414 DARTMOOR AND THE DART. 



Sacred Grove, where the Knoiuing-man performed his 

 incantations. 



By this time the heavens were gathering blackness, 

 and from several points of the horizon those dark, 

 ragged clouds were rising and hanging in tattered 

 shreds, that tell of heavy rain. Mutterings of thunder, 

 too, were audible ; and notwithstanding that a thunder- 

 storm in such a place as Wistman's Wood would 

 have greatly augmented its melodramatic interest, 

 yet neither on my own nor my sick child's account 

 did I exactly wish to brave its results. We, there- 

 fore, hastened back to Two Bridges, casting many a 

 wistful glance on the strange scene we had left, the 

 like of which we might probably never see again. It 

 took a peculiar aspect under the glowering sky ; and 

 the distant peak of Row Tor above, lighted up by a 

 momentary gleam of sunshine, came out wonderfully 

 fine against the black storm-cloud. 



Some points of interest occurred on the homeward 

 route. Several hut-circles were seen close by the 

 road-side at Haxary, where the West Dart gleamed 

 beautifully in a romantic dell. Then we reached 

 Compstone Tor, crowned with a fine assemblage of 

 granite rocks of that peculiar form known as the 

 Cheesewring ; enormous slab-like masses of varying 

 diameters, piled one on another horizontally: I say 

 * piled/' for such is the appearance ; though doubt- 

 less the phenomenon is the result of elemental de- 

 composition on the horizontally stratified granite. 

 This arrangement has a very magnificent effect. 



