rows and other remains at Drizzlecombe, but it is impossible here to
give full attention to these numerous relics. We find a reminder of
the Elford family in the name of Yelverton, a corruption of
Elford-town. Yelverton and Dousland have both become popular with
residents and visitors, having the convenience of rail and commanding
a district of great beauty. But, attractive as they are, neither can
claim to be on the moorland, nor can this claim be made by Tavistock
itself, though that town boasts of being the "western gate of
Dartmoor". There is a rich supply of beauty and of delightful
associations at Tavistock, but it was never a moor town. Here and at
Buckland Monachorum are many traces of the two rival abbeys, of which
Tavistock was far the more ancient and the more wealthy. Both spots
have memories of Francis Drake, and at Tavistock there is an admirable
statue. Buckland and Buckfast, being both Cistercian, had much
communication; and the influence of these three abbeys was great in
preserving the moorland trackways, setting up crosses for the guidance
of travellers, and keeping the moor open to a gradual course of
civilization. They were also centres of art and culture at a period
when such things were at a discount, and in this respect we can never
be too grateful to the old monastic settlements. Whether or not we
class them among those good things whose corruption is worst, they
were undoubtedly good in their day. We find around Dartmoor as
elsewhere that the monks chose their localities well, with a keen eye
for natural beauty and the advantages of water. We may infer also that
they ventured across Dartmoor when other men were chary of crossing
it, and their faith had certainly the courage of its convictions. If
we meet their ghosts along the Abbots' Way by night we need not fear
that they will be other than kindly. If they are ghosts now, there was
a time when they drove forth ghosts themselves, and when they
converted pagan monuments into symbols of the religion of love.
It would be very pleasant to linger about Tavistock, with its bright
river that we met in our rambles from Lydford; but the moorland calls
us. There is another lovely river, the Walla or Walkham (Walkham is
probably Walla-combe), which lures us to one of the most fascinating
regions of Dartmoor. The poet Browne, after the fashion of his time,
wrote a narrative of the "loves of the Walla and the Tavy" in his
_Britannia's Pastorals_; but in spite of much freshness of natural
description his verses are tedious if taken in large doses, and we can
leave this would-be classic legend out of the question. The stream has
a typically moorland character as it flows from its source at Lynch
Tor, to wind around the foot of the noble Great Mis Tor and pass
beneath Merrivale Bridge. The tors of this district are approaching
their greatest height, and Mis Tor, a true mother of storms, is one of
the most magnificent. Merrivale bridge is on the highroad from
Tavistock to Princetown, little frequented since the opening of the
railway, and surely there are few finer bits of road in the kingdom
than that which here crosses the valley of the Walla, at the base of
this grand tor. Whether lying in open sunshine or raked with fog and
cloud, Mis Tor is always impressive, apart altogether from the
rock-basins, pounds, and hut-circles that surround it. Northward of
the bridge is Staple Tor; southward, nearer to the small village of
Sampford Spiney, are the Vixen and Pu tors. The Vixen is a curious
mass of weathered granite, taking almost any shape that the view-point
and the imagination of the spectator may suggest. At Sampford there is
a good Perpendicular church, and a picturesque granite-mullioned
farmhouse that was once a manor. There is another good church at
Walkhampton, and a fourteenth-century church-house, now the inn.
Those who are attracted to Whitchurch Down by reason of its golf
links, belonging to the Tavistock Club, will see one of the most
impressive old crosses of the moorland; and their sport may be
combined not only with the bracing air of a high altitude but with
fine views of Dartmoor and of east Cornwall. The beauty of the Walkham
River is continued to its junction with the Tavy near the disused
copper mine of the Virtuous Lady. Whitchurch proves its antiquity by
being the _Wicerce_ of Domesday. Its church, thus clearly dating from
before the Conquest, has the lovely screen rescued by the Earl of
Devon from the ill-advised restoration at Moreton Hampstead. North of
Peter Tavy, a charming village in the beautiful Tavy vale, is Whit
Tor, with perhaps the best walled encampment of the moorland. There
are other old-world relics, such as the Langstone menhir. And so we
arrive once more at Lydford.
Surely there can be few spots of such comparatively small size that so
teem with interest and fascination as Dartmoor. In the number of its
prehistoric remains it is only equalled by parts of Cornwall, and
their preservation is owing to thinness of modern population. We may
imagine that most of England was once scattered with similar traces of
dead peoples, but in most places these have been eradicated by
successive waves of population. Dartmoor has been left in solitude,
and though its few inhabitants have done their best to remove or
mutilate the immemorial monuments, enough have been overlooked to
furnish us with a wide treasure ground. But where the antiquarian will
come to measure and dig and conjecture, the artist, the poet, the
lover of nature will find many other things to allure. The sportsman
will also come here, especially the angler, who finds excellent trout,
though the fish are not often large. Perhaps happily, only the few
main roads are available for motor traffic, but during the summer
these are much frequented; there are also many excursion cars and
chars-à-bancs to the more popular beauty-spots, starting from places
like Moreton, Chagford, Bovey Tracey, or coming from towns far beyond
the moor borders. The cyclist who does not mind dismounting at times
has a wider area, and cycling on Dartmoor is not so bad as its
reputation. There are some really fine stretches of road; what the
rider needs is discrimination and good brakes. But he who truly wins
the freedom of the moors is the pedestrian--a species not quite
extinct, though discredited and often discomforted. He should come
here on what we may call the divine adventure, the quest of beauty;
and even on lonely Dartmoor he will find the human touch not absent.
[Illustration: A DARTMOOR STREAM]
Whoever comes, if his eyes be open, will see tracts of primitive
mother earth, untamed and unsophisticated. He will see what Devon was
before it was cultivated; he will be in a haunt of strange traditions,
lingering superstitions, wild fancies. Perhaps when cold clammy fogs
blot out the undulations and tors, a chill will strike to the heart;
Dartmoor is no kindly nurse to those who have lost their way or those
who are overtaken by snowfall. He who comes here must lean on his own
resources; he will not be pampered and guided; he must fend for
himself. Nature, as Jefferies was fond of saying, does not care for
man; he is an alien, exiled by the very civilization of which he is so
proud; he can do less for himself than the birds and beasts. Yet the
illusion that nature does care is at times very strong; we cannot
thrust it wholly from our hearts, and if we regard the earth as but
the outward symbol, a mood, a thought, of some inscrutable power, we
are not wrong in deeming that she responds to our deepest impulses and
cravings. It is glorious poetry and it need not be bad philosophy to
dream of a Being "whose dwelling is the light of setting suns"; and he
who has seen a sunset flaming across Dartmoor has seen the heavens
opened. He can learn also the insignificance of any single individual
or race, and yet the undying importance of each if all are a part of
the Godhead. Peoples have lived and died here long centuries since,
leaving no memorial but grey stones; but the heather and ling are
still wonderful, the gorse runs in patches of gold, the rivers sing
perpetually among their lichen-stained boulders, and the soul of
beauty that is ever mysterious is undying.
Such is Dartmoor, one of the few remaining tracts of uncultivated
England; a region not easy to tame, offering small reward to the
farmer, but rich repayment to the lovers of beauty, wildness,
antiquity. There is nothing quite like it elsewhere, unless it be the
Bodmin Moors of Cornwall, where the same granite asserts itself again.
There is loveliness of a different sort on the moors of Yorkshire and
around the Peak--on the Wiltshire, Dorset, and Sussex Downs, on the
high lands or in the New Forest of Hampshire, and at spots like
Hindhead in Surrey. There is still a different beauty in the fen
country and the land of the Broads. But Dartmoor has its own
character, which it does not surrender to a casual acquaintance; it
has a reserve and depth of individuality, to be won only by slow
confidence. There are strong characteristics also among the moor folk;
but here a change has been in progress. It is useless to come now
expecting to find a superstitious and credulous peasantry. When a
district is haunted by tourist and artist, when cars and brakes unload
crowds of chattering sightseers, something of the outside world comes
with them; and modernism has other more subtle avenues of approach.
The cheap daily paper penetrates to these solitudes, and brings with
it other things that are cheap. It may leave its readers still
credulous and still ignorant; but the nature of the ignorance and the
credulity have altered--and perhaps not wholly for the better. There
is loss as well as gain. The old traditions have passed from the minds
of the people to the guidebooks. Pixies and wish-hounds and spells are
now usually only mentioned in jest where they were formerly whispered
of in grim earnest. But the beauty of the moorland changes not, and it
is its beauty that is our real concern. We can spare the traditions
while the loveliness remains.