6 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



rich brown peaty water, tangled tufts of rushes, mats 

 of warm green moss ; a paradise for snipe and duck. 

 To our right are a few mounds or barrows, one 

 especially higher, broader, and rounder than the rest. 

 Mount on the top and say what you can see all round 

 you, for this lonely spot shows the finest view in 

 Exmoor. The whole of North Devon is spread out 

 before you like a map. 



First look to southward. All the steep hilly country 

 through which we have passed seems like one vast 

 green plain, cut by innumerable little valleys and 

 covered with a network of green banks, with the blue 

 hills of Dartmoor rising sturdily behind it. You can 

 see the whole ranee of the Dartmoor mountain barrier, 

 highest to the left or eastward, where stand the 

 pointed peak of Yestor and the broad round back of 

 Cawsand. Still farther to eastward at some interval 

 are the high downs round Exeter. Now let your eye 

 travel westwards along the Dartmoor hills, and it is 

 stopped by the sea. That low, wicked-looking point 

 which bounds your view is Hartland Point, which was 

 fatal to many a good ship till a lighthouse was set up 

 thereon. Hartland stands at the edge of the Channel, 

 with nothing between it and America to the westward 

 to check the rollers of the Atlantic ; a bleak, inhospit- 



