402 DARTMOOR AND THE DART. 



temple or sacred enclosure. There is an avenue of 

 parallel stones leading from the circle away towards 

 the south-east, that is, to the nearest point of the 

 Dart. 



The great size of this circle, as compared with the 

 ordinary hut-circles, which rarely exceed nine yards 

 in diameter, is remarkable. It is not sufficiently 

 wide to enclose a village, nor to serve as a " pound" 

 for cattle. It would rather seem to indicate the 

 residence of a chief, but I did not notice any second 

 circle within the enclosure.* 



The bright, laughing sunshine and the dancing 

 butterflies were not favourable to those solemn reveries 

 which the same scene under the silent moonlight, or 

 in a twilight storm, would have conjured up. Yet it 

 was not without a feeling of awe that I reflected on 

 the hoary ages that had passed away, since a man of 

 like passions with me brought home his loved bride 

 to that now lonely dwelling, and " his young bar- 

 barians all at play " made the air ring with merri- 

 ment as they ran around those gray wall-stones, or 

 chased the identical forefathers of those very butter- 

 flies over the moor. " How long was that ago ?" 

 How long ? Who knows ? Perhaps when Jephthah 



* I took for granted that I should find full details of this re- 

 markable circle in Rowe's " Perambulations," which I referred to 

 as soon as I arrived at home, but to my surprise he does not notice 

 any remains on this side of the hill. Had I anticipated this silence, 

 I should have made a more minute examination ; the notes I have 

 recorded above were, however, jotted down in my note-book upon 

 the spot, and may therefore be depended on. 



