For some time past I had been ascending a low, broad, flat-topped hill, and on forcing my way through the undergrowth into the open I found myself on the level plateau, an unenclosed spot overgrown with heather and scattered furze bushes, with clumps of fir and birch trees.

Before me and on either hand at this elevation a vast extent of country was disclosed.

The surface was everywhere broken, but there was no break in the wonderful greenness, which the recent rain had intensified.

There is too much green, to my thinking, with too much uniformity in its soft, bright tone, in South Devon.

After gazing on such a landscape the brown, harsh, scanty vegetation of the hilltop seemed all the more grateful.