At Holne and Buckland may be found some of the most luxuriant woodland of the moor-borders, yellow with dense primroses in the spring. On both sides of the river there are rich woods of birch and oak and fir, while in the valley through which the Dart runs are fertile succulent marshes, beautified with bogbeans, asphodels, and sundews, and with the exquisite _Osmunda regalis_ flourishing where, happily, it is very difficult to reach. In parts the river flows through ivied crags, above which hang clusters of mountain-ash. There are prehistoric remains at Holne and at Hembury, but it is difficult to think of the past where the present is of such insistent charm. Moor, woodland, river, stone-strewn waste and fertile pasture here meet, with no discord or violent contrast, but harmonized by a reconciling atmosphere of beauty. The churches both at Buckland and Holne have very interesting screens, and at Holne is a finely-carved wooden pulpit. Though it can scarcely be said to belong to the moors, Ashburton is a good starting-point for the examination of the eastern moorlands. Here and at Buckfastleigh are the only remains of the once extensive Devon woollen manufactures; and Ashburton was also at one time a Stannary town. It has a good church and many interesting associations, but we cannot linger either here or at Buckfast, where a settlement of Benedictines has restored the old abbey. There is a great temptation to stay awhile at Dean Prior for the sake of Robert Herrick, one of England's sweetest lyrists, who was twice vicar here, being presented by Charles I in 1629, dispossessed at the Commonwealth, and reinstated at the Restoration. He abused the neighbourhood so heartily in his verse that it is surprising he should have accepted the living a second time; but perhaps he said a little more than he meant. The exact spot of his burial in the churchyard is unknown. Some of Herrick's lyrics are so lovely that even Devonians must forgive him, though he wrote: "O men, O manners; now and ever known To be a rocky generation, A people currish, churlish as the seas, And rude almost as rudest savages; With whom I did and may re-sojourn when Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men". As he returned voluntarily to this exile, we must imagine the miracle to have taken place, or perhaps his own heart had been tamed by his adversity.