DESCRIPTION OF DARTMOOR. 17 



taias of many a river aud stream — the Darfc, the Teign, the Taw, the 

 Tavy — all clear as crystal iu the summer months, but, after heavy 

 rains, running redly through the ' stony vales.' The roaring of these 

 torrents, when angry and swollen, is sublime to a degree inconceiv- 

 able by those who have never heard the wild impressive music of 

 untamed Nature. 



" The tors are remarkable for their quaint fantastic outlines, which, 

 like the clouds, suggest all manner of strange similitudes — to dragons, 

 and grilfins, and hoary ruins, and even to human forms of gigantic 

 size, apparently confronting the traveller as the lords and natural 

 denizens of the rugged waste. The principal summits are Yes Tor, 

 Cawsand Beacon, Fur Tor, Lynx Tor, Rough Tor, Holne Ridge, Brent 

 Tor, Rippen Tor, Hound Toi', Sheep's Tor, Crockern Tor, aud Great 

 Mis Tor. Not only must their variety of form delight the artist, but 

 his eye rests well pleased on their manifold changes of colour — purple, 

 and green, and gray, and blue — now softened by a delicate vaporous 

 shadow, now glowing with intense fulness in the sun's unclouded 

 light. 



" Dartmoor is traditionally reputed to have been anciently clothed 

 with forest. The sole relic now existing is the lonely Wistman't 

 Wood, which occupies a sombre valley, bounded on the one side by 

 Crockern Tor, on the other by Little and Great Bairdown ; the slopes 

 being strewn with gray blocks of granite in ' admired disorder,' as 

 if the Titans had been at their cumbrous play. Starting from this 

 chaos of rocks, appears a wood or grove of dwarf weird-looking oaks, 

 interspersed with the mountain-ash, and everywhere festooned about 

 aud garlanded with ferns and parasitical plants. None of these trees 

 exceed twelve feet in height, but at the top they spread far and wide, 

 and ' branch and twist in so fantastic and tortuous a manner as to 

 remind one of those strange things called mandrakes.' Their branches 

 are literally covered with ivy and creeping plants, and their trunks 

 so thickly embedded in a coating of moss that at first sight, says 

 Mrs. Bray, ' you would imagine them to be of enormous thickness in 

 proportion to their height. Their whole appearance conveys to you 

 the idea of hoary age in the vegetable world of creation; and on 

 visiting Wistman's Wood it is impossible to do other than think of 

 those " groves in stony places " so often mentioned in Scripture as 

 being dedicated to Baal and Astaroth.' 



" That heathen rites were celebrated here in the pre-historic era 

 seems very probable, the best etymologists agreeing that the name is 

 a corruption of Wise-man, or Wish-man ; that is, of the old Norse god 



C 



