From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 58

Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore.

Then, alas! the land wind failed.

He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand; "Do not fear, Heaven is as near,"

He said, "by water as by land!"

Beyond Dittisham the river turned towards Dartmouth through a very narrow pa.s.sage, with a dangerous rock near the centre, now called the Anchor Stone, which was covered at high water. It appeared, however, to have been used in former times to serve the purpose of the ducking-stool, for the men of Dartmouth and Dittisham brought scolds there and placed them on the rock at low water for immersion with the rising tide, whence it became known-as the "Scold's Stone." One hour on the stone was generally sufficient for a scolding woman, for she could see the approach of the water that would presently rise well above her waist, and very few chose to remain on the stone rather than repent, although of course it was open to them to do so.

After negotiating the intricacies of one other small creek, we entered the ancient town of Dartmouth highly delighted with our lovely tramp along the River Dart.

We were now in a nautical area, and could imagine the excitement that would be caused amongst the natives when the beacon fires warned them of the approach of the Spanish Armada, for Dartmouth was then regarded as a creek of Plymouth Harbour.

The great fleet invincible against us bore in vain The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MOUTH OF THE DART FROM MOUNT BOONE.]

Dartmouth is one of the most picturesquely situated towns in England, and the two castles, one on either side of the narrow and deep mouth of the Dart, added to the beauty of the scene and reminded us of the times when we were continually at war with our neighbours across the Channel.

The castles were only small, but so were the ships that crossed the seas in those days, and they would no doubt be considered formidable fortresses then. At low tide the Dart at that point was never less than five yards deep, and in the dark it was an easy matter for a ship to pa.s.s through un.o.bserved. To provide against this contingency, according to a doc.u.ment in the possession of the Corporation dating from the twenty-first year of the reign of King Edward IV, a grant of 30 per annum out of the Customs was made to the "Mayor, Bailiffs, and Burgesses of Dartmouth, who had begonne to make a strong and myghte Toure of lyme and stone adjoining the Castelle there," and who were also to "fynde a cheyne sufficient in length and strength to streche and be laide over-thwarte or a travers the mouth of the haven of Dartmouth" from Dartmouth Castle to Kingswear Castle on the opposite bank to keep out all intruders. This "myghte cheyne" was raised across the entrance every night so that no ships could get through, and the groove through which it pa.s.sed was still to be seen.

Dartmouth Castle stood low down on a point of land on the seash.o.r.e, and had two towers, the circular one having been built in the time of Henry VIII. Immediately adjoining it was a very small church of a much earlier date than the castle, dedicated to St. Petrox, a British saint of the sixth century. Behind the castle and the church was a hill called Gallants' Bower, formerly used as a beacon station, the hollow on the summit having been formed to protect the fire from the wind. This rock partly overhung the water and served to protect both the church and the castle. Kingswear Castle, on the opposite side of the water, was built in the fourteenth century, and had only one tower, the s.p.a.ce between the two castles being known as the "Narrows." They were intended to protect the entrance to the magnificent harbour inland; but there were other defences, as an Italian spy in 1599, soon after the time of the Spanish Armada, reported as follows:

Dartmouth is not walled--the mountains are its walls. Deep water is everywhere, and at the entrance five yards deep at low water. Bastion of earth at entrance with six or eight pieces of artillery; farther in is a castle with 24 pieces and 50 men, and then another earth bastion with six pieces.

The harbour was at one time large enough to hold the whole British navy, and was considered very safe, as the entrance could be so easily defended, but its only representative now appeared to be an enormous three-decker wooden ship, named the _Britannia_, used as a training-ship for naval officers. It seemed almost out of place there, and quite dwarfed the smaller boats in the harbour, one deck rising above another, and all painted black and white. We heard afterwards that the real _Britannia_, which carried the Admiral's flag in the Black Sea early in the Crimean War, had been broken up in 1870, the year before our visit, having done duty at Dartmouth as a training-ship since 1863. The ship we now saw was in reality the _Prince of Wales_, also a three-decker, and the largest and last built of "England's wooden walls," carrying 128 guns. She had been brought round to Dartmouth in 1869 and rechristened _Britannia_, forming the fifth ship of that name in the British navy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: H.M.S. _BRITANNIA_ AND _HINDUSTANI_ AT THE MOUTH OF THE DART.]

It was in that harbour that the ships were a.s.sembled in 1190 during the Crusades, to join Richard Coeur-de-Lion at Messina. In his absence Dartmouth was stormed by the French, and for two centuries alternate warlike visits were made to the sea-coasts of England and France.

In 1338 the Dartmouth sailors captured five French ships, and murdered all their crews except nine men; and in 1347, when the large armament sailed under Edward III to the siege of Calais, the people of Dartmouth, who in turn had suffered much from the French, contributed the large number of 31 ships and 757 mariners to the King's Fleet, the largest number from any port, except Fowey and London.

In 1377 the town was partly burnt by the French, and in 1403 Dartmouth combined with Plymouth, and their ships ravaged the coasts of France, where, falling in with the French fleet, they destroyed and captured forty-one of the enemy.

In the following year, 1404, the French attempted to avenge themselves, and landed near Stoke Fleming, about three miles outside Dartmouth, with a view to attacking the town in the rear; but owing to the loquacity of one of the men connected with the enterprise the inhabitants were forewarned and prepared accordingly. Du Chatel, a Breton Knight, was the leader of the Expedition, and came over, as he said, "to exterminate the vipers"; but when he landed, matters turned out "otherwise than he had hoped," for the Dartmouth men had dug a deep ditch near the seacoast, and 600 of them were strongly entrenched behind it, many with their wives, "who fought like wild cats." They were armed with slings, with which they made such good practice that scores of the Bretons fell in the ditch, where the men finished them off, and the rest of the force retreated, leaving 400 dead and 200 prisoners in the hands of the English.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD HOUSES IN HIGHER STREET, DARTMOUTH]

In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers called at Dartmouth with their ships _Speedwell_ and _Mayflower_, as the captain of the _Speedwell_ (who it was afterwards thought did not want to cross the Atlantic) complained that his ship needed repairs, but on examination she was p.r.o.nounced seaworthy. The same difficulty occurred when they reached Plymouth, with the result that the _Mayflower_ sailed alone from that port, carrying the Fathers to form a new empire of Englishmen in the New World.

We were delighted with the old towns on the south coast--so different from those we had seen on the west; they seemed to have borrowed some of their quaint semi-foreign architecture from those across the Channel.

The town of Dartmouth was a quaint old place and one of the oldest boroughs in England. It contained, both in its main street and the narrow pa.s.sages leading out of it, many old houses with projecting wooden beams ornamented with grotesque gargoyles and many other exquisite carvings in a good state of preservation. Like Totnes, the town possessed a "b.u.t.ter Walk," built early in the seventeenth century, where houses supported by granite pillars overhung the pavement. In one house there was a plaster ceiling designed to represent the Scriptural genealogy of our Saviour from Jesse to the Virgin Mary, and at each of the four corners appeared one of the Apostles: St. Matthew with the bull or ox, St. Luke with the eagle, St. Mark with the lion, and St. John with the attendant angel---probably a copy of the Jesse stained-gla.s.s windows, in which Jesse is represented in a rec.u.mbent posture with a vine or tree rising out of his loins as described by Isaiah, xi. I: "And there shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots."

The churches in Dartmouth were well worth a visit. St. Saviour's, built in 1372, contained an elaborately carved oak screen, one of the finest in the county and of singular beauty, erected in the fifteenth century.

It was in perfect condition, and spread above the chancel in the form of a canopy supporting the rood-loft, with beautiful carving and painted figures in panels. The pulpit was of stone, richly carved and gilt, and showed the Tudor rose and portcullis, with the thistle, harp, and fleur-de-lys; there were also some seat-ends nicely carved and some old chandeliers dated 1701--the same date as the fine one we saw in the church at Totnes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. SAVIOUR'S CHURCH, DARTMOUTH.]

The chancel contained the tomb, dated 1394, of John Hawley, who died in 1408, and his two wives--Joan who died in 1394, and Alice who died in 1403. Hawley was a rich merchant, and in the war against France equipped at his own expense a fleet, which seemed to have been of good service to him, for in 1389 he captured thirty-four vessels from Roch.e.l.le, laden with 1,500 tons of wine. John Stow, a famous antiquary of the sixteenth century, mentioned this man in his _Annals_ as "the merchant of Dartmouth who in 1390 waged war with the navies and ships of the ports of our own sh.o.r.es," and "took 34 shippes laden with wyne to the sum of fifteen hundred tunnes," so we considered Hawley must have been a pirate of the first degree.

There was a bra.s.s in the chancel with this inscription, the moral of which we had seen expressed in so many different forms elsewhere:

Behold thyselfe by me, I was as thou art now: And them in time shalt be Even dust as I am now; So doth this figure point to thee The form and state of each degree.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANCIENT DOOR IN ST. SAVIOUR'S CHURCH]

The gallery at the west end was built in 1631, and there was a door in the church of the same date, but the ironwork on this was said to be two hundred years older, having probably been transferred to it from a former door. It was one of the most curious we had ever seen. Two animals which we took to be lions were impaled on a tree with roots, branches, and leaves. One lion was across the tree just under the top branches, and the other lion was across it at the bottom just above the roots, both standing with their heads to the right and facing the beholder; but the trunk of the tree seemed to have grown through each of their bodies, giving the impression that they were impaled upon it. The date of the woodwork (1631) was carved underneath the body of the lion at the top, the first figure in the date appearing to the left and the remaining three to the right, while the leaves on the tree resembled those of the oak. Whether the lions were connected in any way with those on the borough coat-of-arms we did not know, but this bore a lion on either side of it, the hinder portion of their bodies hanging over each side of an ancient boat and their faces being turned towards the spectator, while a crowned king, evidently meant for Richard Coeur-de-Lion, was sitting between them--the lions being intended to represent the Lions of Judah. The King was crowned, but above him, suspended over the boat, was a much larger crown, and underneath that and in the air to the left, but slightly above the King's crown, was the Turkish Crescent, while in a similar position to the right was represented the Star of Jerusalem.

The original parish church of Dartmouth, on the outskirts of the town, contained two rather remarkable epitaphs:

Here lyeth buried the Bodie of Robert Holland who Departed this life 1611 beinge of The age of 54 years 5 months and odd dayes.

Here lies a breathless body and doth showe What man is, when G.o.d claims, what man doth owe.

His soule a guest his body a trouble His tyme an instant, and his breath a bubble.

Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.

The other was worded:

William Koope, of Little Dartmouth dyed in Bilbao January the 30th, 1666, in the 6 yeare of his abode there beinge embalmed and put into a Leaden Coffin, was, after Tenn Weekes Tossinge on the seas, here Below interred May ye 23 AO. DOM. 1667 aetates svae 35.

Thomas Newcomen, born at Dartmouth in 1663, was the first man to employ steam power in Cornish mines, and the real inventor of the steam engine.

The first steamboat on the River Dart was named after him.

In the time of the Civil War Dartmouth was taken by the Royalists, who held it for a time, but later it was attacked from both land and sea by Fairfax, and surrendered to the Parliament. Immediately afterwards a rather strange event happened, as a French ship conveying despatches for the Royalists from the Queen, Lord Goring, and others, who were in France, entered the port, the captain being ignorant of the change that had just taken place. On hearing that the Parliament was in possession, he threw his despatches overboard. These were afterwards recovered and sent up to Parliament, where they were found to be of a very important nature--in fact, the discoveries made in them were said to have had some effect in deciding the fate of King Charles himself.

We had now to face our return journey to Totnes, so we fortified ourselves with a substantial tea, and then began our dark and lonely walk of twelve miles by the alternative route, as it was useless to attempt to find the other on a dark night. We had, however, become quite accustomed to this kind of thing, and though we went astray on one occasion and found ourselves in a deep and narrow road, we soon regained the hard road we had left. The thought of the lovely country we had seen that day, and the pretty places we had visited, cheered us on our way, and my brother said he should visit that neighbourhood again before long. I did not treat his remark seriously at the time, thinking it equivalent to the remarks in hotel books where visitors express their unfulfilled intention of coming again. But when on May 29th, 1873, a lovely day of sunshine, my brother departed with one of the handsomest girls in the village for what the newspapers described as "London and the South," and when we received a letter informing us that they were both very well and very happy, and amusing themselves by watching the salmon shooting up the deep weir on the River Dart, and sailing in a small boat with a sail that could easily be worked with one hand, and had sailed along the river to Dartmouth and back, I was not surprised when I found that the postmark on the envelope was TOTNES.

In his letter to me on that occasion, he said he had received from his mother his "marching orders" for his next long journey; and although her letter is now old and the ink faded, the "orders" are still firmly fixed where that good old writer intended them to be, and, as my brother said, they deserved to be written in letters of gold:

=_My earnest desire is that you may both be happy, and that whatever you do may be to the glory of G.o.d and the good of your fellow-creatures, and that at the last you may be found with your lamps burning and your lights shining, waiting for the coming of the Lord!_=

(_Distance walked thirty-one-miles_.)

_Tuesday, November 14th._

We had made good progress yesterday in consequence of not having to carry any luggage, but we had now to carry our belongings again as usual.

Totnes, we learned, was a walled town in the time of the Domesday Survey, and was again walled in 1265 by permission of Henry III. Of the four gates then existing, only two now remained, the North and the East; they were represented by archways, the gates themselves having long since disappeared. We pa.s.sed under the Eastgate Archway, which supported a room in which were two carved heads said to represent King Henry VIII and his unfortunate wife Anne Boleyn; and with a parting glance at the ancient b.u.t.ter Cross and piazzas, which reminded us somewhat of the ancient Rows in Chester, we pa.s.sed out into the country wondering what our day's walk would have in store for us.

We had thought of crossing over the centre of Dartmoor, but found it a much larger and wilder place than we had imagined, embracing over 100,000 acres of land and covering an area of about twenty-five square miles, while in the centre were many swamps or bogs, very dangerous, especially in wet or stormy weather. There were also many hills, or "tors," rising to a considerable elevation above sea-level, and ranging from Haytor Rocks at 1,491 feet to High Willheys at 2,039 feet. Mists and clouds from the Atlantic were apt to sweep suddenly over the Moor and trap unwary travellers, so that many persons had perished in the bogs from time to time; and the clouds striking against the rocky tors caused the rainfall to be so heavy that the Moor had been named the "Land of Streams." One of the bogs near the centre of the Moor was never dry, and formed a kind of shallow lake out of which rose five rivers, the Ockment or Okement, the Taw, the Tavy, the Teign, and the Dart, the last named and most important having given its name to the Moor. Besides these, the Avon, Erme, Meavy, Plym, and Yealm, with many tributary brooks, all rise in Dartmoor.

Devonshire was peculiar in having no forests except that of Dartmoor, which was devoid of trees except a small portion called Wistman's Wood in the centre, but the trees in this looked so old and stunted as to make people suppose they had existed there since the time of the Conquest, while others thought they had originally formed one of the sacred groves connected with Druidical worship, since legend stated that living men had been nailed to them and their bodies left there to decay.

The trees were stunted and only about double the height of an average-sized man, but with wide arms spread out at the top twisted and twined in all directions. Their roots were amongst great boulders, where adders' nests abounded, so that it behoved visitors to be doubly careful in very hot weather. We could imagine the feelings of a solitary traveller in days gone by, with perhaps no living being but himself for miles, crossing this dismal moor and coming suddenly on the remains of one of these crucified sacrificial victims.

Not far from Wistman's Wood was Crockern Tor, on the summit of which, according to the terms of an ancient charter, the Parliament dealing with the Stannary Courts was bound to a.s.semble, the tables and seats of the members being hewn out of the solid rock or cut from great blocks of stone. The meetings at this particular spot of the Devon and Cornwall Stannary men continued until the middle of the eighteenth century. After the jury had been sworn and other preliminaries arranged, the Parliament adjourned to the Stannary towns, where its courts of record were opened for the administration of Justice among the "tinners," the word Stannary being derived from the Latin "Stannum," meaning tin.

Some of the tors still retained their Druidical names, such as Bel-Tor, Ham-Tor, Mis-Tor; and there were many remains of altars, logans, and cromlechs scattered over the moors, proving their great antiquity and pointing to the time when the priests of the Britons burned incense and offered human victims as sacrifices to Bel and Baal and to the Heavenly bodies.