The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
land of solitude,
'Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.'
The eastward view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful,
but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the trackless
mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
where the Swale, a silver ribbon along the bottom of the dale,
disappears among the sombre woods and the shoulders of the hills.
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