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The prospect of the moor from this or any other commanding point can only be described as awful in its grim, monotonous, silent desolation, the only beauty being that of swelling distant outline, or frequently that of colour, when the atmosphere is clear between the frequent showers, and the rays of the sun light up the heather and the moss, diversifying the dark shadows of the tors with the various hues of green, with the ruddy gleam of withered fern, and rushes in many a morass. But let not the traveller be too hopeful of sunshine and clear air! For as the local rhyme says:
The south wind blows, and brings wet weather;
The north gives wet and cold together;
The west wind comes brimful of rain,
The east wind drives it back again.
Then, if the sun in red should set,
We know the morrow must be wet;
And if the eve is clad in grey,
The next is sure a rainy day.”
Still, the slopes by which Dartmoor descends to the lowlands around are beautiful. In fact, the mighty granite mass is girdled by an investiture of fair glens and smiling villages, which make the circuit of it a succession of some of the brightest pictures that England can anywhere present in the same compass. The drive from Oke-hampton to Chagford, or to Moreton Hampstead, for instance, is of wonderful charm. Near the former village, the river Teign descends over rocks and boulders in a richly-wooded glen, as beautiful in parts as Dovedale.
The rivers, indeed, which come down on all sides from Dartmoor, are the glory of Devonshire. Beside the Teign, there is the Dart itself, one head-stream of which rises near the well-known prison at Prince Town, with the Taw, Tavy, Avon, Erme, Plym, and streamlets innumerable.
Travellers in favourable weather will do well to cross Dartmoor by the coach-road, from Moreton Hampstead to Tavistock, past the big, gloomy prison, appropriately placed in the very wildest and most desolate part of the whole region. Or, as we did, making Okehampton their headquarters, they may pass on by train by way of Lidford. The railway is carried in places at a great height, on the open edge of the moor, which it curiously fringes: it seems essentially a holiday line; there is no hurry, and the traveller, as he passes along, may leisurely survey the frowning heights above, or the fair valley below, according to his choice.