Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/756

636 England, and is surrounded on all sides as far as the eye can see by the gloomy features of a black moor, uncultivated and uninhabited, except by one or two miserable cottages, just discernible in an eastern view, the tenants of which live by cutting turf on the moor and selling it at the prison. The place is deprived of everything that is pleasant or agreeable, and is productive of nothing but human woe and misery. Even riches, pleasant friends, and liberty could not make it agreeable. It is situated seven miles from the little village of Tavistock.

"On entering this depôt of living death, we first passed through the gates and found ourselves surrounded by two huge circular walls, the outer one of which is two miles in circumference and 16 ft. high. The inner wall is distant from the outer 30 ft., around which is a chain of bells suspended by a wire, so that the least touch sets every bell in motion and alarms the garrison. On the top of the inner wall is placed a guard at the distance of every 20 ft. Between the two walls and over the intermediate space are also stationed guards.

"Thus much for the courtyard of this seminary of misery. We shall next proceed to give a description of the gloomy mansion itself. On entering we find seven prisons enclosed in the following manner, and situated quite within all the walls before-mentioned. Prisons 1, 2, and 3 are built of hard, rough, unhewn stone three storeys high, 180 ft. long and 40 ft. broad; each of these prisons on an average can contain 1500 prisoners. There is also attached to the yard a house of correction, called a cachot; this is built of large stone, arched above and floored with the same. Into this cold, dark, and damp cell, the unhappy prisoner is cast if he offend against the rules of the prison,