22 THE WILD PONIES OF EXMOOR. 



and at times almost engulph, the incautious horseman. 

 These bogs are formed by springs, which, having been 

 intercepted by a pan of sediment, and prevented from 

 percolating through the soil, stagnate, and cause, at the 

 same time, decay and vicious vegetation. They are 

 seldom deep, and can usually be reclaimed by subsoiling 

 or otherwise breaking the pan, and so drying the upper 

 layers of bog. Bog-turf is largely employed on Exmoor 

 as fuel. On other precipitous descents, winter torrents 

 have washed away all the earth, and left avalanches of 

 bare loose stones, called, in the western dialect, " crees." 

 To descend these crees at a slapping pace in the course 

 of a stag-hunt, requires no slight degree of nerve ; but it 

 is done, and is not so dangerous as it looks. 



Exmoor may be nothing strange to those accustomed to 

 the wild, barren scenery. To one who has known country 

 scenes only in the best-cultivated regions of England, 

 and who has but recently quitted the perpetual roar of 

 London, there is something strangely solemn and im- 

 pressive in the deep silence of a ride across the forest. 

 Horses bred on the moors, if left to themselves, rapidly 

 pick their way through pools and bogs, and canter 

 smoothly over dry flats of natural meadow ; creep safely 

 down the precipitous descents, and climb with scarcely 

 a pun of distress these steep ascents ; splash through 

 fords in the trout-streams, swelled by rain, without a 

 moment's hesitation, and trot along sheep-paths, be- 

 strewed with rolling stones, without a stumble : so that 

 you are perfectly at liberty to enjoy the luxury of excite- 

 ment, and follow out the winding valleys, and study the 

 rich brown and purple herbage. 



It was while advancing over a great brown plain in 

 the centre of the moor, with a deep valley on our left, 

 that our young quick-eyed guide suddenly held up his 



