As a boy I had an uncle, T. G. Bond, who lived near Moreton Hampstead, and who was passionately devoted to Dartmoor. He inspired me with the same love. In 1848 he presented me, as a birthday present, with Rowe's Perambulation of Dartmoor. It arrested my attention, engaged my imagination, and was to me almost as a Bible. When I obtained a holiday from my books, I mounted my pony and made for the moor. I rode over it, round it, put up at little inns, talked with the moormen, listened to their tales and songs in the evenings, and during the day sketched and planned the relics that I then fondly supposed were Druidical.

The child is father to the man. Years have rolled away. I have wandered over Europe, have rambled to Iceland, climbed the Alps, been for some years lodged among the marshes of Essex—yet nothing that I have seen has quenched in me the longing after the fresh air, and love of the wild scenery of Dartmoor. There is far finer mountain scenery elsewhere, but there can be no more bracing air, and the lone upland region possesses a something of its own—a charm hard to describe, but very real—which engages for once and for ever the affections of those who have made its acquaintance. "After all said," observed my uncle to me one day, when my father had dilated on the glories of the Pyrenees, "Dartmoor is to itself, and to me—a passion." And to his memory I dedicate this volume.

My grateful thanks are due to Messrs. R. Burnard, P. F. S. Amery, J. Shortridge, and C. E. Robinson for permission to employ photographs taken by them.

S. BARING-GOULD

Lew Trenchard, Devon

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.Bogs[1]
II.Tors[14]
III.The Ancient Inhabitants[29]
IV.The Antiquities[52]
V.The Freaks[74]
VI.Dead Men's Dust[82]
VII.The Camps[97]
VIII.Tin-streaming[108]
IX.Lydford[124]
X.Belstone[144]
XI.Chagford[157]
XII.Manaton[171]
XIII.Holne[193]
XIV.Ivybridge[209]
XV.Yelverton[220]
XVI.Post Bridge[241]
XVII.Princetown[259]