EXMOOR 



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primitive, savage vigour which the Devonshire dialect. But people find 



fat fields down yonder are strangers to. out more slowly the toughness and 



Instead of the plump song-birds of the tenacity that underlie these softer 



valley, with manners tamed and notes qualities. Yet they, too, are there, 

 sweetened by garden currant bushes You must stand on a height where a 



and strawberry beds, the curlew, wan- far-stretching view of its blue ridges 



dering through space, utters the melan- can be obtained to gain an idea of the 



choly cry which seems the very voice size and character of Exmoor. Properly 



of this wild landscape, or the blackcock speaking it is not so much a moor as a 



darts off on its bullet-like flight which collection of many moors ; or rather 



no gale can turn or distance tire, it possesses one large central tract, and 



The lurching, easy gallop of the red- all round from this lesser spurs and 



deer bears in its very motion the sug- ridges protrude, sometimes altogether 



gestion of these large expanses; the cut off by cultivated land and fertile 



hardihood of the half-wild ponies valleys and rising like blue islands 



testifies to the grit and stubborn- out of the varied landscape, sometimes 



ness necessary to preserve life under joined still to the main area by a lofty 



the conditions here present ; the few ridge though almost surrounded by 



stunted thorns and beeches, growing fields and hedgerows. It is these 



lopsidedly, their branches strung out outlying spurs and annexes of the 



to leeward, as locks of weed are strung moor that carry its influence far. 



out in a current of water, record, like Living in the low country itself, amid 



so many steady weathercocks, the force the fertile and rich foregrounds, you 



of old gales. scarcely realize the presence of the 



I do not know why man should be few purple, lonely summits. But when 



less susceptible than bird and beast you climb to a top a change comes over 



and tree to these influences, and I the scenery and these summits possess 



have often thought that the moor has the landscape. The cultivated hollows 



gradually impressed itself until it and intermediate valleys then sink out 



counts for something in the native of sight. Ridge calls to ridge. Their 



character. You easily note the geni- great backs, like the backs of whales, 



ality, the hospitable ways, the innate repose curve beyond curve, carrying 



kindliness, which finds voice in the the eye on into the blue and misty 



soft and rounded, quaintly Venetian, distance ; and in a new way, perhaps, 



