ahead stand the three tors which we last saw from behind Oaklands: Row Tor, a low granite-strewn hill; Mil Tor, abrupt and crowned with fine rocks; and high above all, Yes Tor, partly cut off by the dark ridge of Blackdown. Looking over Fitz's Well a vast extent of undulating country stretches away to Exmoor and the 'Severn Sea,' Okehampton Church prominent in the foreground. Striking as is the prospect even from this point, it is even more so from the summit of the great tor to the right; and till we arrive there we will not, therefore, enlarge upon its beauties.

The moorward side of the park is bounded by a rough granite wall-like all other such divisions in this part of the world, innocent of cement. The real boundary, however, is a line of stone posts, many yards apart, extending from Blackdown to the upper corner of Pothanger Farm, a homestead on the very confines of civilization. In the wall immediately beneath Row Tor is the Moor Gate, as it is called, almost on the edge of the tiny Moor Brook, which, rising in the uplands of Mil Tor, steals away between banks of turf and heather for Halstock Cleave, to pour its waters into the East Ockment, far beneath in the wilder glen of Belstone. By following the green plateau above the railway-station we shall come upon the vallum of a British, or perhaps Danish camp, which has given forth some remains in the shape of pottery and, it is said, coins, though of what nationality or period I am unable to ascertain. What the plough has spared of this ancient hill fortress is at best insignificant, and the detour could perhaps hardly be justified did not the rocky headland command a striking view of the beautiful depths of the two cleaves, which will well repay those who hold that mountain streams gleaming through rounded foliage have a claim upon the attention equal to that somewhat imperiously demanded by the rugged wilderness.

Passing now through the Moor Gate, the park-a mis

Row and Mil Tors.

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nomer for so wild a scene-is left behind, and we find ourselves at the base of the first of the three sentinels who may be said to guard the moorland mysteries. Row Tor is accounted to owe its name to the Celtic roo, red or heathery, and certainly is clothed thickly in autumn with the little pink flower. But like the rocky hill of the same title on the Cornish moors away in the western distance, it is with equal probability a less romantic corruption of Rough Tor. Its loftier companion is explained by the same authority* as meaning the yellow hill, from the Celtic milin, yellow or furzy. It is suggested by the Okehampton folk that Middle Tor is a more likely derivation. That many of the tors do bear British names is, nevertheless, an indisputable fact, and Mr. King's theory therefore is entitled to all respect. Yes Tor, as superior to Mil Tor as is the latter to the 'heathery hill,' has baffled both learned etymologist and ignorant peasant. East Tor is the probable interpretation (Anglo-Saxon est), but as it happens to be the westernmost of the three heights this can scarcely carry absolute conviction. Surely the Anglo-Saxon yst, a storm, is a root far more plausible.+

When clouds wreathe these sister hills, and the rocky brow of Yes Tor projects through the vapour 'like the anvil for the hammer of a Thor,' the view is most impressive, and we are tempted to indulge in the language of old Risdon and regard them as 'rather mountains.' Swollen by the rains, the little brook rushes down from the heathery slopes, plunging with many a cascade into the recesses far below; every wheel-track becomes a torrent in miniature; every clump of furze bows beneath the weight of moisture. The wild-looking Scotch cattle huddle together in disconsolate groups, or wander dis

* R. J. King, p. 45.

† Vide, 'Notes on the Historical Connections of Devonshire Place Names, by R. N. Worth. Trans. Dev. Assoc., vol. x.

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Yes Tor and High Willbays.

mally into the driving mists, and even the ubiquitous stonechat has sought shelter in the hollows of the rocks. At such times Dartmoor is better left to the elements.

A rough road leads right to the foot of Yes Tor, ending in the Redavenn, which makes a precipitous descent of a thousand feet in less than a mile, joining the West Ockment near Meldon. It is no very difficult matter, albeit an arduous and rough pilgrimage, to steer a straight course for the summit, which, marked by the flagstaff of the Artillery, is visible most of the way. At every step fresh beauties spread out beneath. Blackdown gradually sinks below the eye, opening up the sunny fields of Northern Devon, while the windings of the deep ravine of the Redavenn may be traced almost to its mouth. Soon Mil Tor, lofty half an hour since, appears a mere heap of rocks, curiously changing in form as we mount into the upper air. A final effort up the piles which cap the great hill, and we stand upon the broad-arrow cut deep into the granite by the Ordnance surveyors, 2,029′6 feet above the sea-triumph of engineering skill to reduce the altitude of a mountain to a decimal point!

But Yes Tor has fallen. For years regarded as the highest point south of Ingleborough, it has succumbed to the instruments of the Ordnance Survey. Directly south, an object bearing a great resemblance to a low roundtower upstarts from the long ridge. This is High Willhays, which dominates its neighbour some ten feet. The curious name may be derived from the Cornish huel, a tin-mine, or from Wealhas, the Saxon name for the Ancient Britons. The qualifying adjective probably owes its origin to the Anglo-Saxon heah, high. But a third suggestion may be hazarded. Brown Willy, the highest eminence in Cornwall, is a corruption of Bron Welli, the look-out hill. It is at least possible that Welli is the root of Willhays, and thus the name may be interpreted as the high lookout, or, as in Cornwall, look-out hill. The prominent

View from Yes Tor.

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fire-beacon which forms its tower-like protuberance lends strength to this assumption.

The granite-strewn waste lies at our feet. Beyond, in the very heart of the shadowy moorland, stretch the swelling hills of peat morass, where rise so many of the Dartmoor rivers. The accustomed eye can almost discern the locality of the 'Urn of Cranmere' amid the vast steppes of bog. Fur Tor (Celtic fawr, great), a lonely height 1,877 feet in elevation, rises behind these gloomy swamps, and still further south the fine crest of Great Mis Tor stands out sharp against the horizon, having to the west Roose Tor, the Staple Tors, and Cocks Tor. Below is Mil Tor, a great heap of weathered granite; then Row Tor, and beyond the shallow valley of the East Ockment, the Belstone Tors, and Hock Tor, with the immense 'hog's-back' of Cosdon closing the view. Steeperton, Watern, and Wild (or Wills) Tors are south of the Beacon; East Mil Tor rears its smooth green slopes immediately behind Row Tor; while southward, Newlake and Cut Hill, both round heathery eminences, rise like billows, with Fur Tor to the west. Looking to the right, the lofty crags of Great Links seem on a level with our standpoint. A deep valley, its opposite slope almost a precipice, and seamed with the beds of multitudinous torrents, lies between, in places scarcely allowing the Ockment to worm through its granite-choked bed. High above rises Amicombe Hill, which, after attaining a bold brow crowned with a round clump of rock called by the Ordnance Map Branscomb's Loaf, but known locally as the Loaf and Cheeses, sinks into a spherical valley of almost pastoral appearance, to rise again in the serrated rocks of Sourton Tor.

Like a map beneath lies the whole northern district of Devon, dotted with villages, each clustering about a gray church-tower. Far to the west of Exmoor a gray streak marks where Torridge and Taw mingle their waters ere

entering the sea; and looking across the Cornish peninsula is seen the gap defining the outlines of Bude Bay, across which stretches the line of the misty Atlantic.

But what is that dark thread cutting the gorge twelve hundred feet below? We are not left long in doubt. A white puff of steam darts from a deep cutting, and a faint rumble is borne to our ears even at this height. That dark thread is the Meldon Viaduct, and the white puff the banner of an express train speeding from Plymouth to Waterloo. Well may we moralize at the changes that have swept across the centuries since Yes Tor was first created, an excrescence, maybe, left by that huge volcano whereof Dartmoor is but the base. Under our very feet have the rude flint-chippings of the stone-men been found;* their graves and monuments stud the face of the wilderness around—and away into the distance glides the long train, marking with almost startling abruptness the difference between past and present.

Let us descend the western brow, passing on our way divers turf ties-the furrows cut upon the Moor where the peat is of good quality for fuel-and make for the triple piles of Blackator, by which title Great Black Tor is known to the neighbourhood. The glacis to the river is very abrupt, and covered with a profusion of clatters, many beautified with coatings of vari-coloured lichen. A grove of dwarf oak lies beneath, rich in mossy boulder and waving fern, and like its more ancient brother, Wistman's Wood, reputed to be 'a mortal place for snakes.' Down the gorge the river dashes and gurgles among rocks of cyclopean dimensions, forming many a sparkling cascade and eddying whirlpool in its impetuous career. Just before

* Mr. F. Brent, F.S.A., discovered a very perfect fabricator on the south side, shaped like a bean-pod, and about 3 inches in length. Many flakes have been met with on the northern declivity, and some piles of loose stones near the summit apparently mark the site of rifled cairns. Between the tor and High Willhays appear the almost obliterated traces of what seems to have been a circular barrow, edged with thin flat stones.