About two miles from the Falls of Lodore we
arrived at the famous Bowder Stone. We had passed many crags and through
bewitching scenery, but we were absolutely astonished at the size of
this great stone, which Wordsworth has described as being like a
stranded ship:
Upon a semicirque of turf-clad ground,
A mass of rock, resembling, as it lay
Right at the foot of that moist precipice,
A stranded ship with keel upturned, that rests
Careless of winds and waves.
[Illustration: THE BOWDER STONE.]
The most modest estimate of the weight of the Bowder Stone was 1,771
tons, and we measured it as being 21 yards long and 12 yards high. This
immense mass of rock had evidently fallen from the hills above. We
climbed up the great stone by means of a ladder or flight of wooden
steps erected against it to enable visitors to reach the top. But the
strangest thing about it was the narrow base on which the stone rested,
consisting merely of a few narrow ledges of rock. We were told that
fifty horses could shelter under it, and that we could shake hands with
each other under the bottom of the stone, and although we could not test
the accuracy of the statement with regard to the number of horses it
could shelter, we certainly shook hands underneath it.
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