CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 39 



CHAPTER IV. 



WILD SCENES OF ENGLAND : DARTMOOR AND THE FEN 



COUNTRY. 



CROSSING the Channel, and surveying the limited expanse of our own 

 " beloved England," we become aware of certain districts which 

 belong to the Desert World. Through the ceaseless energy of our 

 race, and the introduction of mechanical inventions which economize 

 time and labour and treble the reproductive power of capital, almost 

 all England has been transformed into a rich and radiant garden, 

 where the waste places are " few and far between," where the solitude 

 of desolation is scarcely known ; yet, as already observed, there 

 are districts which retain much of their ancient wildness of 

 character. 



Such a region is Dartmoor, the extensive and romantic table-land 

 of granite which occupies the south-western part of the county of 

 Devon. In its recesses still linger the eagle, the bustard, and the 

 crane ; its solitudes are broken by the hoarse cries of the sparrow- 

 hawk, the hobby, and the goshawk ; and the Cyclopean memorials of 

 Druidism which cover its surface cromlechs and kistvaens, tolmens 

 and stone-avenues invest it with a peculiar air of mysterious awe. 

 It extends in length about twenty-two miles (from north to south), 

 and in breadth twenty miles (from east to west). Its total area 

 exceeds 130,000 acres. It rises above the surrounding country like 

 "the long, rolling waves of a tempestuous ocean, fixed into solidity 

 by some instantaneous and powerful impulse." A natural rampart is 

 cast around it. Deep ravines, watered by murmuring streams, 

 diversify its aspect, and lofty hills of granite, locally called tors, of 

 which the principal, Yes Tor, has an elevation of 2050 feet above the 

 sea. Its soil is composed of peat, in some places twenty-five feet 



