Sieur de Monts Spring Papers on Water. G.B. DOM(ES). SIEUR DE MONTS SPRING Note: Editorially, these brief PAPERS ON WATER Characterizations of water in THE BATHS OF LINTOUN IN CHINA places other than Mount Desert "THE Chinese have no sense of beauty," a missionary Island have understandably been once explained to me. The kungkwan where we stayed the last night before attributed to George B. Dorr. reaching Sian was near the Baths of Lintoun. In the side This is not to attecbut to him of a hill was a hot sulphur-spring. A stone-cave built over it inclosed a pool about forty feet square. The yellow water had been bubbling up into its rock-hewn bowl while travel experience with these empires on our side of the world had come and gone. An inscription over the entrance to the cave told of its hav- sources of water. Literary ing been repaired by an emperor of China who reigned two thousand years ago. examples have sufficed. By a system of underground pipes the steaming water was carried about a thousand yards to a hollow on the All have been preserved hillside, where it formed an artificial lake. Its margin was at the Northeast Harbor shaded by shrubbery and plants of varieties rare in Shensi. Slender piers on piles extended from the shore to a series Library. Their publication of pavilions in the centre of the lake. A narrow walk connected the pavilions and wound in and out among history remains -ansolved. them. With an exquisite attention to detail, the walk was inclosed by a low balustrade composed of serpentine railings that alternated in a succession of red and blue above the yellow water. In designing the pavilions, care had evidently been taken that no two of the tiled roofs should be of the same colour. Above the lake, labyrin- thine paths led up the side of the hill to a little shrine at the top. When I first saw the lake the sun was dropping into the plain away off in the direction of Sian. As the last light of day fell across the glazed pavilion-roofs, they glinted and flashed for a few minutes and then their colours began to THE BATHS OF LINTOUN IN CHINA blend. Purple and green and red, all melted into gold, while the mist of yellow steam breathed softly into the bushes on the shore. I watched that play of God-made sunlight and man-made colour until the rising mist met the falling twilight and darkness came. It was then that I re- membered that the "Chinese have no sense of beauty." The glinting roofs of Lintoun play with the sunlight that falls on a grey, forgotten land, whose "heathen" peo- ple have always scorned the stare of the crowd and who have never worked for praise. To the men and women of the Shensi villages around, it is enough that the cave is on the hillside, and that the yellow mist is forever rising under the shadow of the green and purple pavilions. They love it as their fathers did before them. They may not know what moderns mean by a "sense of beauty," but the day may come when the West will go to that yellow race in that old grey land and will say, "We are children. Teach us what beauty is." Through Hidden Shensi. FRANCIS H. NICHOLS. 1902. SIEUR DE MONTS SPRING PAPERS ON WATER DAMASCUS AND THE SPRING-FED STREAM TO WHICH IT OWES ITS LIFE DAMASCUS - never claimed for Israel or subject to a Hebrew prince - lies beyond the limits of the Holy Land. But she has always been the goal of all the roads of the lands we have traversed, the dream and envy of their peo- ples. We have met her fame everywhere. She has seen the rise, felt the effect, and survived the passage of all the forces which have strewn Syria with ruins. There is not a fallen city we have visited but Damascus was old when it was built, and it still flourishes long after they have per- ished. Amid the growth and decay of the races, civilisa- tions and religions which have thronged Syria for at least four thousand years, Damascus has remained the one perennially great Syrian city. Before we cease our survey, therefore, of the Holy Land she demands our homage, with such appreciation as we may attempt of the secret of her eternal youth. Damascus lies about seventy miles from the sea-board, to the east of Anti-Lebanon and close beyond the foot of its supporting hills. You reach her best from Beyrout by a carriage-road which first climbs over Lebanon into Cocle Syria, 'Hollow Syria,' and then by the easy passes of the Anti-Lebanon crosses into the valley of the eastward flow- ing Abana, from which it issues upon a great plain 2300 feet above the sea and in extent thirty miles by ten. This plain would be as desert as all the rest of the land to the Euphrates were it not for the river Abana. The Abana bursts, spring born, from the heart of the Anti-Lebanon, then runs a course of ten miles through a narrow gorge from whose mouth it flings itself abroad in seven streams. After watering the greater part of the plain, it dies away in a large marsh. Looking eastward over the green of this I DAMASCUS DAMASCUS marsh you see from Damascus at sunset low purple hills dispensable alike to civilisation and to the nomads. More- twenty-five miles off. They are the edge of the Eastern over, she is the city of the Mediterranean world which lies desert; beyond them there is nothing but a rolling waste, nearest to the further East, while Islam has made her the and the long desert ways to Palmyra and Baghdad. western port for Mecca. It is an astonishing site for what is said to be the oldest, The plain on which Damascus lies is called the Ghutah. and is certainly the most enduring, city of the world. For Too high to be marshy, the Ghutah is shot all over by the it is utterly incapable of defence, and is remote from the cold, rapid waters of the Abana, which do service alike in sea and the great natural lines of commerce. From the bringing life and carrying away corruption. Verdure springs coast of Syria it is doubly barred by two ranges of snow- profusely everywhere. As you look down on it from one capped mountains, whose populations enjoy more tempt- of the bare heights to the north you see some hundred and ing prospects to the north and west. But look east and you fifty square miles of green - thronging and billowy as the understand Damascus. You would as soon think of ques- sea, with the white compact city rising from it like an tioning the site of New York, of Sydney, or of San Fran- island. Thus beheld, it has apparently all the lavishness of cisco. Damascus is a great harbour of refuge upon the a virgin forest, but when you get down into it you find earliest sea man ever learned to navigate, the desert. It is neither rankness nor jungle. The cultivated ground is ex- because there is nothing but desert beyond this site; be- tensive, most of it in orchards and plantations, but there cause this river, the Abana, instead of wasting her waters are also flower gardens, parks and corn-fields of consider- on some slight mountain fringe of fertile Syria, saves them able size - none, however, SO spread as to disturb the dis- in her narrow gorge till she can fling them out upon the tant impression of close forest. level plain, and there lavish all her life at once in the crea- It is best to enter Damascus in summer, because then tion of a single great city, and straightway die upon the everything predisposes you for her charms. You come down desert, - it is because of all this that Damascus, SO remote off the most barren flanks of the Anti-Lebanon. You cross and SO defenceless, has endured throughout human his- the plateau of Sahra-ed-Dimas, six shadeless miles that tory, and must endure. Nineveh, Babylon and Memphis stretch themselves, with the elasticity of all Syrian plains easily conquered her - she probably preceded them, and in haze, till you almost fancy you are upon some enchanted she has outlived them. She has been twice supplanted - ground rolling out with you as you travel. At last the road by Antioch, and she has seen Antioch decay; by Baghdad, begins to sink, and you descend with it into a deep rut into and Baghdad is a name alone. She has been many times which all the heat and glare of the broad miles behind sacked, and twice at least the effective classes of her popu- seems to be compressed. The air is still, the rocks blister- lation have been swept into captivity, but this has not ing, the road deep in dust, when suddenly a bank of foliage broken the chain of her history. She was once capital of bursts into view, with a white verandah above it. The road the world from the Atlantic to the Bay of Bengal, under the turns a corner; you are in shadow, on a bridge, in a breeze. Omeiyade Khalifs at the end of the seventh century; the Another turn and you have streams on both sides; a burn vast empire went from her but the city continued to flour- gurgling through bushes on the left; on the right, not one ish as before. Standing on the furthest edge of fertility, on stream but stream banked over stream, and the wind in the the shore of the much-voyaged desert, Damascus is in- poplars above. You break into the richer valley of the 2 3 DAMASCUS Abana itself. You pass between orchards of figs and or- chards of apricots. For hedges there is the briar rose, and for a canopy the walnut. Pomegranate blossoms glow through the shade; vine-boughs trail across the briar; a little waterfall breaks on the edge of the road. To the left, the river, thirty feet breadth of dark green water with white curls upon it, shoots down a steep, smooth bed. For two miles more you ride between trees, the eye exulting in the contrast of the valley with the bare brown hills that shut it in - through a village, over a bridge, between high banks of gardens, road and river together flecked with light. You enter between two streams, one washing the roots of aged fig-trees, past a quarry where the desert sinks down in cliff upon the road, then just as the cliff comes near enough to overhang your way the hills turn sharply away, and the relieved river slackens and brawls between islands. We are now out on the plain; there are gardens and mead- ows; men and boys, horses, asses, and geese loaf upon the grass and shingle; great orchards, with many busy people gathering apricots, stretch on either side. Still, there is no city visible. A mile more of orchards, then through the walnuts a crescent gleams, and the minaret it crowns. You come out on a grassy level, cut by the river into two parks. There is a five-arched bridge across it, and over the bridge minarets and low white domes. You cross the river, ride between it and a garden shaded with lofty trees, and halt in a great square, with the serai, the courts of justice, and the barracks of the principal garrison of Syria. The river has disappeared under the square by three tunnels, from which it passes in lesser conduits and pipes to every house and court in the city. Through the northern walls a branch breaks again into the open; here the chiefest gardens are spread beneath walnuts and poplars, and the water rushes by them swift and cold. GEORGE ADAM SMITH. 4 Pami M 719 SIEUR DE MONTS SPRING PAPERS ON WATER THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER JOHN RUSKIN IN a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria, there was, in old time, a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was surrounded, on all sides, by steep and rocky mountains, rising into peaks which were always COV- ered with snow and from which a number of torrents de- scended in constant cataracts. One of these fell westward, over the face of a crag so high that when the sun had set to everything else, and all below was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, SO that it looked like a shower of gold. It was, therefore, called by the people of the neighbourhood the Golden River. It was strange that none of these streams fell into the valley itself, but they all descended on the other side of the mountains, and wound away through broad plains. But the clouds were drawn SO constantly to the snowy hills, and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that in time of drought and heat, when all the country round was burnt up, there was still rain in the little valley; and its crops were SO heavy, and its hay SO high, its grapes SO blue, its wine SO rich, and its honey SO sweet, that it was a marvel to every one who beheld it, and was commonly called the Treasure Valley. South West Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. He entered the Treasure Valley no more; and, what was worse, he had SO much influence with his relations, the West Winds in general, that they all did the like. So no rain fell in the valley from one year's end to another. Though everything remained green and flourishing in the plains below, the in- I THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER veiled with them as if seen behind a rainbow. The colors grew faint, the mist rose into the air, he had evaporated. Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, where it issued, springing, from the mountain side, and its waves were as clear as crystal and as brilliant as the sun. And when he cast the three drops of dew into the stream, there opened where they fell a small, swift whirlpool into which the waters descended with a musical sound. Gluck stood watching it for some time, much disap- pointed, because not only the river was not turned into gold but because its waters seemed diminished. Yet he obeyed his friend the King and descended the other side of the mountains, towards the Treasure Valley. As he went, he thought he heard the noise of water working its way under the ground, and when he came in sight of the Treas- ure Valley, behold, a river like the Golden River was springing from a cleft of the rocks above it, and was flow- ing in innumerable streams among the dry heaps of red sand. And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprung beside the new stream, and creeping plants grew, and climbed from the moistening soil. Young flowers opened suddenly along the water side, as stars leap out when twilight is deep- ening, and thickets of myrtle, and tendrils of vine, cast lengthening shadows over the valley as they swiftly grew. And thus the Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance, which had been lost by selfishness was regained by love. And Gluck went, and dwelt in the valley, and the poor were never driven from his door; yet his barns became full of corn, and his house of treasure. And, for him, the river had, according to the King's promise, become a River of Gold. 4 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER heritance of the Three Brothers was a desert. What had After Gluck had climbed another hour his thirst became once been the richest soil in the kingdom, became a shift- again intolerable, but when he looked at his bottle he saw ing heap of red sand. that there were only five or six drops left, and he could not venture to drink. As he was hanging the flask to his belt again, he saw a little dog lying on the rocks, dying ap- It was indeed a morning that might have made any one parently of thirst. Gluck stopped and looked at it; then at happy, even with no Golden River to seek for. Level the source of the Golden River, not five hundred yards lines of dewy mist lay stretched along the valley, out of above. "Confound the King and his gold too," exclaimed which rose the massy mountains - their lower cliffs in Gluck; and he opened the flask and poured all the water pale gray shadow hardly distinguishable from the floating that remained into the dog's mouth. vapor but gradually ascending till they caught the sun- The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail light, which ran in sharp touches of ruddy color along the disappeared; its ears became long, longer, silky, golden; its angular crags and pierced, in long level rays, through their nose became very red, its eyes very twinkling; in three sec- fringes of spear-like pine. Far above shot up red splintered onds the dog was gone, and before Gluck stood his old masses of castellated rock, shivered into myriads of fantas- acquaintance, the King of the Golden River. tic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow trac- "Thank you,' said the monarch. "Don't be frightened! ing their chasms; and far beyond, and far above, fainter It's all right; but why did n't you come before," continued than the morning cloud, pure and changeless, slept, in the the little King, "instead of sending me those rascally blue sky, the utmost peaks of eternal snow. brothers of yours, who poured unholy water into my The Golden River, which sprang from one of the lower, stream?" snowless elevations, was now nearly in shadow; all but the "Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, Sir --- your Majesty I uppermost jets of spray which rose like slow smoke above mean - they got the water out of the church font!" the undulating line of the cataract and floated away in "Very probably," replied the King, "but the water light wreaths upon the morning wind. which has been refused to the cry of need is unholy though blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is Gluck turned and began climbing again. There were now found in the vessel of mercy is holy always, let it come all kinds of sweet flowers growing among the rocks, bright- from where it will." So saying, he stooped and plucked a green moss-like growths with pale pink starry flowers, soft- lily that grew at his feet. On its white petals there hung belled gentians, more blue than the sky, and pure white three drops of clear dew. "Cast these into the river," he mountain lilies. And the sky sent down such pure light, the said, "and descend on the other side of the mountains into mountains bathed him in SO pure an air, that Gluck had the Treasure Valley. And so, good speed!" never felt SO happy in his life. As he spoke, the figure of the little King became indis- tinct. The playing colors of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic mist of dewy light; he stood for an instant 2 3 SIEUR DE MONTS SPRING PAPERS ON WATER THE SPRINGS OF BATH The springs at Bath in England were renowned in the ancient days of Roman occupation, as the magnificent Roman remains that still exist there testify. And they were sacred, too, before the Romans came; for these named them 'Waters of Sul' - a goddess of the early British, whom they identified with Minerva and built a temple to beside the springs. The main bath still receives its flow to- day through the old Roman conduit, and fragments of the Roman colonnade which once enclosed it support a street and buildings of the present city. In Saxon times, again, it was a place of note, and there in the 10th century a Saxon king was crowned. There, too, in medieval times great fairs were held, merchants and people of condition gathering from far and near; and Chaucer tells of it in his Wife of Bath. It is a singular in- stance of a place made famous throughout all historic time by springs alone, and the delightfulness of their location- - a place of healing always and of worship in the far off past. GEORGE B. DORR. AN OLD GARDEN CITY: IN PRAISE OF BATH By FREDERIC HARRISON Which of English cities is the most beautiful - if by beauty we include not only fine architectural and historic buildings, picturesque site, quaint old-world labyrinths and hillsides, pure air, bright sky, with a minimum of smoke, steam, crowd, and roar; above all, with an infinite variety I AN OLD GARDEN CITY IN PRAISE OF BATH of verdant landscape opening to the eye, far and near, high few centuries ago was common enough in Europe, above us on every side, and brightening every street at happily it is without those battlements and walls wl every turn? This is indeed the special prerogative of Bath, then cut off the city from the land outside. In Bath which caused Savage Landor to compare Bath to his hardly knows whether one lives in the country or in a to equally beloved Florence. Here are, first, the most im- I have often wondered how in old times citizens, t portant Roman buildings in our island; one of our great women and children, endured the gloom, confinement, mediaeval cathedrals; the best English examples of Pal- inconveniences of a fetid mediaeval town, hemmed in ladian architecture adapted to city planning; a river valley lofty walls, battlements, and towers, with no access to o that may hold its own beside the Thames at Marlow, and country unless through some four, or perhaps six, nar downs that can challenge the racecourse at Goodwood. gates. All this lasted everywhere in Europe down to After all, the charm of Bath as a residential city, apart middle of the seventeenth century. Those of us octo from its exquisite site and its traditions, is the singular pro- narians who have known Avignon, Nuremburg, Flore fusion of parks, gardens, open promenades, and spacious and Rome before any buildings existed outside the anc pavements in which it abounds. In this it surpasses all walls, can imagine what European cities were, at any 1 other English cities of any size, and can be matched only down to the religious wars of the sixteenth century. on the continent of Europe. In Bath may be counted about seems marvellous that human nature could have endure twenty such parks and gardens within a short walk of the pass whole lives in cities which, except for their churcl Abbey. The lie of the ground with incessant variations in abbeys, and guildhalls, were a network of dungeons, rise and fall, interspersed with valleys, hills, down, and like of which may still be seen at Orvieto or Carcassor wood, gives opportunity for foliage and greenery which the No doubt, there were no tall chimneys, no factor local builders skilfully used. All the new quarters raised steam-hooters, trams, or motors. But the real comper in the eighteenth century outside the mediaeval walls in tion, which enabled the people of Europe to endure order to house visitors and residents of refinement and five or six centuries the horrors of their stifling cities wit leisure, were invariably placed SO as to face parks, gardens, walls, was the freedom to pass in ten minutes, on foot, i and open ground; and they usually had gardens of their a pure and verdant open country. Except during war own in the rear. It is this rural element of Bath residences in time of riot, the gates were open; and, once outside which makes the city a true "urbs in rure" its profusion walls, citizens, their women and children, could enjoy q of foliage, lawn, and flower beds, rich with the fertility of country life, could play or go Maying, nutting, or acorn the Avon valley soil. He who leaves his house on foot in the woods; sail, or fish, or bathe in the trout-streams passes in a few yards to a true country walk, and as he gather in the public mead for a pageant or a tourname strolls along the avenues and up or down the hillsides Even the citizens of London, Bristol, or York, who pas East or West, or North or South, he has before his eyes at their entire lives in crowded and busy industrial cent every turn a vision of that Wessex country-side above him, could always take an afternoon stroll through a count villages, farms, pastures, and woods. It is such a city as a side as fresh and peaceful as a Mendip village today. 2 3 AN OLD GARDEN CITY ENGLISH FOOTPATHS life within walls was close and strained, without walls all or Norman work, an ideal Jacobean manor, the site of a was balmy air, smokeless sky, and rural charm. That was Cromwellian battle, a fragment of Roman road, a Saxon the saving grace of the cruel life of the old walled town. relic, a prehistoric earthwork, and on every side a down Now, Bath remains one of the very few cities of any im- with a panoramic view. There is more than one such haunt portance in England, where this antique combination of within an hour's walk of the Abbey, where, at a height be- splendid city life within, and lovely country at hand, still tween 700 and 800 feet, there may be found a prospect survives in perfection. In its fine buildings and busy thor- oughfares its citizens have the dignity and stir of old city covering some forty or fifty miles of the West-country, which in rural beauty, extent of outlook, and historic as- life, with its "genius loci" and memorable traditions; and sociation will hold its own with any other famous view- yet parks, downs, meandering streams, and historic manors point in all the South of England. are within a walk. Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester are in- teresting old cities, not quite absorbed in modern fac- tories, in steam and electric whirlwinds. But none of these ENGLISH FOOTPATHS towns, nor the smaller towns on beautiful sites, have any- thing to compare with the civic architecture and palatial There are simple footpaths which I remember loitering dignity of Bath. Even in such noble cities as Edinburgh through, day after day, in the rural districts of England or Oxford, it is no longer within a mere' afternoon's stroll with a sense of enjoyment that never belonged to saun- to leave factories and slums behind and to pass to a beau- terings in the alleys of Versailles. A man does not know tiful country of untainted air. Now this is our daily experi- England, or English landscape, until he has broken away ence in Bath. It is a real - almost the only - Garden City. from railways, towns and cities, and clambered over stiles Bath has as many gardens as Oxford or Cambridge; and and lost himself among the country by-ways. if these gardens and parks and terraced walks lack the Talk of Chatsworth, and Blenheim, and Eaton Hall! eternal charm of the Gothic colleges, chapels, towers, and Did Turner go to Belvoir park for the landscapes which belfries which make the old University cities in themselves link us to God's earth? What a joy and a delight in these a spiritual education, yet in compensation, the gardens of field footpaths of England! Not the paths of owners only Bath all stand embosomed in magnificent landscapes and nor carefully gravelled walks, but all men's paths- where lofty and distant hill prospects such as surpass any within any wayfarer may go; worn smooth by poor feet and rich reach of Oxford or Cambridge. The citizen of Bath who feet, idle feet and working feet; open across the fields from takes the air on foot or in any kind of vehicle has the choice time immemorial; God's paths for his people, which no of scores of ways of countless variety and interest. Within man may shut; winding - clambering over stiles, springing a mile or two outside the present area, which is held to ex- over brooks on stepping-stones - with curves more grace- ceed a population of 60,000 souls, he may find avenues of ful than Hogarth's; hieroglyphs of the Great Master writ- noble forest trees, or paths beside a winding river, a pic- ten on the land, which being interpreted say - Love one turesque hill village, quaint remnants of Tudor, Plantagenet another. 4 Ik Marvel. (Donald G. Mitchell.) 5 SIEUR DE MONTS SPRING THE ANCIENT RECORD OF A VISION be the same that had appeared to him in his sleep. Hung THE ANCIENT RECORD OF A VISION Wu's was one of the most strenuous lives in Chinese his- tory. He overturned the dynasty that Kublai Khan had SCATTERED all over China, by roadsides, in village streets, and in temple courtyards are granite tablets, founded and he broke the power of the Mongols. His arm- ies subdued Corea and Burmah. He was a warrior and a carved deep with inscriptions. None of them are modern as the West reckons modernity. man of action, yet he always regarded his dream as the Stone tablets are an institution peculiar to China. illumination of his life. The picture of the sacred moun- Much of the so-called ancestor-worship is really only a tain, as it was indelibly stamped on Hung Wu's memory, resort to this national method of raising an enduring monu- was carved on a stone tablet in the yard of the temple at the base of the mountain. A white dotted line marks the ment to previous generations. In the carvings on the grey stone, far more than in the difficult, winding train he followed up the mountain-side. ponderous and stilted literature of the country, the soul The figure of a man in the various stages of the ascent indi- of the Chinese speaks. Besides recording events of public cates Hung Wu, clad in the garb of an ordinary pilgrim. interest, the tablets often serve as repositories of the best White spots represent the course of the rabbit which was thoughts of individuals. When to one of that yellow race the Emperor's guide in his dream-pilgrimage. Around there comes a great thought, he weighs and measures it. the picture is carved in his own words the story of his ex- If it stands the test of his reflection, he treasures it silently perience. for years, perhaps forever. He regards it as an illumina- tion of his soul by a higher power. It becomes his ambition "How sublime the height of the Western mountain. to transmit to those who shall follow after him the one I once dreamed that I was there. great idea that has flashed across his life. On a stone by When I was still distant from it about a hundred li, sud- the roadside he has his soul's light, the inspiration that denly the mountain-top appeared to burst its covering of has come to him, carved where men may see it. Usually clouds and to pierce the heavens. it finds expression in an epigram or a verse of poetry, occa- It glittered with all the five colours. sionally it is pictured in the carving of a flower or the out- In a moment, I know not how, I found my way to the line of a face. summit whence I looked down on a sea of peaks clothed To me the tablets of Shensi always possessed a strange with green pines and rugged rocks. charm. They seemed a part of those strong, deep, re- For a moment I lost the trail of the white rabbit, but a pressed fires that, underneath the mask of national stoicism, pair of white doves came down to meet me. have smouldered at the foundation of the Chinese nature I was making the circuit, praying aloud, when some one since time began, and which may some day flash forth knelt before me and said: with a concentrated brilliancy that will startle the world. 'Be reverent, for Shang Ti [the Supreme God] is near The Emperor Hung Wu, who in 1368 founded the Ming you.' dynasty, saw in a dream the sacred mountain of Hua. I heard and bowed my head in worship." Later he visited it, and found the way to the summit to Through Hidden Shensi. FRANCIS H. NICHOLS. I 2