by lofty, round-backed hills.
Thinly scattered about were horned sheep and Devon red oxen. For about
two miles we jolted gently on, until, beginning to descend a hill, our
driver pointed in the valley below to a spot where stacks of hay and
turf guarded a series of stone buildings, saying, "There's the Grange."
The first glance was not encouraging--no sheep-station in Australia
could seem more utterly desolate; but it improved on closer examination.
The effects of cultivation were to be seen in the different colours of
the fields round the house, where the number of stock grazing showed
that more than ordinary means must have been taken to improve the
pasture.

We started on Exmoor ponies to ride to Simon's Bath.

Exmoor, previous to 1818, was the property of the Crown, and leased to
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, who has an estate of a similar character close
adjoining. He used its wild pasture (at that time it was without roads)
for breeding ponies and feeding Exmoor sheep. There are no traces of any
population having ever existed on this forest since Roman times. The
Romans are believed to have worked iron-mines on the moor, which have
recently been re-opened.

Exmoor consists of 20,000 acres, on an elevation varying from 1000 to
1200 feet above the sea, of undulating table-land, divided by valleys,
or "combes," through which the River Exe--which rises in one of its
valleys--with its tributary, the Barle, forces a devious way, in the
form of pleasant trout-streams, rattling over and among huge stones, and
creeping through deep pools--a very angler's paradise. Like many similar
districts in the Scotch Highlands, the resort of the red deer, it is
called a forest, although trees--with the exception of some very
insignificant plantations--are as rare as men. After riding all day with
a party of explorers, one of them suddenly exclaimed, "Look, there is a
man!" A similar expression escaped me when we came in sight of the first
tree--a gnarled thorn, standing alone on the side of a valley.

The sides of the steep valleys, of which some include an acre, and
others extend for miles, are usually covered with coarse herbage,
heather, and bilberry plants, springing from a deep black or red soil:
at certain spots a greener hue marks the site of the bogs which impede,
and at times almost engulph, the incautious horseman. These bogs are
formed by springs, which, having been intercepted by a pan of sediment,
and prevented from percol