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 CHAPTER XVI.

POST BRIDGE

A filled-up lake-bed—Stannon—The great central trackway—Destruction of monuments—Cyclopean bridge—Blowing-house— Another up the river—Cut Hill—The Jack-o'-lantern—The maid and the lantern—Gathering lichens—Dyes—The coral moss—Birds —The cuckoo—The wren—Rooks and daddy longlegs—The Lych Way—Bellever Tor.

COLONY about a school-chapel and a few deformed beech trees in a basin among tors constitute Post Bridge.

Here the East Dart flows through a filled-up lake-bed, and passes away by a narrow cleft that it has sawn for itself through the granite.

The beech trees were planted at the same time that two lodges were erected by a gentleman called Hullett, who was induced to believe that he could convert a portion of Dartmoor into paradise. He purposed building a mansion at Stannon, and actually began the house. But by the time the lodges were set up and a wing of his house, he had discovered that Dartmoor would spell ruin, and he threw up his attempt. And Dartmoor will spell ruin unless approached and treated in the only suitable manner. It will pasture cattle and feed ponies and sheep, but it will never grow corn and roots.