Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/27

Rh Broadbury, rising to 700 and 900 feet above the sea, describes a crescent, one horn resting on the Tamar, the other on the Ockment, unless Whiddon Down be taken as a continuation of it on the N.E. It is traversed by a few streams, the North Lew Water, the Carey, the Claw, and the Derrill Water, all flowing south or south-east. The back of the crescent is towards the north and north-west, and is a desolate tract of moor; the soil is sterile clay. Within the crescent and stretching beyond it to the east is a belt of mountain limestone extending from North Tawton as far west as Lifton Down. Largely owing to this is due the fertility of the land to the south-east of Broadbury. But the existence of this limestone was unsuspected till the eighteenth century. Previously all the lime needed, as for Lew Trenchard Church and Lew House, was brought on pack-horses from Plymouth; the stones were bedded in clay, and the lime was employed only for external pointing and internal plastering.

Formerly a marked difference was noticeable between the population of certain villages on the concave slope of Broadbury, some being fair-haired and blue-eyed, the others dark-haired and hazel-eyed, and of dusky complexion. Different also in mental and moral characteristics.

What with railways and increased circulation of population, these clusters of dark-haired people, inter-marrying amidst a generally fair-haired race, have been broken up, but the types are still readily distinguishable.

An American, who has tramped much in England, has some words relative to Devonshire women. After expatiating on the charms of a humble village wife near Bramscombe, he adds: "The Devonians are a comely race. In that blessed county the prettiest peasants are not all diligently gathered with the dew on them, and sent away to supply the London flower-market. Among the best-looking women of the peasant class there are two distinct types—the rich in colour and the colourless. A majority are perhaps indeterminate, but the two extreme types may be found in any village or hamlet; and when seen side by side—the lily and the rose, not to say the peony—they offer a strange and beautiful contrast." Those belonging to the rose-type are usually robustly built