The vast expanse of Dartmoor, occupying nearly a hundred and fifty thousand acres, for the most part, but not altogether, belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall. Considerable, and, in many cases, fraudulent encroachments have been made on Duchy property--slices taken out of it in past times--and the Duchy agents bribed to turn their eyes away; or simply taken and secured to the squatters by prerogative of long squatting unmolested. The main mass of moor constitutes the ancient and Royal forest of Dartmoor; but much waste land exists outside the forest bounds in the possession of private owners, or as common land, over which the lord of the manor has but manorial rights. Around the circumference of the moor are, and always have been, stationed certain men having a position under the Duchy, corresponding to that of foresters elsewhere. But, as there are no trees on Dartmoor, these men have no care of timber; nor have they, as foresters elsewhere, the custody of the deer, as there are no red deer in this Royal forest. Red deer there were in times past; but they were all destroyed at the close of the last century, when large plantations were made on the moor and in its confines, because the deer killed the young trees. On account of the rugged and boggy nature of Dartmoor, no Royal hunters had come there since the Saxon kings; consequently, no pains were taken to preserve the deer, and every moorman and squire neighbouring on the wilderness considered that he had a right to supply himself with as much venison from off it as he could eat, and every farmer regarded himself as justified in killing the deer that invaded his fields and swarmed over his crops. The men answering to foresters elsewhere, living under the Duchy, and posted around the borders of the moor, inherited their offices, which passed in families for generations, and it is probable that the Evers, the Coakers, and the Widdecombes of to-day are the direct descendants of the moormen who were foresters under the Conqueror--nay, possibly, in Saxon times. They are a fine-built race, fair-haired, blue-eyed, erect, better able to ride than to walk, are bold in speech, and perhaps overbearing in action, having none above them save God and the Prince of Wales--_the_ Duke, the only Duke above their horizon.