EERNY COMBES. 
49 
front,—you are out ou the real moor. All around, 
as far as the eye can reach, nothing hut granite, 
and bogs, and tors. 
After travelling some way over a tolerably flat 
road, we begin to descend again. Close by is 
Vixen Tor, one of the most beautiful and curious 
piles of granite on the Moor ; while right and left 
is the vale of the Walkham, which we cross at 
Merrivale Bridge. Up another hill, over blocks of 
granite, once more on the great upland waste, till 
our horse begins to flag, and we almost despair 
of ever reaching Princetown. But all of a sudden 
we find ourselves on a smoother road; the horse 
thinks it a good sign, and plucks up a little courage. 
Presently lights gleam through the darkness, and 
we make out the mass of buildings near the prison, 
and passing by the portal and the desolate church 
with its mournful churchyard, we halt at the door 
of the Duchy Hotel, a dull-looking granite house, 
but a place where one can be very comfortable, 
and which we hail with delight after the prospect 
of being benighted on the Moor. 
Let any one enervated in body and mind, and 
who longs for pure bracing air and the clearest of 
water, without paying exorbitantly for them, repair 
to “the Prisons” or Princetown, as the little ham¬ 
let hard by the prison is called. In the last war 
E 
