CHAPTER XX
THE DART—DITTISHAM—STOKE GABRIEL—“PARLIAMENT HOUSE”
The eight miles steamboat trip up or down the Dart is one of the finest things Devonshire has to show, for the river Dart is rightly thought the most beautiful of rivers. The Dart chiefly known in this manner by tourists is not the mountain-stream that rises in the heart of Dartmoor, but the tidal, salt-water estuary between Dartmouth and Totnes. Not only tourists, but all who have business between those two places, use the Dart and its steamers; for the district, hilly as it is, knows nothing of railways. The Dart is known well enough by tourists from the decks of these little steamers, but its shores and creeks, and the quiet villages along them, are rarely explored. The picturesque village of Dittisham is perhaps an exception, for the steamers call off its quay, and picnic parties penetrate so far. Dittisham is a large village occupying a rather puzzling geographical position on one of the numerous capes or headlands formed by the amazing windings of this romantic river. It looks upon the water from two directly opposite outlooks, and is partly the home of salmon-fishers, builders of fishing-smacks, and, in these latter days, a sprinkling of independent “residential” people, who enjoy the “quiet life.” A little row of white-washed and pink-washed and blue-washed houses faces upon a quay, and the “Passage House” inn marks where the boat plies across to Greenaway; but apart from this quayside there is scarce a level square yard of ground in Dittisham, whose lanes, bordered for the most part by old, heavily thatched cottages and gardens, where flowers and shrubs grow in prodigal luxuriance, are steep and stony in the extreme. Dittisham is always beautiful, but especially lovely in spring, when the surrounding orchards are in blossom: particularly the damson orchards, for which the place is locally famous.
SALMON NETS AT DITTISHAM QUAY.
GREENAWAY FERRY.
A great deal of the supreme beauty of the Dart is due to the dense woods that cover the bold hillsides of either shore and are reflected with solemn loveliness in the tide. The Anchor Rock, prominent in mid-stream, lends its more or less authentic story to guide-book students, for legend tells us that the scolding wives of the community were landed upon it and given ample leisure to repent; although the very name of this solitary crag would lead the student to suppose that it was originally the spot whereon some early hermit, or anchorite, voluntarily secluded himself.
By crossing the river to Greenaway, and walking through woods and across meadows, the explorer comes, in a scrambly way, to a place very rarely seen by fleeting tourists. This is Galmpton—or “Gaamton” as the Devonshire folk call it—hidden away in a lakelike creek. Here the stranger finds an unexpected scene of industry, for in this nook, where the tide lazily rolls up and as lazily slides down, with the ooze and scum, and chance leaves and twigs voyaging back and forth, is a busy shipbuilding yard.