34 HWA-SHAN, THE FLOWER MOUNTAIN 



stillness of a mountain. We turned a corner, and 

 the murmur which had haunted my ear with its 

 soft undernote burst into full-throated song, for 

 there before us was the burn. It clattered and 

 danced and laughed and sang until I could have 

 cried aloud for sheer delight. For it was water, 

 beautiful, clear, cool water, not the turbid yellow 

 mud of the plains. It slipped round boulders, hid 

 for a moment, sprang with a gurgle over a miniature 

 precipice, and tinkled round a bend. A king-fisher 

 flashed above it. Water ousels darted across its 

 bed, and at the bottom of the clear, green pools 

 the pebbles laughed to see them go. It was a 

 burn, a real burn, and I could scarcely believe it; 

 just such another as that by which the Exception 

 and I had sat four long years ago. For a time 

 we lost it, and something of the sweetness of the 

 day seemed to have departed, but anon it appeared 

 again, and sang beneath the Japanese anemones 

 and sapphire monksfoot. In the rocks above 

 caverns had been cut, and little shrines, at which 

 the devout burnt tapers. Taoist priests called 

 cheerful greetings, and in the grimy shadows the 

 old gods grinned obtusely at the day. 



Butterflies hung fluttering, of every variety. 

 Swallow-tails, admirals, fritillaries, whites with a 

 gorgeous orange under-wing, sulphurs and heather- 

 blues ; while overhead the buzzards called, pigeons 

 flashed about the rocks, and from afar came the 

 homely calling of the rooks. 



A mile or so up the glen an enormous boulder 

 blocked the path, propped by a quaint superstition, 

 with flimsy little twigs. Carved Chinese characters 

 ornamented its surface. 



