 Many of the people who travelled around and commented on the Lake District were people who did not live in the area.Their attitude to the Lakes was therefore coloured to some extent by what they knew of other areas of Britain and the Continent of Europe.Daniel Defoe may not even have visited the Lakes when, in volume 3 of his "A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain" (1726), he commented on the 'high and formidable' mountains' and the lack of anything of use or ornamentation to be found there – a pre-Romantic view of landscape prevailing with him.