DARTMOOR SCENERY. 
O 
treasures from these regions, both numerous and 
precious, and without question, more may still be 
derived from them. Yet still, contrast is the 
powerful sentiment that fills the mind, and who 
could pass from the well clothed land on the 
southern side to this naked region, and not exercise 
the faculty of comparison ? —not a tree tends to 
diversify the scene, no hedges restrain the keen 
blast, no rich expanse of pasturage to ease the 
sight, no carols to enchant the ear ; but uncouth 
nudity, uncompromising exposure, stern barrenness 
of soil, and a silence relieved merely by the breeze, 
the roar of some distant river, or the cry of some 
solitary bird. One spot indeed during summer 
betrays foliage ; it is where the “ lonely wood of 
Wistman” spreads its twisted trunks between the 
rude blocks of granite, and derives its nourishment 
from unseen sources ; but then, this oasis of the 
unreclaimed desert merely serves to indicate the 
comparative fertility of gone-by times, the verdure 
of an ancient forest which once spread its befriend¬ 
ing branches over the devoted land, and permitted 
man to lay the soil under useful contribution. 
“ That the moor was once cultivated is evident 
from the traces of furrows or ridges, and stone en¬ 
closures still remaining upon, and around it, and 
from the lower layer of thatch in the roofs of its old 
buildings, being rye straw, which probably was the 
grain then raised.”* This is to the point, and 
the man of leisure, science and philanthropy, could 
render no greater service to his country than by 
proposing some plan by which this, and such-like 
wastes could again be rendered available to 
agriculture. 
He w r ho traverses the moor for the sake of 
mental recreation and advantage, can hardly fail to 
* Burt in Notes to Carrington’s Dartmoor, p. 114. 
