A Peep at the Pixies

Dartmoor described.--The Pixies said to make it their Haunt.--What they are supposed to be, and what they do. IN this most pleasant part of England, the county of Devon, we have many hills and rivers, with plenty of woods, and fields, and birds, and flowers. And we have a large tract of country called Dartmoor, where the hills are so high that some of them are like mountains, with a number of beautiful sparkling streams and waterfalls, and a great many rocks, some standing alone, and Others piled on the top of the heights in such an odd way, that they look like the ruins of castles and towers built by the giants in the olden time, and these are called Tors; they are so lofty that the clouds often hang upon them and hide their heads. And what with its being so large and lonely, and its having no trees, except in one or two spots near a river, Dartmoor is altogether, though a wild, a very grand place. In going from Tavistock to Exeter, persons sometimes cross the moor, where there is now a good road, but it is so dreary and solitary, that you may travel for miles and only here and there see a hut of the very poorest kind, built of turf dug on the spot, and thatched with green rushes, so that at a little distance it looks like the ground on which it stands. The people who live in these humble dwellings are not very nice, for the pig-stye is generally near the door, and the children are not much cleaner than the pigs. It is the more discreditable to their mOthers to let them be so, as there is water enough around to wash and keep clean all the children in Devonshire