Not as deadly as one would think
Margaret has some friends over for the week from Boston, and she asked me last night if I wanted to get up before nine and go to the Moors with them. Knowing how much getting up would suck, I agreed anyway, and I'm glad I did, because I'd yet to go to Dartmoor, and it's really intense.
The moors are desolate in a way that's difficult to really describe-- they're not quite bog, not quite swamp, more like marshy, grassy hills, uneven, covered in heather, and just generally empty. It's like a large grass desert. And when you hear about the moors being "windswept," I assure you that it is no exaggeration. The wind sweeps, and it sweeps hard.
It was a great day to go, regardless of the biting wind, because on the whole it was relatively warm, and it was sunny and bright. We set out with high spirits and walked a long way following Margaret's unfortunately vague little guide book. Again, I'd like to emphasize the vastness of the moors-- if one were to get lost, it would be difficult for someone to locate you. Not because you'd be hard to spot, but because where would you tell them to look? You couldn't very well say "I'm on the moors." That wouldn't be sufficient at all. You couldn't say "look for some sheep" or "I'm with some Shetland ponies," because they're all over the place. "I'm near a gully" wouldn't work either, as the whole damn thing is made up of gullies.
In any case, we set out to look for the landmark known as Childe's Tomb, on a walk that Margaret's book told us would allow us to observe "stunning expanses of empty moor," a few ancient landmarks, and "the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles." We figured that was a pretty good deal, so we followed the map as best we could, but after a while we had been led through gully and stream, and our shoes were well soaked, and we began to be frustrated with our sorry excuse for a guide.
"Well," we said to ourselves, "we figure we ought to be heading in a northernly direction, so let's set off down through this valley and up towards that large building on the other side," which looked to be an inn or a pub of some kind.
As soon as we got into the lowland, it proved difficult going for most of our party. The ground was very wet in some places, and uneven all over, and with all the windswept highgrass it was difficult to tell which parts of the ground were safe to step on. I had had better luck than the others (or I proceeded more recklessly), and I had made quite a bit of headway by stepping on what I perceived to be the high ground (which, at the very least, gave me an unbeatable advantage against my Sith foes). In my enthusiasm, I got quite a ways beyond the others, though Mags followed me valiantly. The general consensus was that we were going to be lost in the mires, which I thought at the time was a bit ludicrous given the worst we'd suffered was some soggy footwear. My companions, however, did not want to attempt to forge ahead, which in the end seemed smart to me-- even if all that was at risk was more wet shoes, I didn't want to bother, as it was cold and we had quite a bit of ground to cover. So we backtracked and found a more roundabout route to the building we'd seen from across the valley.
When we arrived, we discovered that it was only a private residence, and a man outside gave us directions. "How do you get to Childe's Tomb?" we asked.
"It's that way," he said, pointing out past the lowland we'd just been traversing. "Way over beyond that hill.
"But don't go through the valley," he added solemnly, "down there is the Fox Tor Mires, one of the most dangerous places in Dartmoor." He pointed almost directly to the spot where I had forged so far ahead of my friends. "You know, those mires are what inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles."
So there you have it. Had England not been experiencing a particularly dry year, I could've been swallowed by the same marshland that doomed "many an unwary traveler," according to Margaret's guidebook. Frankly, I was a little unimpressed, even considering the drought-- I mean, I was expecting a proper bog, not a little bit of wetland. We have that at home.
The moors are desolate in a way that's difficult to really describe-- they're not quite bog, not quite swamp, more like marshy, grassy hills, uneven, covered in heather, and just generally empty. It's like a large grass desert. And when you hear about the moors being "windswept," I assure you that it is no exaggeration. The wind sweeps, and it sweeps hard.
It was a great day to go, regardless of the biting wind, because on the whole it was relatively warm, and it was sunny and bright. We set out with high spirits and walked a long way following Margaret's unfortunately vague little guide book. Again, I'd like to emphasize the vastness of the moors-- if one were to get lost, it would be difficult for someone to locate you. Not because you'd be hard to spot, but because where would you tell them to look? You couldn't very well say "I'm on the moors." That wouldn't be sufficient at all. You couldn't say "look for some sheep" or "I'm with some Shetland ponies," because they're all over the place. "I'm near a gully" wouldn't work either, as the whole damn thing is made up of gullies.
In any case, we set out to look for the landmark known as Childe's Tomb, on a walk that Margaret's book told us would allow us to observe "stunning expanses of empty moor," a few ancient landmarks, and "the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles." We figured that was a pretty good deal, so we followed the map as best we could, but after a while we had been led through gully and stream, and our shoes were well soaked, and we began to be frustrated with our sorry excuse for a guide.
"Well," we said to ourselves, "we figure we ought to be heading in a northernly direction, so let's set off down through this valley and up towards that large building on the other side," which looked to be an inn or a pub of some kind.
As soon as we got into the lowland, it proved difficult going for most of our party. The ground was very wet in some places, and uneven all over, and with all the windswept highgrass it was difficult to tell which parts of the ground were safe to step on. I had had better luck than the others (or I proceeded more recklessly), and I had made quite a bit of headway by stepping on what I perceived to be the high ground (which, at the very least, gave me an unbeatable advantage against my Sith foes). In my enthusiasm, I got quite a ways beyond the others, though Mags followed me valiantly. The general consensus was that we were going to be lost in the mires, which I thought at the time was a bit ludicrous given the worst we'd suffered was some soggy footwear. My companions, however, did not want to attempt to forge ahead, which in the end seemed smart to me-- even if all that was at risk was more wet shoes, I didn't want to bother, as it was cold and we had quite a bit of ground to cover. So we backtracked and found a more roundabout route to the building we'd seen from across the valley.
When we arrived, we discovered that it was only a private residence, and a man outside gave us directions. "How do you get to Childe's Tomb?" we asked.
"It's that way," he said, pointing out past the lowland we'd just been traversing. "Way over beyond that hill.
"But don't go through the valley," he added solemnly, "down there is the Fox Tor Mires, one of the most dangerous places in Dartmoor." He pointed almost directly to the spot where I had forged so far ahead of my friends. "You know, those mires are what inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles."
So there you have it. Had England not been experiencing a particularly dry year, I could've been swallowed by the same marshland that doomed "many an unwary traveler," according to Margaret's guidebook. Frankly, I was a little unimpressed, even considering the drought-- I mean, I was expecting a proper bog, not a little bit of wetland. We have that at home.
posted by Nate at 1:04 PM
2 Comments:
How strange that "The Hound of the Baskervilles," is perhaps one of (if not THE) best of Doyle's Holmes stories, and yet it is the story in which Holmes himself has probably the least actual time "on-stage" as it were of any of them. It's hardly a Holmes story at all. Worth a thought.
Actually, I've read that it wasn't originally meant to be a Holmes story, as Conan Doyle has already killed Holmes off in "The Final Problem." But he felt the novel needed some kind of strong character in it, and demand for Holmes was so popular, that he felt he could bring him back for a novel that took place before his "death."
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