TURF MOOR: A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND.
The traveller who at this season of the year is whirled along the iron highway of the northern part of Somersetshire will perhaps be led to form but a poor opinion of West Country scenery, for he sees little from the rail of the heath-covered heights of Exmoor, of the wooded glens of Quantock, or of the green heart of Mendip. The line is laid for many miles across a wide stretch of low-lying moorland—so low that it would be flooded each high tide were it not for the old sea wall by the shore. There are parts of the monotonous expanse that may well remind the wayfarer of the opening lines of one of Ingoldsby's ballads:
"O, Salisbury Plain is bleak and bare,
At least so I've heard many people declare,
For I fairly confess that I never was there.
Not a shrub nor a tree, nor a bush can you see,
No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no stiles,