My dear Mrs Pollock,
We have had two such jolly days! On Wednesday2 the anger of the weather rained itself all away, and on Thursday3 we started from Windermere4 and made our way along the magnificent ridge of Fairfield5 purposing to go to Patterdale,6 from Grisdale tarn.7 Dr. John Davy8 rather puzzled us at Ambleside9 by pointing out a ridge which we did not pursue as Fairfield. But we were certainly right and he was wrong.
As we came near the end of Fairfield the summit of Helvellyn10 loomed in the distance and we at once resolved to assail the ‘mighty’ mount. We did not expect to have to dip so deep into Grisdale but no matter, on we went nothing daunted but awfully hungry, especially Huxley who has a much higher capacity for food than I have. We saw some newspapers twirling down the mountain and inferred the existence of picnic parties at the top. We were right, and a most hospitable party of 3 ladies and a gentleman shared their bread and cheese with us and made the summit joyful. I wanted to make the acquaintance of ‘Striding Edge,’11 but the wind was a little high and the people whom I asked about it drew long faces and said that on such a day it would be madness to venture upon the ‘edge’—of course I knew what this madness meant. So I sent Huxley down Swirling Edge,12 and I scampered over the jagged crags of Striding Edge myself. Certainly a man might break his neck there but there is not the least necessity for it if the traveller knows what he is about. In fact I would undertake to conduct you along Striding Edge without allowing you to strike your foot rudely against a stone. We put up at the Water Hotel.13 How lovely!
There we met the Dean of Westminster14 and two charming daughters.15 I had known the Dean only in contest at the Athenaeum16 & I feared he had reason to believe me to all good words reprobate. I heard he wanted to make his way to Lodore,17 and it was not without some misgiving as to the results that I proposed guiding them over the intervening country. He at once closed with the proposal, and we had such a jolly day. The deep organ tone of his voice as from time to time he ejaculated a piece of poetry was in thorough keeping with the grandeur of the mountains. We made a new pass which we called the Dean’s Pass and the terrors of which Huxley afterwards illustrated in the visitors book at Thirlmere.18 We crossed two chains of mountains. Were long entangled knee deep in heather, with here and there a stretch of bog, but we hit our point correctly and we left them at the Lodore hill yesterday. The girls were charming, and acquitted themselves in a manner that did credit to the English race. The Dean himself moreover behaved most manfully and on the whole we made as jolly a party as ever crossed those mountains
J. T.
RI MS JT/1/T/1171
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/2128–9
[21 August 1863]: the handwritten letter is undated, but ‘21st. Aug’ was added to it; the typescript includes ‘21 August’. Tyndall went on this trip while en route to the BAAS meeting in Newcastle Upon Tyne (26 August–2 September 1863), and Huxley, who was mourning the recent death of his brother George Knight Huxley, joined Tyndall and then returned to London while Tyndall made his way to the meeting (Ascent of John Tyndall, p. 231; A. Desmond, Huxley: From Devil’s Disciple to Evolution’s High Priest (Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1994), p. 321–2).
Wednesday: i.e. 19 August 1863.
Thursday: 20 August 1863.
Windermere: name of a town and the largest lake in the Lake District.
Fairfield: a mountain in the Lake District, above Grisedale tarn.
Patterdale: a village in the Lake District, in the Ullswater valley.
Grisdale tarn: Grisedale tarn, a tarn in the Lake District.
Dr. John Davy: John Davy (1790–1868), a Cornish doctor, amateur chemist, and brother of the noted chemist Humphrey Davy. He lived in Ambleside during the 1860s where he died in 1868 (ODNB).
Ambleside: a town in the Lake District.
Helvellyn: a mountain in the Lake District, north of the town of Ambleside; it is the highest peak in the Helvellyn range.
‘Striding Edge’: a high ridge that requires climbers to scramble to the top of Helvellyn.
Swirling Edge: Swirral Edge, a ridge on the opposite side of Helvellyn from Striding Edge, with a less intense descent than Striding Edge.
Water Hotel: possibly the Ullswater Hotel in Patterdale (H. I. Jenkinson, Practical Guide to the English Lake District, 4th edn (London: Edward Stanford, 1875), pp. 28–9).
Dean of Westminster: Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–86), an Anglican archbishop and poet, and Dean of Westminster from 1856–864 (ODNB).
two charming daughters: along with eight sons, Trench had six daughters: Melisina Mary Chenevix Trench (1834–1918), Edith Chenevix Trench (1844–1942), Helen Emily Chenevix Trench (1846–1935), Frances Harriet Chenevix Trench (1847–1941), and Rose Juliet Chenevix Trench (1848–1902). It is not clear which two are referred to here.
Athenaeum: see letter 1907, n. 7.
Lodore: a high cascade and waterfall in Cumbria which flows down into Borrowdale Valley.
Thirlmere: a lake, and now reservoir, in the Lake District, below Helvellyn.
Please cite as “Tyndall2027,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on