We had thought of crossing over the centre of Dartmoor, but found it a
much larger and wilder place than we had imagined, embracing over
100,000 acres of land and covering an area of about twenty-five square
miles, while in the centre were many swamps or bogs, very dangerous,
especially in wet or stormy weather. There were also many hills, or
"tors," rising to a considerable elevation above sea-level, and ranging
from Haytor Rocks at 1,491 feet to High Willheys at 2,039 feet. Mists
and clouds from the Atlantic were apt to sweep suddenly over the Moor
and trap unwary travellers, so that many persons had perished in the
bogs from time to time; and the clouds striking against the rocky tors
caused the rainfall to be so heavy that the Moor had been named the
"Land of Streams." One of the bogs near the centre of the Moor was never
dry, and formed a kind of shallow lake out of which rose five rivers,
the Ockment or Okement, the Taw, the Tavy, the Teign, and the Dart, the
last named and most important having given its name to the Moor. Besides
these, the Avon, Erme, Meavy, Plym, and Yealm, with many tributary
brooks, all rise in Dartmoor.
Devonshire was peculiar in having no forests except that of Dartmoor,
which was devoid of trees except a small portion called Wistman's Wood
in the centre, but the trees in this looked so old and stunted as to
make people suppose they had existed there since the time of the
Conquest, while others thought they had originally formed one of the
sacred groves connected with Druidical worship, since legend stated that
living men had been nailed to them and their bodies left there to decay.
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