LAKE COUNTRY RAMBLES.* Mu. PALMEE occupies himself with three subjects,

which may be named Sport, Nature, Country Life, in the second being included Fell-walking, Mountaineering, Crag-climbing.

That these three overlap one another it is scarcely necessary to say. Indeed, one of Mr. Palmer's most attractive qualities as a writer is the art with which he combines them. As for sport, by which, at the present, we mean angling, the ordinary visitor does not form a high opinion of the capabilities of the Lake Country in this respect. He comes at the wrong time, a time which would be bad if he had the whole place to himself, and is made worse by the crowds that come with him; and he for the most part tries only over-fished waters where the intelligence of the fish is educated up to the very highest point of its capacity. The " Rambler " is not one of this multitude. He is country-born, and he knows the country ways. Two of his angling experiences are of a kind that some fishermen may pass their lives without having. In " When the Sea-trout Run" he tells us how he and a companion left their inn at midnight to fish the lower pools of a river, which he prudently omits to name. There was a spate at hand, for there had been rain, and it was well to be ready for the newly run fish. Early as they were, however, they were not to have " first blood " :-

" We had been fishing some time when there was a quiet whistle, and an otter emerged from its holt in the heather-clung and aspen-crested pile of rocks. Without raising a splash or a ripple the animal took the water. Had we desired it, there was no opportunity to seek cover without warning it of our presence, so, rod in hand, we stood, remaining unperceived because of the dark masses of wood and fell at our back, while the otter swam about the pool, rising and diving, swimming and floating, grace- ful and silent in every evolution as a fish. Another whistle ; from a lower pool its mate replied. The otter turned, and, unseen in the shadow, passed us with the stream. Just behind us there was a slight struggle and splashing; the creature had met and captured its first sea-trout of the season. In the mellow mid- night we saw it bring its prey ashore, and eat it ; then, slipping back into the water, the otter again disappeared, though at intervals its whistle sounded up the water."

Then came the angler's turn. When the pool by which they stood bad risen some two feet, the first sea-trout came to hand, and at dawn, which so far north could not have been far distant

—we do not ask for place, but we might have had time—the " Rambler's " companion had six fish, and he, as he tells with a pride which it is impossible to conceal, sixteen. Of weight he says nothing, but if they were of decent size it was a bag which, common enough forty years ago, would now be an

event. But there was more to come. Brown trout were caught with a worm—our angler is no purist—at a burn- mouth, and a big pike, hostis humani generis, dragged out of the water. Before this, however, another fisher, a heron, had

come upon the scene, and not come in vain. It was indeed " a splendid experience of fishing and the waterside at night." How many people have made such a bag, and seen an otter and a heron at work • between mid- night and breakfast ? The second adventure, too, is not of the common kind, "Tarn-Fishing by Moonlight." Here the places are named Stiokle Tarn, Codale Tarn, both tried with but little success, and finally Easedale Tarn, Where with,

a courteous kindness certainly deserving of reeord, they had the use of a boat secured by another • party of anglers pressed upon them. Here good sport was found. This, time, *Lake Cduntnj Bansbia, , By Winiaza:.T...,Pshum Cbatio.

wiattue. Coal too, an otter was seen, but he was not an honest fisher in fur, but a detestable poaching device locally called a "lath," a weight board to which flies on lengths of gut are fastened.

The chapter has some noticeably fine pictures of scenery :—

" The pale crags of Pavey Ark sheered up above steely-blue water, their skyline standing clear against the darkening, star- spangled blue. The shades in this rock-bound recess gradually thickened into darkness, though the surface of the tarn—like a mirror—reflected every moment more strongly the night-glow rising on the northern horizon. A great peace seemed to close around, and soon the silence was only broken by the splash as an occasional trout leapt to the banquet of night-flies, and by the tinkle and gurgle of tiny mountain streams. A strange restless- ness possessed me, and I rambled about the hillside bordering the tarn, crossing many dry, rough watercourses, and passing through wide-spreading beds of moist bracken. Then the sharp summit to my right drew attention. It was Harrison Stickle, the highest of the Langdale Pikes, and on the moment I decided to extend my prowl to its top Ten minutes' climb brought me to the cairn. What a splendid view there was ! In the gray light, on all hands, tumbled gray mountain masses appeared ; the valleys were completely hidden by long narrow clouds of night mist, and even the damp patches on the moors were canopied with shifting white vapour."

Fox-hunting in these regions is a warfare rather than a sport, and a warfare without chivalrous conditions. Anything more curiously unlike a day with the Pytchley or the Vale of White Horse than "A Summer Fox-Hunt" could hardly be imagined. Some thirty pedestrians with fifty dogs—hounds, collies, terriers, and "curs of low degree "—start before dawn to compass the death of a well-known marauder who had scoured the country far and wide to find food for his vixen and cubs. This may be thought a lawful occupation, but the owners of lambs and chickens would hardly agree ; and then the fox aggravates his offences by wasteful slaughter. It is difficult not to believe that he slays for the love of slay- ing. After a story which is anything but the story of a run, Reynard meets his end by being shot on a ledge of rock, and falling in his struggles over a precipice of three hundred feet.

Of " fell-walking " in various forms and at various seasons our author has much to say and many fascinating descrip- tions to give. Indeed, the pedestrian in the Lakes, if he has the good fortune not to be bound by times and seasons, has a field for his amusement that can hardly be matched elsewhere.

The very smallness of the region is greatly in his favour.

Quite large enough to exercise his powers to the full, it furnishes an incomparable variety of scene within a very limited compass. The writer of this review remembers to this day his first Lake Country walk, taken more than half a century ago, which had this quality of variety in perfection.

Beginning just outside the Lake District, it lay across Shap Fells, from Shap to Bampton, from Bampton by Hawes Water Beck to the foot of Hawes Water, thence along the right-hand bank of the lake to Mardale Green. From Mardale Green came the climb of Sidsty Pike, and the descent by Hayes Water and Hartsop into Patterdale, and so down

to the village of that name. There was nothing here to try endurance or agility, but it was a walk to be remembered, and, above all things, for this same quality of variety. Mr.

Palmer has many expeditions, made at all seasons and all hours, to describe. He is an admirable guide; only most will have to follow hand passibus aequis, nor would a little caution be out of place. When we come to crag-climbing we hardly know what to say. The frontispiece to the volume is a quite appalling picture of the Napes Needle, in the Wastwater region. To climb it seems like climbing the front of a house.

It looks as if one false step would mean certain death, and probably in many, if not in most, places it would. In the capital qualities of difficulty and danger the Caucasus and the Alps yield, it would seem, to Cumberland and Westmoreland. Avalanches, crevasses, treacherous snow-bridges are not here ; but for sheer risk such climbs as the Pillar Rock near Enner- dale cannot be matched. The casuistry of the matter is not without difficulty. Is an amusement justifiable which depends for its charm mainly on the danger to life ? What should we say to an association in the Black Country which, debarred from mountaineering, should take to climbing factory chimneys or church steeples ? As a trial and exercise of strength, courage, and coolness, it would be admirable. Would it be lawful P Yet, after all, strip the crag-climbing of its picturesque accesseties, and it comes to-much the "same thing. But we

have no. Irish to give judsleat. Res pendet.

Among the various themes which fall under the heading of country life, shepherding occupies a prominent place. Mr.

Palmer describes himself as " born of a long line of shepherds," and he does well to magnify their office. We saw and commented not long ago on a comparison between the Eastern and the Western shepherd, in which the latter was very much disparaged. If any one has been misled by such idle talk, let him read " Shepherding on the Fells in Winter." The difficulty of the situation is that, in view of the narrow limits of the food supply, the flocks have to be kept on the fells, not indeed on the highest ground, but in places which are dangerously exposed, as long as it can possibly be done. And the danger is not for the sheep only, or even chiefly for the sheep, but for the men, as this chapter abundantly shows. We cannot follow the narrative, but what could be more dramatic than this P When we have heard how the flock had been gathered in without loss in the face of a violent snow-storm, and how the shepherd, had been round to see that all his fellows had been equally successful, we read the farmer's tale of a less happy incident. A shepherd's wife, finding that the sheep and the dogs had come back without her husband, started, with the dogs to guide her, in search of him. She searched till her strength was exhausted, and just managed to win home,—and then the tale is interrupted by the clamour of the dogs :—

"The kitchen-door was opened wide, and in the fold, half blinded by the sudden glare in his face, stood the white-shrouded figure of a man. He walked wearily towards us, and half fell with fatigue as he crossed the threshold. A dozen hands were at work instantly stripping off his outer garments, when one of our men recognised him as a shepherd belonging to Moresdale. How came you here ' was the question. ' Are you alone ? ' Half dazed by the sudden transference from griping cold to genial warmth, the man did not for a few moments answer. Then he related how at dawning he had set off to bring down his sheep; how, when his work was almost through, the storm had burst; how he tried in vain to get down to the farms ; and how, in the darkness, he missed even his dogs. After this, gradually losing strength, he had ploughed for hours through the raging storm. Once he came to where a cliff fell steeply away. Again and again he had reached wire fences, and followed them awhile, only to lose their guidance at some deep, wide drift. For at least an hour, he thought, he had walked about a field near by, seeking to reach an illusory light. At last he heard our dogs bark."

He had narrowly missed being a victim, and so had at least one other on the same awful night. As for the sheep, besides the help and guardianship of these brave and skilful men, and of the wonderful dogs, they have no little power of resistance to hardship and of recovery.

Perhaps the most tragical chapter in the volume is No. 8, " Over the Sands." In former days this was the regular route for those who had to make their way across Furness. Other ways—the Ulverston and Lancaster Railway among them—

have since been provided, but there is still a local use of this route.

We take leave of Mr. Palmer's volume with hearty thanks for the enjoyment which it has afforded.