William Crossing

The Land of Stream and Tor William Crossing

The Land of Stream and Tor is both a travel guide and a history book about Dartmoor, a hill-country in Devon, England, which is filled with outstanding natural beauty, from its stark and beautiful moors, huge stone tors, ancient clapper bridges to its rushing rivers and streams. Thus, it's called the land of stream and tor. EXCERPT FROM The Land of Stream and Tor In the fairest county of England, for so has Devonshire been with justice styled, surrounded by land smiling under the hand of cultivation, is situated the wild stretch of hill-country known as Dartmoor. Although wholly within the southern portion, yet there are few elevated spots in the county, or in East Cornwall, from which it is not visible, while its loftier eminences may be seen from parts of Somerset and Dorset. ... There is something particularly soothing in being able to leave the "madding crowd's ignoble strife," and betake oneself to Dartmoor, where old world customs still obtain. Here the weary wanderer may find a restful land, a land of babbling brooks, a land of freedom, where grows the heather and the broom, and the golden furze. A land where his ramblings amid the hills will bring him face to face with vestiges of the rude erections of a people long passed away, or where he may, directing his steps into its inmost recesses, look around and see nought but what God himself has made. And if he seeks this wide moor to find renewed health, what grateful draughts of pure air may he not drink in, and how elastic will his spirits be as he treads the purple heather and climbs the lofty hill, crested by the rocky tor. Or if with canvas and colours he visits it to limn its varied scenes, what charming "bits" are constantly presented to his view.