204 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



you realize the magnitude and domin- smooth lines of the moor into the 



ating influence of this great natural uttermost distance. There is no other 



feature. line like it in Nature. Clear, firm and 



So, for the first time as it happened, sweeping, like the line of a great 

 I looked out over the moor only a few draughtsman, it declares itself even 

 days ago from the top of Dunkery in the dim distance amid the corn- 

 Beacon. Although familiar with it as posite, petty forms of Nature's usual 

 one who lives in the neighbourhood I features. I looked at the blue ridges 

 had never, that I remember, climbed with a sense of their magnitude, of 

 this, its loftiest eminence, before. Its their compass and far-reaching influ- 

 rise, save indeed from the northern ence, which, though I had lived in 

 side, is slow and gradual, slanting in their presence, I never remember to 

 long and easy ascent to the little dot have felt before. I saw, and was 

 of a cairn at the top. Though on a surprised to see, how completely the 

 comparatively small scale it is in shape severity and gauntness of the moor 

 and presence curiously like Etna. It ruled the landscape ; how little the 

 tells, like Etna, by smooth and passive valleys counted for. 

 bulk, and, like Etna, creates its own I had that day bicycled up the long 

 solitude as you ascend. Like Etna, too, Exe Valley from Dulverton, and, 

 it astonishes you by the height to which familiar as the way was to me, had 

 without apparent effort it has raised been brought to a stop again and 

 you. The heather that day was in again by the views it disclosed. Con- 

 full, perfect bloom. Every step let tracting and again expanding the 

 loose a cloud of dusty pollen and valley opens itself into a succession 

 filled the air with sweet scent. The of little green arenas, carpeted with 

 white sunbonnets of whortleberry grass and shut in by the lofty curve of 

 pickers dotted the slope, and my own great woods so steeply that the cast 

 fingers were purple-stained before I shadows stay there half through the 

 had gone a quarter of the way up. day. The dewy, fresh, crisp grass 



On all sides but the north, where reminded me of the Swiss pastures 



the ground breaks steeply down to reaching down to Lucerne, wetted 



the rich meadows of Timberscombe with trailing mountain mist and shot 



and the cliffs of the coast, the eye, with the delicate purple of crocuses, 



from this height, follows the long Here, too, the hedgerows were a 



