When the New Zealander comes to explore England, he will, perhaps,--if he is interested in such things--write letters to such newspapers as may have survived concerning the source of the Tavy. He will probably claim to have discovered some new source which the ignorant and vanished race of Anglo-Saxons never happened on. Most people will say that the Tavy rises at the south side of Cut Hill. Others, who do not wish to commit themselves, will make the safe statement that its source is upon Cranmere. As a matter of fact the Tavy would be a very wise river if it knew its own head. By the time it has assumed any individuality of its own and received its first titled tributary, which is the Rattle Brook, it has come through so many changes, and escaped from such a complicated maze of crevasses, that it would have to be provided with an Ariadne's clue to retrace its windings to its source. In the face of general opinion it seems likely that the Tavy begins its existence rather more than two miles north of its accredited source, at a spot close to Cranmere Pool, and almost within a stone's cast of the Dart. It would be impossible, however, to indicate any one particular fissure, with its sides of mud and dribble of slimy water, and declare that and none other was the river of Tavy in extreme and gurgling infancy. There is no doubt about the Tavy by the time it has swallowed the Rattle Brook and a few streams of lesser importance, and has entered the cleave which it has carved through the granite by its own endless erosion. It is an exceedingly self-assertive river; passing down with a satisfied chuckle in the hot months, when the slabs of granite are like the floors of so many bakers' ovens; and in the winter roaring at Ger Tor, as though it would say, "I have cut through a thousand feet of granite since I began to trickle. I will cut through a thousand more before the sun gets cold." It is a noble little river, this shallow mountain stream, the proudest of all Dartmoor rivers. More romance has gathered around the Tavy than about all the other rivers in England put together, leaving out the Tamar. The sluggish Thames has no romance to compare with that of the Tavy. The Thames represents materialism with its pleasure-boats and glitter of wealth. It suggests big waistcoats and massive watch-chains. The Tavy stands for the spiritual side. Were the god of wine to stir the waters of each, the Thames would flow with beer; good beer possibly, but nothing better; while the Tavy would flow with champagne. The Tavy is the Rhine of England. It was beside the Tavy that fern-seed could be gathered, or the ointment obtained, which opened the eyes of mortals to the wonders of fairyland. It was on the banks of the Tavy that the pixies rewarded girls who behaved themselves--and pinched and nipped those who didn't. Beside the Tavy has grown the herb forget-me-not, which not only restored sight to the blind, but life also