We therefore decided to go round the Moor instead of over it, and visit
the town of Plymouth, which otherwise we should not have seen.
The whole of Dartmoor was given by Edward III to his son the Black
Prince, when he gave him the title of Duke of Cornwall after his
victorious return from France, and it still belonged to the Duchy of
Cornwall, and was the property of the Crown; but all the Moor was open
and free to visitors, who could follow their own route in crossing it,
though in places it was gradually being brought into cultivation,
especially in the neighbourhood of the many valleys which in the course
of ages had been formed by the rivers on their passage towards the sea.
As our road for some miles passed along the fringe of the great Moor,
and as the streams crossed it in a transverse direction, on our way to
Plymouth we passed over six rivers, besides several considerable brooks,
after leaving the River Dart at Totnes. These rivers were named the
Harbourne, Avon, Lud, Erme, Yealm, and Plym, all flowing from Dartmoor;
and although there was such a heavy rainfall on the uplands, it was said
that no one born and bred thereon ever died of pulmonary consumption.
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