[18: In his very interesting "Reminiscences of a Lifetime in Marple and the Neighbourhood," 1882, a contribution to our local literature which in the accuracy and variety of its entertaining details does the author genuine credit.]
My heart leaps up when I behold The rainbow in the sky-- So was it when I was a boy; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!
For our present purpose it is convenient to include, under the general title of the North-eastern Highlands, the vast mountain district, occupying portions of three counties, which extends from the Peak to the neighbourhood of Greenfield. Reached in part by the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire system, in part by the L. & N. W. Huddersfield line, it is tolerably well-known to travellers by those railways. They are cognizant of it as a region of lofty moorland, bleak and uninviting except at grouse-time. To people in general, however, it is as strange as Norway; and no wonder, since a visit to any one of the better portions implies a love of adventure which, if not exceptional, is infrequent. Glorious, nevertheless, are those untouched and silent wastes. Thousands of their acres have never felt the ploughshare, nay, not even the spade, and probably never will. In parts they seem to belong less to the existing order of nature than to obsolete ages, suggesting, like the Sahara, the idea of a former and exhausted world. Seal Bark might be the relics of some ancient mountain, torn to fragments when the wind whistled among the Calamites and the Sigillarias, now nothing but bones, nameless and immemorial.
The southernmost portion of this huge tract of wilderness is occupied by Kinder Scout, the highest factor of the Peak, the elevation being nearly two thousand feet above the sea; and which, presenting a "broad bare back" or plateau of fully four miles in length from east to west, with a width of more than half as much, is distinguishable at a glance, though often cloud-capped, from all its neighbours. Unfortunately for the rightful claims of massive Kinder, this great length detracts from its majesty, since the majestic, to be appreciated, always demands a certain amount of concentration. In substance, like most other parts of our "north-eastern highlands," Kinder Scout is millstone-grit, thickly overlaid with mountain-peat, the foothold of wiry scrub, though, here and there presenting bold escarpments. The surface is deeply fissured by rills of drainage-water, and hillocks and depressions are universal. Paths cross it in various directions, but these of course are only for the brave.