6 THE OAK. 



place of the Druids. This spot, called Wistman's Wood, 

 is situated on Dartmoor, about a mile above Two-Bridges, 

 on the left bank of the river. Imagine a mountain- stream 

 creeping slowly among blocks of moss-stained granite ; 

 on either side extends a piece of flat boggy ground to 

 an inconsiderable distance ; and at the extremity of these 

 the hills rise to the height of two or three hundred feet, 

 capped here and there in the distance with tors, or 

 rugged summits of granite. The hill-side is confusedly 

 heaped with blocks of the same stone, and it is in the in- 

 terstices between these that the trees composing Wistman's 

 Wood have chosen to fix their habitations a colony of 

 patriarchs in a wilderness. The wood itself forms a ragged 

 and interrupted belt, of about half a mile in length, in- 

 cluding some straggling trees, separated at long intervals. 

 The best way of approaching it is from above, for by so 

 doing one may without difficulty obtain a pretty good view 

 of the whole at once, and plunge in among the trees at 

 pleasure. The trees are all Oaks, from ten to fourteen feet 

 high, gnarled, knotted, and twisted even beyond the usual 

 characteristic of that tree. The trunks vary from two to 

 five feet in. circumference One which was measured con- 

 sisted of three trunks, branched just above the base, each 

 bole being about three feet in circumference. But by far 

 the strangest peculiarity is, that all the branches, with the 

 exception (and this not always) of the extreme spires, are 

 matted with deep beds of moss, principally Anomodon 

 curtipendulum, in fine fructification. Some idea of the 

 denseness of this extraordinary integument may be formed 

 from the fact that the moss is, in most cases, from ten to 

 twelve inches in thickness, when the diameter of the branch 

 does not exceed an inch and a half. It seems very probable 

 that the superincumbent weight may operate in producing 

 the depressed character of growth : certain it is, that a 

 single Holly-tree near the centre of the wood, which is free 

 from parasites, has attained the height of twenty feet, and 

 towers above his pigmy companions, like some tall pine in 



