8 STAG-HUNTING ON EXMOOR. 



not to be described in words, least of all on the eve of 

 a storm, as the writer once saw it, when Cawsand was 

 glittering and sparkling forty miles away after the 

 herald shower, and the sea all ablaze with the] setting 

 sun ; when Lundy stood out purple and purpler in its 

 defiance, and Hartland thrust out its wicked snout 

 sharper and blacker into the sea, and the bar foamed 

 and writhed in the agony of the ground swell ; while 

 the green plain was still basking in the few lingering 

 rays, till the clouds broke between sun and sea, and 

 all seaward was hidden behind a rosy veil, under which 

 screen the storm advanced and turned all to blackness 

 and night.. But we must get back our eyes from the 

 fifty miles around us to the plain, more or less level, 

 and roughly about two miles square, whereon we 

 stand ; for this is the main watershed, whence rise not 

 only the Bray, but the Barle, the Exe, and the Lyn. 

 From this point we can, by following the rivers, give 

 some idea of the formation of this Exmoor mountain 

 country. 



First the great barrier hill, which was our point in 

 coming up the Bray, is but the westernmost of a long 

 range, the highest (save only Dunkery, of which here- 

 after) on the moor; which runs from north-west to 

 south-east, and makes the boundary of Devon and 



