articles. That fair, too, was often beset by robbers, and on one

occasion a strong party of them, under the disguise of monks,
attacked and robbed certain booths, setting fire to the rest; and

such was the amount of destroyed wealth, that it is said the veins
of molten gold and silver ran along the streets.

The concourse of persons attending these fairs was immense.
The nobility and gentry, the heads of the religions houses, the

yeomanry and the commons, resorted to them to buy and sell all
manner of agricultural produce. The farmers there sold their wool

and cattle, and hired their servants; while their wives disposed of
the surplus produce of their winter's industry, and bought their

cutlery, bijouterie, and more tasteful articles of apparel.
There were caterers there for all customers; and stuffs and wares

were offered for sale from all countries. And in the wake of this
business part of the fair there invariably followed a crowd of

ministers to the popular tastes-- quack doctors and merry andrews,
jugglers and minstrels, singlestick players, grinners through

horse-collars, and sportmakers of every kind.
Smaller fairs were held in most districts for similar purposes of

exchange. At these the staples of the locality were sold and
servants usually hired. Many were for special purposes--cattle

fairs, leather fairs, cloth fairs, bonnet fairs, fruit fairs.
Scatcherd says that less than a century ago a large fair was held

between Huddersfield and Leeds, in a field still called Fairstead,
near Birstal, which used to be a great mart for fruit, onions, and

such like; and that the clothiers resorted thither from all the
country round to purchase the articles, which were stowed away in

barns, and sold at booths by lamplight in the morning.*[6] Even
Dartmoor had its fair, on the site of an ancient British village or

temple near Merivale Bridge, testifying to its great antiquity; for
it is surprising how an ancient fair lingers about the place on

which it has been accustomed to be held, long after the necessity
for it has ceased. The site of this old fair at Merivale Bridge is

the more curious, as in its immediate neighbourhood, on the road
between Two Bridges and Tavistock, is found the singular-looking

granite rock, bearing so remarkable a resemblance to the Egyptian
sphynx, in a mutilated state. It is of similarly colossal

proportions, and stands in a district almost as lonely as that in
which the Egyptian sphynx looks forth over the sands of the

Memphean Desert.*[7]
[Image] Site of an ancient British village and fair on Dartmoor.

The last occasion on which the fair was held in this secluded spot
was in the year 1625, when the plague raged at Tavistock; and there

is a part of the ground, situatedamidst a line of pillars marking
a stone avenue--a characteristic feature of the ancient aboriginal

worship--which is to this day pointed out and called by the name of
the "Potatoe market."

But the glory of the great fairs has long since departed. They
declined with the extension of turnpikes, and railroads gave them

their death-blow. Shops now exist in every little town and
village, drawing their supplies regularly by road and canal from

the most distant parts. St. Bartholomew, the great fair of
London,*[8] and Donnybrook, the great fair of Dublin, have been

suppressed as nuisances; and nearly all that remains of the dead
but long potentinstitution of the Fair, is the occasional

exhibition at periodic times in country places, of pig-faced
ladies, dwarfs, giants, double-bodied calves, and such-like

wonders, amidst a blatant clangour of drums, gongs, and cymbals.
Like the sign of the Pack-Horse over the village inn door, the

modern village fair, of which the principal article of merchandise
is gingerbread-nuts, is but the vestige of a state of things that

has long since passed away.
There were, however, remote and almost impenetrable districts which

long resisted modern inroads. Of such was Dartmoor, which we have
already more than once referred to. The difficulties of

road-engineering in that quarter, as well as the sterility of a
large proportion of the moor, had the effect of preventing its

becoming opened up to modern traffic; and it is accordingly curious
to find how much of its old manners, customs, traditions, and

language has been preserved. It looks like a piece of England of
the Middle Ages, left behind on the march. Witches still hold

their sway on Dartmoor, where there exist no less than three
distinct kinds-- white, black, and grey,*[9]--and there are still

professors of witchcraft, male as well as female, in most of the
villages.

As might be expected, the pack-horses held their ground in Dartmoor
the longest, and in some parts of North Devon they are not yet

extinct. When our artist was in the neighbourhood, sketching the
ancient bridge on the moor and the site of the old fair, a farmer

said to him, "I well remember the train of pack-horses and the
effect of their jingling bells on the silence of Dartmoor.

My grandfather, a respectable farmer in the north of Devon, was the
first to use a 'butt' (a square box without wheels, dragged by a

horse) to carry manure to field; he was also the first man in the
district to use an umbrella, which on Sundays he hung in the

church-porch, an object of curiosity to the villagers." We are also
informed by a gentleman who resided for some time at South Brent',

on the borders of the Moor, that the introduction of the first cart
in that district is remembered by many now living, the bridges

having been shortly afterwards widened to accommodate the wheeled
vehicles.

The primitive features of this secluded district are perhaps best
represented by the interesting little town of Chagford, situated in

the valley of the North Teign, an ancient stannary and market town
backed by a wide stretch of moor. The houses of the place are

built of moor stone--grey, venerable-looking, and substantial--some
with projecting porch and parvise room over, and granite-mullioned

windows; the ancient church, built of granite, with a stout old
steeple of the same material, its embattled porch and granite-groined

vault springing from low columns with Norman-looking capitals,
forming the sturdy centre of this ancient town clump.

A post-chaise is still a phenomenon in Chagford, the roads and
lanes leading to it being so steep and rugged as to be ill adapted

for springed vehicles of any sort. The upland road or track to
Tavistock scales an almost precipitous hill, and though well enough

adapted for the pack-horse of the last century, it is quite
unfitted for the cart and waggontraffic of this. Hence the horse

with panniers maintains its ground in the Chagford district; and
the double-horse, furnished with a pillion for the lady riding

behind, is still to be met with in the country roads.
Among the patriarchs of the hills, the straight-breasted blue coat

may yet be seen, with the shoe fastened with buckle and strap as in
the days when George III. was king; and old women are still found

retaining the cloak and hood of their youth. Old agricultural
implements continue in use. The slide or sledge is seen in the

fields; the flail, with its monotonous strokes, resounds from the
barn-floors; the corn is sifted by the windstow--the wind merely

blowing away the chaff from the grain when shaken out of sieves by
the motion of the hand on some elevated spot; the old wooden plough

is still at work, and the goad is still used to urge the yoke of
oxen in dragging it along.

[Image] The Devonshire Crooks
"In such a place as Chagford," says Mr. Rowe, "the cooper or rough

carpenter will still find a demand for the pack-saddle, with its
accompanying furniture of crooks, crubs, or dung-pots. Before the

general introduction of carts, these rough and ready contrivances
were found of great utility in the various operations of husbandry,

and still prove exceedinglyconvenient in situations almost, or
altogether, inaccessible to wheel-carriages. The long crooks are

used for the carriage of corn in sheaf from the harvest-field to
the mowstead or barn, for the removal of furze, browse,

faggot-wood, and other light materials. The writer of one of the
happiest effusions of the local muse,*[10] with fidelity to nature

equal to Cowper or Crabbe, has introduced the figure of a