8 SCENERY OF THE SOUTH HAMS. 
consent, the Garden of England , wherein the grand 
requisites of soft, and delicate scenery are nicely 
blended. For a short distance of a mile, or two 
after quitting Dartmoor, the coarseness and sterility 
of that tract are not entirely lost, there is yet a 
wildness about us, still a violence and tumult in the 
rivers, which indicate adjacency to an elevated 
and barren region. 
“-The Moor resigns 
Not suddenly its sternness ;-” 
Soon however, the scene subsides, the hills seem 
nicely smoothened as if by art, they are devoid of 
crags, steep sides and foaming rivers in the inter¬ 
spaces, agriculture now predominates, and the 
rivers move on in comparative serenity of course, 
dispensing incalculable benefits on all the lower 
lands. The slate hills themselves are originators 
of springs, which deal out rivulets on their sides, 
and these passing by the combes toward the larger 
streams, form a system of connexion by water, 
between the hill tops and the vallies. These schist 
hills are disposed pf most irregularly, and though 
vallies of tolerable length and good breadth do in 
some places occur, such instances are not numerous, 
and in general therefore the views are not very 
extensive ; in the vicinity of the coast however and 
elsewhere in the neighbourhood of lime-rock, the 
tops of the slate hills afford grand and interesting- 
prospects. On the whole, the views occurring in 
the South Hams, in which the sea forms no part, 
may be accounted unique for the richness of the 
pastoral effect which the mind receives. The Soutli 
Hams, also besides the qualifications of river, and 
pastoral scenery above named, are especially co¬ 
pious in wood, and though the hill tops from being 
usually too devoid of soil to furnish pasture, are 
planted much with fir and other timber ; the river 
