheatre can contain jusqu’à mille hommes – the old chair fauteuil found dans des arènes de Nismes very interesting – white marble tool! but not polished – professor d’anatomie Monsieur de Brouille – the Salle de reception pictures of the 3 last professors that died 104 doctors made here last year –

went out at 1 35/.. – to Monsieur Lichtenstein – then to Ribau – there near a couple of hours – the drive to La Piscine jolie campagne (good house) belonging to Madame du Kellat, and where the sisters of Napoleon were during the 100 jours –

then in returning got out for near 1/2 hour to draw the aqueduct – then came at 5 20/.. to drive the chateaux d’Eau – very fine day – but cool air – cooler than yesterday –) bought each a little scent bag and for Lady S [Stuart] one at six francs during the minute or two we were alone told her of the wax hermaphrodite I saw this morning not living here now but not dead might have been examined for ten francs liked ladies or gentlemen but ladies better – the woman said there was one that had children – they were women for they had a matrix there was a little penis which filled up half the natural opening and left the rest small) for a man to enter at – more womans figure than a mans I think breasts?

Tokai 6 dozen (1/2 for AL Anne Lister at 6/. – 216 432/.

1 barrique St. Geoge, or 30 veltes, 300 bottles = 90/.

1 __ de cotes = 85/.

1/2 Muscat de Rivesalter = 162/50

1/2 ________ Frontignan = 100/.

1/2 ________ Lunel . = 100/.

Dinner at 6 – Monsieur Lichtenstein came between 7 and 8 and staid near an hour – the vintage of this year not an 8th of the usual recolte – the Tokay a very capricious wine – this we buy of 1819 has had none so good since – about 5000 protestants here and 15000 at Nismes – sat talk till 11 40/.. at which hour came to my room – very fine day – cooler than yesterday

Laffitte Medoc vineyard Bordeaux instead of about 150 tonneaux only 11 this year? – Laffitte vineyard instead of about 80 or 90 tonneaux only 8 this year?

the cathedral a large broad handsome nave with side chapels – curious great west Entrance under portico or porch supported by 2 enormous columns or round towers as high as the roof of the church itself – L’eglise de notre dame a large good nave with side chapels the inside whitewashed and neat – wherever there are protestants at hand, the Roman catholic churches are plainer and neater?

Monsieur Lichtenstein recommends us to see the Modèles en liège of the Nismes antiques of Monsieur Auguste Pellet (Péllette) négociant amateur, who will be très flatté de nous les faire voir

Monsieur L– [Lichtenstein] supplies the people here and at Paris and Petersburgh etc with the essences to many perfumes – 100 lbs. [pounds] flowers (all growing wild here ditto lavender, rosemary etc etc) to make 1/4 lb. [pound] essence – and Essence sold at 2 francs an oz. [ounce] – don’t gain by this except as it furnishes manure for the vines which is valuable here where they have no cattle – all this was done in a very small way till Monsieur L– [Lichtenstein] introduced cette industrie en grand – children gather the flowers – Tokay plants from Hungary – the ceps or off shoots do not produce the same wine – more like lunel –

left margin:

at the Ecole de medicine from 8 3/4 to 10 1/4 – the other Ecole de M– [Medicine] at Strasbourg –

along the foot way aqueduct 182 of the little arches

Tokay not like wine the 1st year or 2 – is quite Thick like a syrup that you could cut with a Knife –

5 3/4

1 1/2

– ready at 6 25/.. – off from Cette [Sète] at 6 50/.. – wanted to have gone to the village of Frontignan but the postillion said he could not – he should lose his place – his master would not like it – would be angry – it was defender by the inspecteurs – all nonsense ending with but he would go if I would pay him 6 postes and give him de l’avoine for his horses 1/2 way – no said I – suivez la ligne – la distance n’est que 4 postes – he would then gladly have had his 6 postes and gone the other way – but no! suivez la ligne – and away we came back to Gigean, where I gave him 25 sols per poste – we had been 17 minutes longer on the road than yesterday because he said of the montée – 12 minutes of great road after we left the Traverse to Cette [Sète] –

beautiful morning but cold till out of the sun – Fahrenheit 68° at 6 1/2 a.m.

on looking in getting into the carriage found George had broken my thermometer – the 2nd from the outside great Feuillet of the kind back spring broken – always some thing broken –

from Gigean (a small good village the mountains noire sweep off (left) in a widish circle seeming to wear themselves long before getting to the sea again there is a range of them nearish (right) the valley may 8 or 10? leagues wide we are almost galloping this post – still bare stony mountains – no wood – save a little brush wood here and there – a little low bush that I saw the baker having to burn at Cette [Sète] with a dark evergreen prickly little leaf like the very small leaf of a holly

one mountain range (left) seems backed by another and 2 or 3 mountains rise with a rugged rocky face much above all the rest – Fabrègues, a small good village – still a garden of vines – in about 10 minutes pass the very small river Mossomed over good stone bridge forming part of a handsome chausée over the little bit of flat – at 9 1/2 began to have not quite so many vines, and very few olives – and white mulberries – some parched up pastures and ploughed land and rows of trees – poplars – ash? willows elms –

at 9 40/.. pass meet 3 horse diligence to St. Serres – no view of the sea since Gigean – at 9 3/4 peep for about 20 minutes at the sea – and come upon more vines and a forest of olive trees – trunks 2, 3 to 4? feet circumference 1 foot from the ground all headed down to about 4 or 5 yards high or less?, and looking like round tables at the tops – several pieces of raised road chaussée over the little hollows or flats – fine rich vine and olive valley country down to the sea parseurie de polies campagnes – the sea like a great lake with flat shoes – even with the green sword no sands to be seen – merely when near a few yards of shallow, or dry sand or gravel as might be with any lake – no bold shore –

at 10 5/.. look down upon Montpellier thro’ long avenue of Platanus which with little interruptions we have had almost this 1/2 hour – some bigonias and acacias in it – at 10 1/4 enter Montpellier – Stop at the banker’s (Durand’s) at 10 25/.. – there 3 minutes to get the address of a coach maker (Walker a German derrière l’hotel du Midi) and back and alighted at the hotel du Midi at 10 35/.. – changed my dress – breakfast at 11 1/2 –

all went out 1 3/4 2 – to the Musée and cathedral – the botanic garden at 3 1/4 –

Sal piglosis ciliate, quite a new plant of this year

Mimosa Espandosa tamarindifolia

Coinvolvulus Hypomeea camoki annual – leaf like fine leaved mimosa – very pretty tubular crimson flower

Placandis Narcissæ minibus

Fasciolus Cavacolla (in the family of haricots) very pretty creeper – stem dies in winter – root lives –

Jinga biloba (larger tree) Chinese – Esturculia platanifolia (large tree) chinese –

Castor oil plant or ricinus a large 8 fingered leaf –

Cotonier leaf (trifid) like a large ivy

Hedysarum (annuelle) vespertilio leaf like a little brown butterfly –

Large magnolia with a seed like Indian corn –

Combretum purpureum (hot house) beautiful little crimson flowers –

Echinus mollis faux poivrier of Amerique, quite a tall shrub – leaves swim on water on account of the oil –

at the jardin till 4 40/.. callicarpa americana (en pleine terre) very pretty little clusters of purple berries round its little stem – then went to the pepinière – Quercus suber leaf very like of evergreen oak but rather smaller – large trees of quercus suber – the bark all in holes – Large cypress cyprès chauve (wood of trunk contorted) – in the bottom garden said to be older than Montpellier itself –

then went to the walk de Peyron? chateau d’Eau – aqueduct – can when clear see pyrenees, Alps, and Cavennes – then to Riban’s (who has a shop 14 rue de Rivoli Paris) perfumer’s – bought crême de rose 1/50 –

home at 6 1/2 – dinner at 6 3/4 – sat tête à tête from soon after 9 to 12 10/.. then came to my room – talked of Vere and Henry York and her marrying Mr Grego ry etc very fine day –

5 1/2

10 35/..

stood looking at maps – out at 7 1/2 for 3/4 hour –

to the cathedral – very neat plain white washed church within – broad handsome nave with side chapels – and windows of the apsis painted glass – 3 double Corinthian columns (red with white veins marble) on each side the chancel and high altar finished at each end towards the nave with 1 Corinthian column and one ditto pilaster – great many pictures none very good – but some tolerable –

then stood looking at the fine view from the rampant on Esplanade at the back of the cathedral broad street from which Nazarin steps down to the river and by which we came –

the river broad and beautiful mills upon it and an artificial cascade very picturesque with the road winding up to the town the bridge narrow but 5 I think arches over the river and 5 more for level’s sake over the lower to raise the road to the level of the bridge – just see the 5 ecluses that we left about a couple of hundred yards on our right near to the town on coming – could trace the line of canal by the trees almost by the Montagne percée which is near Nissan and for paying our Extra post one might have turned left and seen – the mountains we had on our left and that were close to us soon after Narbonne are the mountains noires which join the Cevennes –

got a young man to go with me to the remains of the amphitheatre – tout près de la fontaine and the hotel de la Croix blanche – perhaps some of the arches form the stables of the hotel – went a little lower down in the town – all the remains is a part of a sort of vault in which the people have made pigsties and wine cellars – 2 men in a wine tub treading out the Frontignan – tasted juice as it trickled from the tub – very good – the next process would be to le faire repasser (strain it) –

Bezières really a little town worth seeing – streets narrow and several little places and several Inns – but none of the last good for the hotel du nord (the best – that we were at) is merely a cabàret as to comfort – we were very ill attended upon – I never had a worse dinner or so bad in all my riding tour – good bread and milk this morning – the hotel du nord is on one immense place not built upon –

Lady S–‘s [Stuart’s] coach wheels wanted 2 or 3 hours’ repairing – doubt whether she would go to Cette [Sètte] – at last decided not – from Beziers look down upon fine rich vine plain –

Lady S– [Stuart] thought the winding up to the town last night – the river – the cathedral to the top – the altogether would have made very near as good a picture as Heidelberg – (C– [Charlotte] said there were many tamarisks yesterday)

our country today quite flat but road lies thro’ a garden of vines and olives and a few mulberries and almonds the soil is light, reddish-sandy-clayey the colours of Cheshire red sand stone – in places a little gravelly – and in places little pits by the road side of a conglomerate of gravel cemented by this red clayey sandy soil – the vines are low, and no where supported by anything anywhere hereabouts never since Toulouse and before –

fine view of the mediterranean glittering like a sheet of polished silver at 10 minutes from Béziers – the mountains noires 12 or 14 leagues from B– [Béziers] as my friend whom I met at the cathedral walk Told me – they form a fine wavy line of boundary all along our left but thro’ rocky and bare are of only moderate height – very few horses here – almost all mules for draught – fonts and wagons full of baskets of grapes – a few people gathering grapes, but the vintage nearly over, and the grapes almost all on the road or in the press – (the skins of the grapes are dried, and used for fuel) –

Bégude de Jordy a 3 story house and good very pretty garden, – with several fountains – Degheendoole is the name as pronounced of the plant tree producing the berries like large round haps and haws they gave us for dessert yesterday and that I saw in the market at Narbonne – was once a handsome chateau – with fine avenues, in a charming country with everything to make it agreeable – here one begins to see the plants of a pays chaud – and all about here seems a little wooded – great many poplars – here the olive trees are a good size perhaps as much as 2 feet circumference at 2 feet from the ground a few oliviers with fruit on – and at 10 1/2 a fig tree by the road side – (plenty of tamarisk today) and begun with others perhaps 8 inches or more circumference – quite little trees – among the olives, – and descend into the rich wide Extended valley or plain of the river of St. Michel – quite a garden of vines and olives road shaded here by avenue of platanus – the little côtes or hills all covered with vine and olive – the former yellow (golden) the latter silvery green – silver – but clouds of dust as yesterday – delightful fresh air – Fahrenheit now (10 40/.. a.m.) 64° out of the sun on the carriage seat –

at Pezenas at 11 6/.. seems a nice little town – Lady S– [Stuart] out of sight – gone to the hotel – I drove to the post and off as soon as I could for Mèze whence as they say I ought to turn off for Cette [Sète] without going to Gigean – nice look back upon the town with its 2 or 3 churches? village of Gabian and Mont St. Loup all too far out of my way –

about 10 minutes from the town beautiful piece of new road a Chaussée over the flat – on low arches – from 10 to 15 but from the ground? about 5 or 600 yards long and about 30 feet wide up to the 4 or 5 arched narrow bridge over the broad handsome river Herault Hérault the Chaussée continues a considerable distance beyond the bridge still on arches (but they are rather more distant) till it wears itself out – the flat looks reddish soil here – the hills look of white sandy nature – no appearance of having been rain here for long – none at Beziers these 7 weeks – the Chaussée by about 1 1/2 feet high Thick Square poste about every 6 yards – capital job – avenue of platanus again – poplar mulberry, and a few elms and ashes the last pruned quite bare, and some appearance of woodiness vines and olive

at 11 50/.. the little town of Montagnac – here as every where busy wine-making – at 12 10/.. the sea seems near and Fahrenheit 84° in the sun – rather jolting road – ‘Tis indeed the blue mediterranean the little Town of Mèze close its shore – just pass round the end of the town and off for Gigean – the coast very low – what are those white things (like houses) I saw from long before arriving at Mèze? good view of Cette [Sète] all along, and towns and villages and vineyards down to the water’s edge Enface the mountagnes noires (near) seem to dip down into the sea –

Gigean a little town much like the last – In turning the carriage after the horses were put to, the off horse got fast and great piece of work to get him loose again – had him to lift up with staup – the mountains noire double the Town to fall into the sea below it – the round tower of an old castle on the mountain just above the town – Deluged with dust – can see nothing for it –

written upside down:

9 to 10 5/.. B– [Béziers] to La Bégude de Jordy 1 3/4 poste 11.40

10 10/.. to 11 6/.. La B– [Bégude] de J– [Jordy] to Pézenas 1 1/4 poste 8.00

11 1/4 to 1 7/.. P– [Pézenas] to Mèze . . 2 1/4 post 14.00

1 1/4 to 2 23/.. M– [Mèze] to Gigean . . 1 1/2 post 9.75

(G– [Gigean] to Fabrègues . 1 post)

(F– [Fabrègues] to Montpellier . 1 1/2 post)

2 3/4 to 4 Gigean to Cette [Sète] . 2 post

13.00 to the young man who shewed me) the ruins of amphitheatre Beziers)

0.50 to the man who went about with me)

at Cette [Sète] from 4 1/2 to 7 . .)

1.00 to the mistress of the Grand Galien)

Cette [Sète] for dinner and lodging tonight)

10.00 myself and 2 servants . .)

Off from Gigean to Cette [Sète] at 2 3/4 a garden of vines and olives here as elsewhere all today and yesterday from Narbonne the route de Traverse very near as good as the grande route – Tis in fact 1 1/2 poste but I must pay 2 poste – pass close under the mountains noires all covered with little fragments of rock that give them that sterile hoary appearance in fragments the colour of Cheshire red sandstone white lime stone wall along the road side – singular drive amid vines and lime kilns (not burning and limestone walls) and hoary limestone covered mountains and the dark blue meditteranée en face with here and then a snow white sail quite in the distance and what town at a little distance (left) – here and there a man earthing up the vines – a vineyard unreaped – the grapes lie as it were in one large solid mass about the bottom of the vine –

delightful fresh breeze from the sea or the sun would be intolerably hot – I feel it burning my face even in spite of the air – pass over long bridge (about 50? arches) over the shallow and pass the handsome canal (left Lyons right Toulon Canal winds (right) along the bridge pont de Parade into Cette [Sète] – and a fine chausée turns at right angles from the end of a fine bridge (right) to Cette Sète, all along the canal just parted from the Lagune by a narrow stripe of brush-wooded ground enlarging towards the foot of the hill at the foot of which stands Cette [Sète] –

a narrow stripe (left) parts us from the other side the Lagune See the Pyrenees thro’ the haze (to the right en face) – and the 2 mammelons of Caingon? Largish looking town – the citadel on the bow of the wine clad hill above, and behind it –

arrived at 4 – the Grand Galion is but a cabaret, but my room is tolerable and a gentleman is Turned out for me that I know my bed will be aired – went out at 4 1/2 and came in at 6 55/.. – went to the Tour des pilotes at the top of Mont St. Clare whence is made the best wine de ces pays – fine view of the sea and salines Towards Perfingnan (too hazy to see the Pyrenees) and of the Town –

then to the port and to the magasin of Monsieur Durand and of Monsieur Lichtenstein at the latter saw in one tonneau 3486 veltes

1 velte = 7 litres – (Monsieur St. Paire showed me over the establishment)

and of 3580 veltes – each ton contains 120 barriques

1 barrique = 60 Gallons English – a hogshead from 20/. carriage from here to Bordeaux and perhaps 20 Shillings from Bordeaux to London

4 hogsheads = 1 tonneau – the great tons called foudres

Par barrique 2/50 from here to Marseilles

100/. from M– Marseilles to Paris par terre

25/. from M– Marseilles to P– [Paris] par Havre and Rouen par barrique 20/. Tout droit d’ici à Paris par Havre et Rouen –

tasted the Ribesalter and Tokay – both excellent former a pleasanter wine to me – tho’ other excellent –

Monsieur St. P– [Paire] gave me a small Escallop shell found at the Salière – they send them to Germany to be arranged for saving oysters – Saw oysters just taken here – great large rocky thick shelled things –

home at 6 50/.. dinner at 7 10/.. – discussion about the price agreed for – would make me pay 1/50 more for George – Got cross about it – then afterwards talked the woman over and very good friends – Told her how we had been cheated yesterday morning 30/. for breakfast – she owned that 2/. was the common price for breakfast and 2/50 for dinner and 3/. for supper and bed – had Cameron in at 9 20/.. – then slept a little till near 10 – very fine day

Fahrenheit 68° now at 10 p.m. – In bed at 10 35/..

left margin:

Fahrenheit 68° at 7 a.m. Bezières. (to hazy to see the mediterranean

saw the top of Canigon with its 2 mammelons. Itinerary midi page 404.

vines looking very like little currant bushes –

S then an avenue of poplars, and then platanus again almost to Pezenas

St. Gabian vide Richard page 333

Herault river at Pezenas

about 10 minutes returning the same road as we came –

6000 casks chez Durand

this discussion to be entered in Travelling journal – it is not entered in private journal

6 10/60

9 1/2

Breakfast at 8 in the public room – hardly any 1 but ourselves Mrs and Miss B– [Barlow] had only just gone when a gentlemanly enough and intelligent man came and ordered his breakfast near me – he has been all over Switzerland – went to the top of Mont Blanc 2 years ago – Except for the interest of going to the hospice, thinks the Time lost in going to the Great St. Bernard – the new route to the top of Mont Blanc only discovered this summer – a party going up, on coming to an immense crevasse were thus obliged to turn to the left out of the usual route – well for them – they had only just got out of the way when there came down one of the largest avalanches ever known which must have inevitably swept them all into the crevasse – have sounded it, but could find no bottom – it was into this the 3 guides were hurled 6 years ago – certainly the danger of avalanches is now greatly avoided, but there is still danger and Excessive fatigue – (the danger is beyond the grand mulet) – would advise to go no farther then the grand mulet) – fatigue and adventure and view enough in getting so far – did not think himself repaid at the top of Mont B– [Blanc] – he had written a little pamphlet on the subject for the benefit of the guides who went with him – his name Shirwell (Captain) – called here (said Mrs B–‘s [Barlow’]s guide) Captain Mont Blanc – bought the pamphlet at the little book seller’s? and naturalists shop close to the Inn –

all 3 mounted on our mules and off at 8 55/60 from the Union, Chamonix, with our guides Michel Carrier No. [Number] 15, Matthew Balmat No. [Number] 16 (son to the Pierre Balmat who went up with Saussure, and had himself been up 5 times) and Michel Balmat (but the same as the last tho’ no relation) No. [Number] 18 – No. [Number] 17 Engaged constantly by Captain Shirwell who not married, lives with his father and mother at Fontainebleau –

of the 2 hotels at Chamonix, the Union, and the hotel de Londres, the former is the larger and considered the first but the other is said to be equally comfortable – both full of English – somehow, we have no great fancy for the Union – bread made of yeast, dark columns, and not good – dinner cold – no good bread since Geneva –

En passant (opposite the bureau of the guide chef) inquired the name and address of the naturalist, cousin to my guide (Michel Carrier) of whom I bought the amethyst on arriving – direct to him ‘Michel Carrier, marchand naturaliste, à Chamonix’ my guide says he is very clever – would be just the person I should wish to have on an instructive tour among the neighbouring alps –

Rode 17 minutes till 9 12/60 and then dismounted, finding the motion of the mule fatiguing – cross the Arve (plank bridge) pass thro’ the villages of les Tines and Argentière, recross the Arve over another plank, bridge, leave the route (right) across the col de Balme, and make for the Tete noire –

at 11 12/60 pass the boundary stone (a huge mass of rock (right) having a smaller mass seated on the top of it) into the valley of Valorsine – wild savage scenery – clouds along the mountains – Mont Buet envelopped – could not see him – after Mont Blanc, the best view from Mont Buet – should stay at Chamonix 3 days (independent of 3 for Mont Blanc) 1 for Montanvert and the jardin – another for the Breven – another for the Buet – a 4th day would do for seeing the 2 passes of the col de Balme and the tête noir – the former celebrated (said Captain Shirwell for its fine views down into the valleys below –, being all along on the heights – along the latter you are more in the bottoms – a little misty rain on descending into the little village of Trelechent but fortunately the rain held off, the mists cleared and we had a very fine day –

at 12 10/60 2 or 3 cottages – leave Mrs and Miss B– [Barlow] send my mule forward with them, take my guide, and make straight up the hill to see the cascade particularly recommended by Captain Shirwell – the lower and smaller one seen quite well from the road – this higher and finer one very imperfectly seen from the road –

after a warm scrambling along a path only frequented by the peasants, got to the cascade at 12 40/60 – ‘tis a fall of the river Noire down the Montagne de Barbeline du val Valorsine – according to my guide the fall about 150 feet – sun shining – beautiful iris formed by the spray – the water falls from almost the top of the mountain (or of this ledge of the mountain) into a deep cleft – La plus belle cascade qui j’ai encore vu? – left it at 12 3/4 – got into the road again a little beyond where I left it, in 14 minutes –

at 1 20/60 cross new wooden foot or mule bridge (peeled trees laid across the water fasted together with a railing) over river Noire at the other end of which bridge (Pont de Lilla or de-voire) is the boundary stone between the Valorsine en Savoire and the Valais en Suisse – From this bridge begins the most picturesque part of the route – for a considerable distance along the bottom of the valley thro’ a pine wood along the Noire –

at 1 13/60 pass thro’ the fort du Chatelas (according to my guide du Temps des Romains) but apparently a little bit of walling, and a little round tower of common stones without mortar apparently anything but antique –

at 1 20/60 after having again crossed as before wooden bridge over the Noire, began to ascend thro’ a pine forest what is called the tête noire – not long after pass the pierre on vocher des Anglais, a large mass of impending rock bought by Lord Porthington? Lady Guildford and 1 or 2 more on their return from Italy apparently for the purpose of inscribing their names, and a little moralization and dressed as a sort of sister viator to Travellers – a longish inscription I had not time to read leisurely, much less to copy –

at 2 34/60 at the end of what they call the tête noire, a steep, steppy, frightful road for mules, yet Mrs and Miss B– [Barlow] up or down had never once dismounted – I had not given them credit for courage enough to climb up such a path on any legs but their own – but the mules were good – the little bit of road just on turning along the valley of Trient (to the right) called the Mauvais Pas because formerly a narrow difficult track without any guard from the steep, deep, frightful precipice down to the river Trient below is now one of the best bits of the road having been carried a little below the old and being made perhaps as much as 5 feet (English) wide –

got to the Auberge at the little village of Trient at 2 34/60, 5 or 6 minutes after the arrival of Mrs and Miss B– [Barlow] Excessively heated – a bed in one little room – (put on my great coat) Threw myself upon it immediately took 2 or 3 cups of boiled milk, then as many glasses of hot red wine and water while Mrs and Miss B– [Barlow] dined – up at 3 53/60 –

off from Trient at at 4 10/60 – my guide leading my mule, determined to try if I could not walk to Martigny – or how could I get to the Top of Mont Blanc? still a continued steep ascent up traverses for 25 minutes very fatiguing to keep pace with mules that always walk faster up hill than down or on flat ground – the guides had said it was an ascent of 1/2 hour, and we had done it in 5 minutes under the time –

at 4 50/60 see the Rhone and the Valais – went faster than the mules down hill and at 6 20/60 got to the Grande Maison hotel, Martigny (Mrs B– [Barlow] not wishing to go again to the Tour where I had been so worried by bugs) – 5 or 6 minutes before Mrs and Miss B– [Barlow] went immediately to the guide Chef ordered 2 mules and saw the guide we are to have to the Great St. Bernard tomorrow – (no ladies’ saddles to be had at Liddes) –

Dinner at 7 1/2 – very fine day –

7 3/4

10 40/60

Breakfast at 9 in the public room – at 10 1/2, 3 guides and as many mules, and off to the Mer de glace –

at 12 stopt to let the mules drink at the Fontaine des Caillés 1/2 way –

at 12 much Rododendron (rose des alpes) what we saw so beautifully in flower –

at 12 1/2 arrived at the pavilion (maison des plaisirs) at the top of Montanvert – several goats about, and a shepherd there all the day – very arduous ascent – formerly one could only go about 2/3 the way on mules – obliged to walk the rest – about 2 years ago the path made up to the Top – Took all the 40 guides 100 days labour – the pavilion a little room where one Takes refreshments, the provisions one takes up, tho’ there are cupboards there full of bread and wine – magnificent mountain scenery – looking Towards the Mer de Glace (in front of us, and on the east side of the Mer) L’aiguille de Bonchard, then ditto de druis, ditto rectes, ditto du Moine (behind which is le jardin, 5 hours ascent from the pavilion and 3 hours to return), then la petite Jorasse, then the grand ditto, then the Tacul, then the aiguille du géant, ditto des Charmots – ditto du Grepon – the behind one is the aiguille du Bletière – all these are the chain of mountains that one sees round the mer de Glace –

off to it from the Pavilion at 12 40/60 – went above 200 Toises (about 1/4 mile English upon the ice – no idea it was great an Exertion – the iron heels of my boots very slippery – I could scarce keep foot-hold at all in ascending and descending the very steep parts – the mer de Glace Extends 12 lieues in length – consideringly less in breadth just under the pavilion within these 4 years – the large blocks of granite one sees now left bare at the margin called in the country patois moraines – brought away a small piece – called the mer de Glace down to about as far as the Chapeau, a very little knoll with a few (7 or 8) larches upon it, which we afterwards saw in descending le chemin de la figlia down upon the source of the Arveron – called the glacier des bois from where the ice becomes more level, which descends almost close upon the village des bois – gained ground upon it till within this last year or 2 – (but is now losing ground and becoming smaller – one can get very easily to the Chapeau to look down upon the mer de glace) but must there cross it to get to Montanvert – the crystals are found 7 lieues from Montanvert at the very foot of the needles – dangerous going there on account of the stones that fall from the needles – l’aiguille de Druis the finest in the whole chain of alps – One ought to go to the top of Mont Breven (4 hours to ascend and 3 to descend) for the finest view of mont Blanc –

In returning from the mer de Glace at 1 18/60 sat a little while on the Pierre des Anglais, – and then ascended by a longer but much less steep path then we had descended – a Frenchman and his wife and little boy who had breakfasted this morning at one of the Table d’hôte while we breakfasted at the other were dining or eating their provision at the pavilion – we had ours (I took very little) and we all became very cozy – They were going down to the source of the Arveron – we went too – the man at the pavilion was very well satisfied with a franc each of the 2 parties –

off at 2 35/60 – not time to send our mules round – they went down before us – very steep – much worse than the way we had come – quite impossible to go it on mules – wonder how the animals could get down – 1 of the guides led one and the other 2 followed – 1/2 down heard the thunderous fall of an avalanche –

at the bottom of this Chemin de la Montagne de la figlia at 4 10/60 – the fine cascade from the glacier des bois forming the source of the Arveron we had seen almost as well en montant this morning – the fine vault there was under the ice in the month of July now quite destroyed by the heat of the summer – sauntered about admiring the fine view of the Aiguille de Druis, and then down the valley to Prieuré – we found the French man sketching the mer de Glace – we left him sketching along the Arveron, crossed the broad bed of Debris to the other side the valley and set off home at 4 10/60 – I was very hot, so had my mule led, and walked to the end of Prieuré where I mounted merely for the sake of riding up to the Inn where we alighted at 5 1/4 –

Mrs B– [Barlow] foot sore from descending the Chemin de la figlia, and both she and Miss B– [Barlow] very much fatigued – I not fatigued at all – in mounting this morning rode à la califourchon up the roughest and steepest ascents and thus saved both myself and mule Exceedingly –

spoke to my guide seriously about my liking to ascend Mont Blanc next year – too late this year – there had been fresh snow – danger of avalanches – Jane’s guide brother to 1 of the 3 guides who perished 6 years ago – the guides (9 of them) were unwilling to go – knew the danger but Dr. Hamel (a Russian gentleman with him) would go – an avalanche swept them all away, but the 3 guides that were 1st were hurled into a crevasse, and never heard of more – the rest of the party then returned, not having much more than 1/2 way to the top – 1 of the guides that perished was particularly averse to go – he had been up 11 times before – but Dr. H– Hamel persisted – they discovered a new path about a year ago, by which the danger from avalanches is mainly avoided – the danger now is from ‘fausses ponts’, crevasses covered over with snow – these on the glacier beyond the grand mulet – they go all tied together by cords, that if anyone falls in they can pull him out – July the best month this, and perhaps the beginning of August the only time – but one should not go after the fall of fresh snow – 6 guides for 1 person – 9 Ditto for 2 persons – 90/. per guide, and feed them, but 100/. per guide will pay all – ladders, keep, tout compris - 3 days work – I must sleep 1 night under the rock of the grand mulet – The father of Mrs B–‘s [Barlow’s] guide was 1 of the 17 guides with Saussure – (slept 3 nights on the summit and 14 on the grand mulet), and by sleeping in the cold got a rheumatism he never cast, and was never able to walk much afterwards – for some time before he died (only a year ago) could not move a limb in bed – no stranger lady has ever been at the top – but a woman from this valley has – the 1st man who went up (from this valley) went up by himself and was 2 nights at the top by himself – not long before Saussure went up –

to make the Tour of the Alps hereabouts would take one 14 or 15 days – long to steal away next summer and do it –

Last night very cold – hard frost – had spoilt all the potatoes that were just beginning to do well after the rain – great loss to the people – grow corn enough except for finer white bread, and this comes from Salanches and Bonneville – Have no mares (so do not breed mules) buy them young at Salanches – mine cost £15, Jane’s £17. Mrs B–‘s [Barlow’s] £20 – no cretins here – very fast goitres – the valley very healthy – shed the junction of the Arve and Arveron – both streams milky from the white sand (decomposed granite fine as dust, – quite white) brought down from the mountains – huge masses of granite (moraines) near the cascade – granite boulder and debris spread widely over the valley –

Dinner (table d’hôte) from 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 – between 20 and 30 people? – all very respectable looking – did not speak to any of them – came upstairs to write – very fine day –

40 guides. each one pays (on being enrolled) 400 to the Chief guide pour son traitement (for his maintenance – he never leaves his bureau), and afterwards 5 sols for every course or job which goes or is to go towards a general fund for the relief of infirm guides – may be serving guide till 60 – 1st and 2nd class of guides – but all paid the same – only that of the most intelligent a certain no. [number] are called the 1st class – 24 porters these too divided into 1st and 2nd class – rank below the guides, but whenever a guide’s place is vacant, Tis filled up from among the porters – a lady and gentleman carried over the tête noir this morning to Martigny – 6 porters per person –