A few years ago there was only one meaning to the word Windermere. It then meant a lake lying among mountains, and so secluded that it was some distinction even for the travelled man to have seen it. Now, there is a Windermere Railway Station, and a Windermere post office and hotel;—a thriving village of Windermere and a populous locality. This implies that a great many people come to the spot; and the spot is so changed by their coming, and by other circumstances, that a new guide book is wanted; for there is much more to point out than there used to be; and what used to be pointed out now requires a wholly new description. Such new guidance and description we now propose to give.

The traveller arrives, we must suppose, by the railway from Kendal, having been dropped at the Oxenholme Junction by the London train from the south, or the Edinburgh and Carlisle train from the north. The railways skirt the lake district, but do not, and cannot, penetrate it: for the obvious reason that railways cannot traverse or pierce granite mountains or span broad lakes. If the time should ever come when iron roads will intersect the mountainous parts of Westmorland and Cumberland, that time is not yet; nor is it in view,—loud as have been the lamentations of some residents, as if it were to happen to-morrow.