WCP624

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

August 13th. 1893

My dear Mitten,

I hope you enjoyed your visit to Festiniog[sic] & found it rich in mosses & other plants. We had on the whole a very pleasant & interesting tour, from July 12th to August 5th. We had one day in Dovedale on the way, the most exquisitely beautiful & romantic rocky valley I have ever seen. Then to Keswick, round Derwentwater, one day up Borrowdale, where we had intended to stay 2-3 days & visit Seathwaite the "wettest place in England" back it was two wet, so are retreated by coach by Thirlmere to Ambleside. There we evicted two waterfalls & two small mountains. These went for two days to Dungeon Ghyll Hotel in Great Langdale & having one fine day took two ponies & a shepherd guide & ascended Bowfell, a "grand rocky mountain finer I think than [2] Snowdon though not nearly as high. We have a short trip to Windermere and then by coach over Kirkstone Pass to the head of Ullswater where we found a most comfortable Temperance Hotel & lived in luxury at ^s6/— a day such. Annie is half killed with the heat! We had fires at Keswick & Patterdale!!¹ After strolling about & dreamy waterfalls & Tarns for a few days, on our last day we walked all the way up Fairfield, a mountain close to Helvellyn & nearly as high, & very grand at the top with crags, precipices & deep valleys, with a splendid view of the whole length of Windermere & Coniston lakes. The descent was rather rough, sleep, & tiring, & where we got home having walked 12 miles, ascended & descended about 3000 feet, & keen on our legs over 9 hours [3] we were pretty tired.

Taking the lake district altogether we both agree that it fully came up to our expectations, the forms & steepness of the mountains, the rich vegetation, & the lakes, forming grand pictures everywhere. Annie was much disappointed in finding no rare ferns (except in gardens & nurseries) and very few of the less rare. Alpines too were hard to find Saxipraga ayoides was abundant, S. stellata occasional, and S. uivalis on the high mountain tops. I looked for Salix herbacea in vain. On some rocks about Stickle Tarn reminding me of the rocky ledges by the Devils’ Kitchen, I found Leduis rhodiota, Alchemilla alpina, Thalectrurie alpinus &c. I think Grasmere was the loveliest spot we saw, and Patterdale or Derwentwater the finest for lake & mountain scenery. I was delighted with the glacial phenomena which I was looking out for. [4] Some of the waterfalls also were very beautiful. Then we went to Settle in Yorkshire, where Violet met us, & stayed from Wednesday to Saturday. The scenery is wonderfully different from the Lakes though there are fine mountains & waterfalls, but all seems spread out, & there are more of the grand scenes of the Lakes. It was very [1 word illeg.] & we found more of the rare & local plants, but Geraminus[?] salvaticaru and Conspaula[?] latefolia[?]s were fine. We had intended to stay longer but it was very showery weather & dreading Sunday & Bank Holiday at an Inn we all agreed to return on Saturday & got home 2 ½ hours late.

I found Chianthus Danepieri, which I had put out of doors & which had stood floods & storms, with a splendid head of flowers! Our Australia orchid Thelymitra nuda showed pink buds, & shows them still! It will not open. Another plant ^{of the same} has seedpods & dried flowers, but no one saw the flower! Can it be a horrid self-fertilising brute that never opens! Two of my Transvaal bulbs have started & ^are proving well. The pink waterlily has had one flower, and two more buds Campan. Pyramidalis a grand mass. Shall be glad to hear of your adventures.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Violet has a new Chameleon, a fine fellow.²