Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/173

Rh a natural frontier. The height of Exmoor never attains the altitude of Dartmoor, and is not loftier than the Bodmin moors.

The long stretches of down without rocks and without bad bogs render Exmoor a choice place for stag-hunting.

The valleys to the south of Exmoor that are watered by the Yeo, the Bray, the Mole, contain scenery that is pleasing, but never rises to boldness.

Exmoor is interesting as harbouring a strong body of the earlier dusky population that occupied the country before the invasion of the Celts. But the river names savour of the Irish settlers rather than of the Britons. Such are the Bray (Ir. brag, running water: there is a Bray in Wicklow); the Mole (Ir. malda, gentle, slow); Barle (It. fuarlach, barlach, chilly).

But the finest Exmoor scenery is on the Somersetshire side, where the hills rise boldly above the sea, and where rich vegetation clothes the shores of the Bristol Channel. From Exmoor, moreover, a grand view is obtained of the Welsh mountains across the Severn sea. One can quite understand S. Branock escaping from a population that looked on him with an evil eye, to the blue hills that rose above the sea not so far to the south, and easily reached in a summer sail—and where, moreover, the land was occupied by his countrymen—the Irish, as conquerors.

The road to Countisbury passes remarkable earth-works, the Oldburrough, of uncertain, but probably prehistoric, date.