Dartmoor
'Dartmoor! thou wert to me, in childhood's hour,
A wild and wond'rous region. Day by day
Arose upon my youthful eye thy belt
Of hills mysterious, shadowy....
I feel
The influence of that impressive calm
Which rests upon them. Nothing that has life
Is visible:--no solitary flock
At will wide ranging through the silent Moor
Breaks the deep-felt monotony; and all
Is motionless save where the giant shades,
Flung by the passing cloud, glide slowly o'er
The grey and gloomy wild.'
CARRINGTON: _Dartmoor_.
The region of the Forest of Dartmoor and Commons of Devon is one which
excites a vast difference of opinion. For some it has an extraordinary
fascination, whilst to others it is only, like a beautiful view in the
Highlands which I once heard depreciated by a native--'just hills.' And
the hills on Dartmoor are not even very high. Yes Tor, till lately
thought to be the highest point, is only a little over two thousand
feet; and High Willhayes, its superior, cannot claim to be more than a
few feet higher. So there are no towering heights or tremendous
precipices to explain its peculiar spell. Sir Frederick Pollock, in
paying true homage to the moor, gives the reason that accounts for
Dartmoor's dominion--its individuality. 'The reader may think fit to
observe, and with undisputable truth, that there are many other moors in
the world. Yes, but they are not Dartmoor.' And there is no more to be
said.
A very truthful and vivid description of the moor has been given by the
late Mr R. J. King: 'The dusky sweep of hills stretches away with an
endless variety of form and outline; in some parts sharply peaked, and
crested with masses of broken rock; at others, rounded and massive, and
lifting a long line of sombre heath against the sky. The deep hollows
which separate the hills are thickly covered with fern and heather, over
which blocks of granite are scattered in all directions; and, as in all
similar districts, each valley has its own clear mountain stream, which
receives the innumerable waterfalls descending from the hill-sides. The
whole country has a solitude, and an impressive grandeur, which
insensibly carries back the mind to an earlier and ruder age.'
'... Granite-browed, thou sitt'st in grandeur lone,
Thy temples wreathed with heaven's unsalted mist;
Feet in the brine, and face veiled by the cloud,
And vestiture by changing nature wrought--
Titan of earth and sky--silent and proud,
Even beauty kneeling hath her homage brought.
Time as a shadow speeds across thy plains,
Leaving no record of his printless feet;
* * * * *
And all our generations come and go,
As snowflakes on thy shoulders melting slow.'[3]
[Footnote 3: W. H. Hamilton Rogers, 'Dartmoor.']
Let the time or season be what it may, the moor has some fresh charm to
offer. In the early summer there is a special soft greenness, and the
hot air quivers above and about the rocks; later the hill-sides are
coloured by the lilac-pink of the ling and the richer tones of
bell-heather; and when the autumn leaves are fading and falling
'inland,' there may come such a day of sunshine and glorious blue sky,
with the larks singing on every side among the golden furze-blossoms,
that one is able to forget the calendar. And then, amongst the great
boulders covered with white lichen that lie along the sides of streams,
the leaves of the whortleberries turn scarlet over the little round
fruit, with its plum-like bloom. Sometimes in winter the snow lies in
patches on the hills, among stretches of pale grass and rich, dark,
red-brown masses of heather. On the edge of the moor, the springs by the
roadsides flow through a sparkling white border into a shining ice
hollow, and, looking away, one sees snow-covered heights against a pale
blue sky, in the unbroken stillness of distance. Perhaps the moor is
specially irresistible when the full moon throws its magic over hill and
valley, suggesting infinite possibilities. In the clear air the hills
look very solemn and impressive, and the long, broken reflections of the
moonbeams lie in every stream as it ripples over rocks or breaks against
boulders; while the foam gleams and trembles as flakes are torn away by
the current and swallowed up by the black shadows. In such a time and
place one may learn the meaning of 'a silence that can be heard.'
Dartmoor rises high above the surrounding country, and keeps his white
winter livery lying upon it long time, if not washed away by rain. The
air is delicious, but it must be admitted that the moor has a very ample
share of wind, rain, and mists. Faultfinders have also complained of the
bogs, and occasional accidents to travellers' horses have given the
mires the significant name of 'Dartmoor Stables,' although the moor
ponies are supposed always to be able to pick a safe path through
dangerous places.
From a certain point of view, Dartmoor reminds one of the mirror of the
Lady of Shalott, for here
'Shadows of the world appear.'
Or, rather, the shadows of a past world are reflected in its wastes,
witnessing to prehistoric man; to the tinners, who appear out of the
mists of antiquity, and who peopled the moor through the Middle Ages; to
the dawn of Christian teaching in the country; and to the Normans, with
their forest rights and laws. Antiquities abound, although there are
instances where it is most difficult to decide whether the remains are
prehistoric, or merely traces of mediaeval mining. 'It is possible that
"old men's workings," as the traces of abandoned mines are called in
this country, may account for more of them than is generally admitted.'
But modern observations have severely excluded any fanciful theories.
'Certain stone inclosures which have passed for British fortifications
are now more plausibly considered to have been made (at a sufficiently
remote time, we may freely allow) for the protection of cattle.'
However, after deducting any objects of doubtful antiquity, there
remain an enormous number as to which, there can be no question--stone
rows, kistvaens, menhirs, large circles of upright stones, forts and
barrows, and pounds enclosing hut-circles. It is interesting to read the
views of antiquaries at different stages of the nineteenth century, and
their flat contradictions of the opinions of their predecessors. A good
instance is given in the new edition of that mine of information, Rowe's
'Perambulation of Dartmoor,' where certain verdicts as to the origin of
Grimspound are quoted. 'Polwhele states that it was a seat of judicature
for the Cantred of Darius; Samuel Rowe, that it was a Belgic or Saxon
camp; Ormerod considered it a cattle-pound pure and simple; Spence Bate
was convinced that it was nothing more than a habitation of tinners, and
of no great age; while now the work of the Rev S. Baring-Gould and Mr
Robert Burnard goes far to show that its construction reaches back into
a remote past, and that its antiquity is greater than any former
investigator dared to assign to it.'
The great numbers of prehistoric people who lived on the moor are very
remarkable. 'Tens of thousands of their habitations have been
destroyed,' says Mr Baring-Gould, 'yet tens of thousands remain. At Post
Bridge, within a radius of half a mile, are fifteen pounds. If we give
an average of twenty huts to a pound, and allow for habitations
scattered about, not enclosed in a pound, and give six persons to a hut,
we have at once a population, within a mile, of 2,000 persons.' Perhaps
they climbed so high because on the lower slopes the forest was thick,
and wild beasts were more to be feared, though, according to tradition,
they were certainly not free from danger on the moor; for 'wolves and
winged serpents were no strangers to the hills or valleys.' All their
possessions that we are aware of belong to the early Bronze Age, when
flint was used in great quantities, and bronze was known, but was rare
and very valuable. The amber pommel of a dagger, inlaid with gold pins,
and part of a bronze dagger blade, were found in a barrow on Hameldon,
and a few other bronze weapons have been discovered; flint implements in
abundance. Great numbers of flint scrapers for cleaning the skins of
animals, and small knives for cutting up meat, have been picked up;
arrow-heads are scarce, and it would seem that they left very few celts
or axes, and spear-heads.
Of the exceedingly interesting remains, perhaps the most interesting--at
any rate, to the uninitiated--is Grimspound. The boundary wall, which is
double, encloses four acres; it is from ten to twelve feet thick, but
not above five and a half feet in height. Within the circle are
twenty-four hut-circles, and in some of them charcoal and fragments of
pottery have been found. A brook, dipping under the walls, and passing
through the enclosure, supplied the camp with water.
Drizzlecombe, near Sheep's Tor, is rich in a variety of antiquities, for
it has three stone rows, a large tumulus, a kistvaen, and a later
relic--a miner's blowing-house. One of the avenues is two hundred and
sixty feet long, and one is double for a part of the way, and each of
the three starts from a menhir, or long stone. Near Merivale Bridge are
two double stone rows, but the stones are small. Close by are a sacred
circle, a kistvaen, a pound and hut-circles, and one cairn, besides the
ruins of others that have been destroyed. It would be absurd to pretend
to enter on such a wide subject here. Some idea of its extent may be
gathered by considering one single branch of it: Mr Baring-Gould has
stated that no fewer than fifty stone avenues have been observed in
different parts of the moor. And hut-circles and ancient track-lines are
unnumbered, although very many antiquities of all kinds have been
destroyed when granite was wanted for rebuilding churches, or for making
doorways or gate-posts, or even for mending roads.
The early antiquaries discovered the hand of the Druids in certain
unusual rock-shapes, now known to be the work of Nature--such as
rock-basins, which are developed in the granite by the action of wind
and rain; tolmens, or holed stones; and logans, or rocking-stones.
Granite on the moor generally weathers irregularly, and if the lower
part of a piled-up mass partly crumbles away, a huge layer of harder
granite remains balanced on one or two points, and becomes what is
called a logan-stone. In some cases, though the slab is almost
impossible to remove, it will rock at a finger-touch. Perhaps the most
striking example on Dartmoor is the Rugglestone, near Widdecombe, which
it has been calculated weighs about one hundred and ten tons; but there
are several in the neighbourhood, and a logan called the Nut-Crackers is
perched among the thickly scattered boulders on Lustleigh Cleave. This
lovely little valley lies on the eastern edge of the moor, and the River
Bovey flows through it. Masses of granite crown the ridge; lower on the
hill-side is a jungle of tall bracken, and the stream is overshadowed by
a wood, crowded with matted undergrowth and with innumerable rocks
tumbled together.
Granite more consistent than that found on most of the tors--that is,
'not broken into the usual layers of soft beds alternating with hard
layers'--forms the great masses of rock on Hey Tor, and these have not
weathered into strange, jagged outlines. William Howitt wrote a charming
description of Hey Tor in his 'Rural Life of England,' from which I
quote a few lines: 'Below, the deep dark river went sounding on its way
with a melancholy music, and as I wound up the steep road all beneath
the gnarled oaks, I ever and anon caught glimpses of the winding valley
to the left, all beautiful with wild thickets and half-shrouded faces of
rock, and still on high these glowing ruddy tors standing in the blue
air in their sublime silence. My road wound up and up, the heather and
bilberry on either hand.'
A 'wonder' which has been associated with the Druids is the grove of
oaks called Wistman's Wood. It lies close to Two Bridges, on the slope
above the West Dart, and at a little distance looks more like a
furze-brake than a wood. All the oaks are dwarfs, stunted by the lack of
soil and force of the winds. Mr Rowe quotes from a 'botanical writer,'
who examined some of them: 'The bole of this tree was about three feet
high, and its total height to the topmost branches fifteen feet. The
circumference of the trunk was six feet, and its prime must have been
about the date of the Norman Conquest.' Some of the boughs, like the
trunks, are immensely thick for the height of the trees, and they are
covered with very deep cushions of bright green moss and hangings of
polypody, and whortleberries grow upon them. Every step between the
trees is perilous, among the uneven crowded masses of rocks and
half-concealed clefts. Many of the boulders are moss-covered, a kind of
sedge and long, flag-like grass spring among the crevices and add to the
pitfalls, and the whole wood really has the air of having been
bewitched. Mrs Bray's impressions of it are interesting. She found the
slope 'strewn' all over with immense masses of granite.... In the midst
of these gigantic blocks, growing among them, or starting, as it were,
from their interstices, arises wildly, and here and there widely
scattered, _a grove of dwarf oak-trees_.... They spread far and wide at
their tops, and their branches twist and bend in the most tortuous
manner; sometimes reminding one of those strange things called
mandrakes, of which there is a superstition noticed by Shakespeare--
'"Like shrieking mandrakes torn from out the earth."'
Though some of the stone circles on the moor are due to miners rather
than to prehistoric man, their antiquity may very well win respect; for,
according to the views of the early nineteenth century, it was quite
probable that the Phoenicians were trading with this island for tin in
the year 1000 B.C.! It is unnecessary to say that the reasoning which
supports this theory is very ingenious, and later opinions do not allow
that the Phoenicians ever traded directly with Britain at all. The
metal, it is held, was brought to the Mediterranean coast through the
medium of 'the Veneti of what is now Vannes, and the tin trade was
carried through Gaul to Marseilles.' To take a great leap from the date
originally suggested, there is certain evidence that British tin was
conveyed over this trade route in the year 40 B.C. The Romans taught the
Britons better methods of mining, and how tin might be used for
household needs. Another long interval without any mention of the
subject brings us to the reign of the Normans, when it seems that the
mines were almost entirely in the hands of the Jews. On their expulsion
by Edward I, the mines were neglected for a few years, and next a
charter was granted to several Devonshire gentlemen, at their request,
conferring the important privilege of holding plea of all actions
relating to the mines, 'those of lyfe, lymme, and lande' excepted.
Henceforward the Devonshire miners were separated from the Cornish, and
held stannary parliaments on the top of Crockern Tor. The summit is
piled with granite, and out of the rock was hewn 'a warden's or
president's chair, seats for the jurors, and a high corner stone for the
crier of the court, and a table,' says Polwhele; and here the 'hardy
mountain council'--twenty-four burgesses from each of the stannary
towns--assembled. 'This memorable place is only a great rock of
moorstone, out of which a table and seats are hewn, open to all the
weather, storms and tempests, having neither house nor refuge near it by
divers miles,' wrote Prince. It is much to be regretted that nearly all
traces of the court have now disappeared, and a report says that the
table and seats were carried away to be used for some buildings not far
off. It is said that the last parliament was held on this tor in 1749,
but for some time before that date the court merely met on the tor, and,
after the jurors had been sworn in, adjourned to one of the stannary
towns.
From the charter of Edward I onwards, mining seems to have prospered,
with one or two intervals of great depression, and as late as 1861
seventy-four mines were being worked in Devonshire. 'Streaming' for tin
was very much practised in the Middle Ages, and the sides of valleys all
over Dartmoor are scored with the works of the tin-streamers, who turned
about the streams and examined the beds for 'grain-tin.' Many of the
ruined 'blowing-houses' are still to be seen on the moor. Mrs. Bray
mentions a curious testimony to the wildness and remoteness of the parts
in which some of the miners must have worked: 'A very old woodcut ...
exhibited a whole pack of hounds harnessed and laden with little bags of
tin, travelling over the mountains of Dartmoor; these animals being able
to cross the deep bogs of the forest in situations where there were no
roads, and where no other beasts of burden could pass.'
It was owing to the mines that Dartmoor became a part of the Duchy, for
the 'metalliferous' moors of Dartmoor and Cornwall had, on that account,
long been Crown lands; and therefore, when Edward III created his eldest
son Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, the Chase of Dartmoor, and the
Castle and Manor of Lydford were granted to him with the estates in
Cornwall. Dartmoor has existed as a forest practically from time
immemorial, and the date when forest laws were first imposed on it is,
in the opinion of the learned, 'lost in antiquity.' The first charter
affecting the state of the moor was bestowed in 1204, when King John was
compelled reluctantly to grant a Charter of Forests, disafforesting the
lands that had been gradually appropriated by the Kings since Henry I.
Surrounding the forest proper are lands known as the Commons of Devon,
and, usually speaking, they are included in any general reference to
Dartmoor. Every parish in Devonshire, excepting Barnstaple and Totnes,
has a right to pasture cattle on them for the payment of a small sum.
Two classes of men have special rights in the moor: owners and occupiers
of tenements within the forest, and venville tenants, or owners of land
in particular vills, or towns, adjoining the forest. Claims and
counter-claims as to their exact rights and liabilities have been
pressed in successive centuries, but various ancient documents set forth
these tenants' rights, 'time out of mind, to take all things that might
do them good, saving green oak and venison.' These privileges include
pasturing all 'commonable beasts' on the moor, digging turf for fuel,
stone and sand for mending houses and lands, and taking heath for
thatching, 'paying their dues and doing their suits and services.' The
'suits and services' involved attendance at the Prince's Courts, and the
tenants' help at the time of the bullock and pony drifts--that is, when
the herds are driven off the moor by the moormen to a point chosen by
the Duchy steward, and are there identified by their owners.
In the Duchy records appear various well-known names that one does not
naturally associate with the Forest. The Conqueror granted it to his
half-brother, Robert, Earl of Montaigne; King John gave the Earldom of
Cornwall to his second son, Richard Plantagenet, afterwards King of the
Romans. This Prince 'much augmented the powers of the stannaries of
Devon and Cornwall, and under his auspices they thrived exceedingly.'
For a short time the earldom was bestowed on Piers Gaveston; Thomas
Cromwell and some others had a lease of the lead-mines on the moor for
twenty-one years; the first Earl of Bedford was 'Custos of the Forest or
Chase of Dartmoor'; and Sir Walter Raleigh was appointed Ranger and
Master Forester, besides being Lord Warden of the Stannaries. The first
perambulation of the forest boundaries probably took place in 1224, and
others have been made at intervals ever since; yet a long tale of
grievances from that date almost up to the present time might be heard
from commoners whose rights have been encroached upon.
The bounds of property owned by religious houses at certain points were
marked by granite crosses, of which a great number are still to be found
on the moor. Some of them, however, were standing long before the
monasteries were built. To take one instance, the cross on Sourton Down
has an inscription which, it has been declared, belongs to the sixth
century, and which can still be deciphered when the sun is setting and
the rays slant across it. The Abbot's Way, leading over the moor, is
marked by crosses. It ran westwards from Buckfast Abbey, and divided at
Broad Rock, near Plym Head, in the middle of the moor--one branch going
to Tavistock, and the other to Buckland Abbey. The path cannot now be
traced the whole way, but the crosses show the line. Beckamoor Cross (or
the Windy Post, as it is sometimes called), between two and three miles
south-east of Tavistock, is a typical Dartmoor cross, and a fine
example, but it cannot be numbered among the very old ones, for it seems
to date from the sixteenth century.
Perhaps the Dartmoor village best known by name is
Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, and its fame is spread by the song 'Widdecombe
Fair;' this is the most popular of Devonshire folk-songs, and the air
served the Devon Regiment as a march in the Boer War. But Widdecombe has
more solid claims to consideration, and one of them is the large and
beautiful church, with its very fine tower and high crocketed pinnacles,
each pointed by a cross. The roof is adorned by 'bosses, carved and
painted with heads, flowers and leaves, and also figures or marks which
obscurely shadow forth the learning of the alchemist.' The presence of
these symbols is explained by a tradition that the church was built by
miners. 'On one of the bosses is the combination of three rabbits, each
with a single ear, which join in the centre, forming a triangle--a
favourite alchemical symbol, called the hunt of Venus.' Parts of the
rood-screen remain, and on the panels are painted saints and doctors of
the Church, and a king and queen. On October 21, 1638, a terrible storm
raged here during service-time. First fell 'a strange darkenesse'; then
a terrific thunder-clap; 'the ratling thereof' was much like 'the report
of many great cannons.' 'Extraordinarie lightning' flashed, 'so flaming
that the whole church was presently filled with fire and smoke,' and a
smell of brimstone, and a great ball of fire came in at the window and
passed through the church. The church itself was much torne and defaced,
'stones throwne from the Tower as thick as if an hundred men had been
there throwing.' Several people were killed and many 'grievously scalded
and wounded.' The history of the storm has been told in verse, and the
lines were painted on tablets and placed in the church. Mrs Bray found
'the wildest tales' of the storm floating among the people in the
neighbourhood, and, amongst them, 'One story is that the devil, dressed
in black and mounted on a black horse, inquired his way to the church,
of a woman who kept a little public-house on the moor. He offered her
money to become his guide; but she distrusted him, in remarking that the
liquor went hissing down his throat, and finally had her suspicions
confirmed by discovering he had a cloven foot, which he could not
conceal even by his boot.'
Widdecombe is called cold and bleak, and it is not only with the
terrific tempest that its name is associated, for when the snow fell
thickly the South Devon folk used to look--as perhaps they still
do--towards the moor, and say to the children: 'Widdecombe hills are
picking their geese, faster, faster, faster.'
About twelve miles south-west of Widdecombe is Sheeps Tor, a sharply
defined height that has given its name to the parish and tiny village
that it overshadows. Originally it was called Shettes Tor--that is,
Steep Tor, the word being derived from the Celtic _syth_.
Hidden among the great piles of moorstone heaped upon the tor is a cave
known as the Pixies' House. Mrs Bray describes an expedition that she
made to Sheeps Tor, and how, on asking her way to the cave, she was told
to 'be careful to leave a pin, or something of equal value, as an
offering to these invisible beings; otherwise they would not fail to
torment us in our sleep.' Grass grows on the lower slopes, but near the
summit there spreads a 'bold and shelving sweep of about two hundred
feet, the granite ... totally bare, save where it was here and there
covered by a coating of mosses and lichens. It lies tossed about in
enormous masses in every direction.' The cave itself is in the midst of
'most confused masses of rock, that looked as if they had been tossed
about by the fiends in battle,' and the entrance itself is a 'cleft
between two rocks.' A story of human interest is also connected with the
cave, for here Walter Elford, Lord of the Manor, was forced to hide when
the country was being searched for him. Squire Elford was a
Parliamentarian, and one of the 'secluded' members of the Long
Parliament; but he was so far thrown into opposition by the development
of the Protector's policy that he reached the point of plotting against
him, and in consequence a party of Desborough's troops were sent in
pursuit of the squire to his own house. Fortunately, among the huge
boulders the entrance to the cave was very difficult to find, and the
Pixies' House proved a safe refuge until the search-parties were
withdrawn.
About fifteen miles from Widdecombe, on the north-west side of the moor,
lies Lydford, whose size is in no way proportionate to its antiquity.
'Doubtless,' says Risdon, 'in the Saxons' heptarchy, it was a town of
some note, that felt the furious rage of the merciless Danes.' And it is
true that in 997 Lydford was burned down by them. At this time Lydford
had its own mint, and money was coined here; and in the Domesday Book it
was described as being taxed equally with London. But the village is
very conspicuously a victim of 'the whirligig of time,' and William
Browne gives a most unflattering picture of its appearance in the
middle of the seventeenth century:
'I oft have heard of Lydford law,
How in the morn they hang and draw,
And sit in judgment after:
At first I wondered at it much;
But soon I found the matter such
As it deserves no laughter.
'They have a castle on a hill;
I took it for some old windmill,
The vanes blown off by weather.
Than lie therein one night 'tis guessed
'Twere better to be stoned, or pressed,
Or hanged, ere you come hither.
* * * * *
'Near these poor men that lie in lurch,
See a dire bridge, a little church,
Seven ashes and one oak;
Three houses standing, and ten down;
They say the rector hath a gown,
But I saw ne'er a cloak:
* * * * *
'This town's enclosed with desert moors,
But where no bear nor lion roars,
And nought can live but hogs:
For, all o'erturned by Noah's flood,
Of fourscore miles scarce one foot's good,
And hills are wholly bogs.'
The Castle is not very large, and is now utterly in ruins, though the
walls of the square keep are still standing. In Browne's day it was used
as the stannary prison, and was denounced in an Act of Parliament as
'one of the most heinous, contagious, and detestable places in the
realm.' For many years after this Lydford was a lonely village,
generally ignored, in spite of its fine air and beautiful scenery.
Towards the moor it looks up to an irregular barrier (about a mile or so
distant) of very picturesque tors, and in the opposite direction a
fertile and pleasant country spreads beneath it. The River Lyd winds
through scenes that are always delightful and sometimes very striking,
but the cascade has been so much praised that, if seen in summer, it is
apt to be disappointing. Lydford Gorge, however, is properly placed
among the 'wonders' of Devonshire--to use Fuller's expression. The gorge
is deep and exceedingly narrow, and the sides are precipitous. The
river, rushing between blocks of stone, flows so far below the road that
from the bridge, where the chasm is only a few yards wide, it is almost
invisible. Risdon says: 'It maketh such a hideous noise, that being only
heard, and not seen, it causeth a kind of fear to the passengers,
seeming to them that look down to it, a deep abyss.' A story (that may
quite easily be true) is told of a man arriving late one night in
Lydford from Tavistock, to the amazement of Lydford people, who knew
that their bridge had been broken down. In the darkness the traveller
had noticed 'nothing more than that his horse had made a sudden spring;
but on being afterwards led to the chasm he was struck with a mingled
sensation of horror, surprise, and thankfulness.'
From an historical point of view, it is ludicrous to think of Lydford
and Princetown, its neighbour (as one counts neighbours on a
moor)--Lydford, in all its glory nearly a hundred years before the
Conquest, and Princetown, created by the Prince Regent. It is, I
believe, the highest village in England, and in walking up to it there
comes a feeling that this is rather like walking up a gigantic
snail-shell, and that, when one reaches the top, it _is_ the very top
and end of all things. A tranquillity reigns over the tiny town which
even the occasional sight of warders with their loaded rifles does not
break; and the workaday world seems to have been left far below.
But the desolate moor as seen from this point, the bleak winds, and very
frequent rain, brought cold comfort to the French prisoners of war, on
whose account the prison was built. Their views are probably reflected
in a gloomy description of Princetown, traducing the climate, which was
given by a French writer, quoted by Mr R. J. King. 'For seven months in
the year,' says a M. Catel, 'it is a vraie Siberie, covered with
unmelting snow. When the snows go away, the mists appear.'
The lot of the French prisoners, however, was tempered by certain
alleviations, and very many of them were allowed to live on parole in
specified towns, most of which are near the moor. In 1813 a large number
of American prisoners of war were added to the eight thousand French at
Princetown, but for some reason were not at first allowed the same
privileges. This may help to account for the aggrieved tone in which one
of them refers to his French fellow-prisoners, as well as to the
British. Andrews wrote a journal which was afterwards published. 'The
Seigneurs,' he says, 'received remittances from their friends or had
money of their own, and were able to support themselves in a genteel
manner.' They were allowed to have plays with a stage and scenery once a
month, and also 'had their schools for teaching the arts and sciences,
dancing, fencing, and fiddling.' He criticises them severely: 'They
drink, sing and dance,' and, with a fine allusion to emphasise his
point, declares: 'But the Americans have not that careless volatility,
like the cockle in the fable, to sing and dance when the house is on
fire over them.' The French were released after the abdication of
Napoleon; a year later, peace was signed between England and America,
and then, till 1850, the buildings were unoccupied. In that year the
decision was made that they should be used as a convict prison, and as a
result, one must agree with Sir Frederick Pollock, it 'is the ugliest
thing physically and morally on the moor.'
It is pleasanter to turn back to the moor itself--to topics less out of
character with it. Foremost appear stories of magic, black and white,
ancient beliefs and legends without end. Mr King, whose knowledge of the
country was at once vast and minute, is quoted as having said 'that he
believed almost every form of superstition or superstitious observances
condemned in the Penitential of Bartholomew, Bishop of Exeter,
1161-1184, might be found sheltering itself under the Dartmoor Tors.'
(This remark must have been made about the middle of the nineteenth
century.) 'The same wild creed has been handed down from generation to
generation; the same spots on the lonely moor, and the same gloomy pools
in the river, that were shunned by his forefathers, are avoided as
"critical" (to use his own word) by the Devonshire peasant now ... and
whoever may find himself in the heart of its lonely wastes when daylight
is closing, and the air seems to fill with
'"Undescribed sounds
That come a-swooning over hollow ground,
And wither drearily on barren moors,"
will scarcely wonder that the spirits of the elder world should not yet
have been effectually dislodged from their ancient solitudes.... The
Pixies, thoroughly mischievous elves, who delight to lead all wanderers
astray, dwell in the clefts of broken granite, and dance on the green
sward by the side of the hill streams; ... sometimes, but very rarely,
they are seen dancing by the streams dressed in green, the true livery
of the small people. They ride horses at night, and tangle their manes
into inextricable knots. They may be heard pounding their cider and
threshing their wheat far within the recesses of their "house" on
Sheepstor--a cavern formed by overhanging blocks of granite. Deep river
pools and deceitful morasses, over which the cotton grass flutters its
white tassels, are thought to be the "gates" of their country, where
they possess diminutive flocks and herds of their own. Malicious, yet
hardly demoniacal, they are precisely Dryden's "spirits of a middle
sort"--
"Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,
Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell"
--a character which cannot, however, be assigned to their unearthly
companions, the wish-hounds. These have no redeeming tinge of white, and
belong to the gloomiest portion of the underworld.'
A true lover of the moor, and very sensitive to its element of mystery,
Mr King has put what he has seen and imagined into verse that must be
most appreciated by those who know the Forest best:
THE FOREST OF THE DARTMOORS.
The purple heather flowers are dark
In the hollow of the hill,
Though far along each rocky peak
The sunlight lingers still;
Dark hang the rushes o'er the stream--
There is no sound below,
Save when the fern, by the night's wind stirred.
Waves gently to and fro.
Thou old wild forest! many a dream
Of far-off glamoury,
Of gentle knight and solemn sage,
Is resting still on thee.
Still float the mists across the fells,
As when those barons bold,
Sir Tristram and Sir Percival,
Sped o'er the weary wold.
* * * * *
Then through the glens of the folding hills.
And over the heath so brown,
King Arthur leads his belted knights
Homewards to Carlyoun;
A goodly band, with long white spears,
Upon their shoulders set,
And first of all that Flower of Kings
With his golden coronet.
And sometimes, by the clear hill streams,
A knight rides on alone;
He rideth ever beside the river,
Although the day be done;
For he looketh toward the western land
Where watcheth his ladye,
On the shore of the rocky Cornewayle,
In the castle by the sea.
* * * * *
And now thy rocks are silent all,
The kingly chase is o'er,
Yet none may take from thee, old land,
Thy memories of yore.
In many a green and solemn place,
Girt with the wild hills round,
The shadow of the holy cross
Yet sleepeth on the ground.
In many a glen where the ash keys hang
All golden 'midst their leaves,
The knights' dark strength is rising yet,
Clad in its wild-flower wreaths.
And yet along the mountain-paths
Rides forth that stately band,
A vision of the dim old days--
A dream of fairyland.
'It is the wide extent of these solitary wastes which makes them so
impressive, and gives them their influence over the imagination. Whether
seen at mid-day, when the gleams of sunlight are chasing one another
along the hill-side; or at sunset, when the long line of dusky moorland
lifts itself against the fading light of the western sky, the same
character of extent and freedom is impressed on the landscape, which
carries the fancy from hill to hill, and from valley to valley, and
leads it to imagine other scenes, of equal wildness, which the distant
hills conceal
'"Beyond their utmost purple rim."'
Perhaps the scenery of Dartmoor is never more impressive than under
those evening effects which have last been suggested. The singular
shapes assumed by the granite cappings of the tors are strongly
projected against the red light of the sunset, which gleams between the
many openings in the huge piles of rock, making them look like passages
into some unknown country beyond them, and suggesting that idea of
infinity which is afforded by no other object of sight in equal degree.
Meanwhile, the heather of the foreground is growing darker and darker;
and the only sound which falls upon the ear is that of the river far
below, or perhaps the flapping of some heron's wings, as he rises from
his rock in the stream and disappears westward--
'Where, darkly painted on the blood-red sky,
His figure floats along.'