gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by the coach-road to York as it
rises and falls over the swells of the heather. The queer isolated cone
of Blakey Topping and the summit of Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate,
appear above the distant ridges.

The route of the great Roman road from the South to Dunsley Bay can also
be seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
within a few yards of the by-road from Picketing to Egton. It crosses
Wheeldale Beck, and skirts the ancient dyke round July or Julian Park,
at one time a hunting-seat of the great De Mauley family. The road is
about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls for
enclosures. Of greater antiquity, but much more easily discovered, are
the bride stones close at hand on Sleights Moor. Several of the stones
have fallen, but three of them are still standing erect, the tallest
being 7 feet high. It is not easy to discover any particular form from
the standing and recumbent stones, for they neither make a circle nor do
they seem to be directed to any particular point of the compass; but it
is quite possible that these monoliths were put up by Early Man as a
means of recording the seasons, in somewhat the same manner as
Stonehenge is an example of the orientated temple of Neolithic times.

If we go down into the valley beneath us by a road bearing south-west,
we shall find ourselves at Beck Hole, where there is a pretty group of
stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by a
stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two