The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-04

Retaining its Indian name of Wisauck-
sickan, or the yellow-colored stream, 1t
has its source miles away among the fer
tile Dutch meadows and witching hills OF
Bucks and Montgomery counties. 1t
springs from a region full Of
quaint superstitions, and every rivulet
feeding il or homestead or hamlet it
passes, furnishes an added fancy, legend
or weird old tale; until, reaching the
gorge through which for twelve miles it
winds in fantastic abandon before empty
ing into the Schuylkill, it becomes a very
witch nest of phantasm, ho0goolin and
myth. -, -.
For seven or eight miles above its
mouth the channel is strangely tortuous
between banks of rocks of mica schlst,
rising in every imaginable fantastic form
10 pieturesoue and noble nights These
banks are bewilderingly multitorm,
clothed in the rareSt and most varied
foliage, while ascending and GROWING the
nights on either side are the noblest OF
American forest trees ranging singularly
from the magnolia to the cedar and the
oak. ever set in majestic beauty within
the same narrow confines. Scarcely more
than rivulet as il ienters the gorge, the
stream increases in volume rom upland
to the last deep pool where the Schuyl-
kill gulps it down at swallow, ana
stream and bank, shadow and shine. rock
and forest. water below and sky above,
blend in one matchless and perfect dream
of rest
There is not a spot upon which you may
stand your feet. place your hand or rest
your eve which does not throb and pulse
back to your own instantly-accordeds sym
pathy. The sense of genial solitude and
Of loving restfulness is almost startling
1t is as a soothing dream set in a stiffness
SO calm and hushed that it is palpably
felt. At the very spot where the entrance
to this wonderland shudderingly faces the
crowded avenues to the great city, and
shrinks aghast at the thunderings of the
flaming FORCES along the Schuylkill, a few
rods only will bring you to such solitude
that the sound of your own voice seems a
dissertation. Here reaches a long, lake
like tarn, rippleless, dark as ebOn, but
shining like FURNISHED silver. Beyond,
there is a wall of green and bloom. This
seems all-all but silence. Breaking the
spell, you come to this wall OF green and
bloom to find an abrupt winding of the
channel; and here in a cleaning circle,
like the fiuttering wings of myriad pois-
ing butterflies, the stream is whlsper1ngly
breaking away from another tarn above,
but so softly that all is.sient still.
Then another deep pool on whose sur
face the overarching trees rim dark shad-
OWS ike DldCk OHgA iIluSllB d pou VI
sapphire where is mirrored the blue sky
above. This voiceless spot, mayhap, is
fed by swiftly speeding water level and
even for little, by thread of trembling
Hastings where all the elfns' songs
are sung, or by a fleecy cascade white
and spumy as a shower of thistledown;
but there is never tumult nor turbulence
here.
Again appears a little lake, or wide
swirl of waters where the spiritsof the
stream seem in wild bacchanalian chase
in some cleaning cauldron; but the
mirth, or witchery, or sprite-madness is
in wild turmoil revealed only in SHIN
mer and CLINT and motion. Lake or tarn
again and again, open and white to the
sky. or folded in gloaming-like shadows;
century-old dam where the moss is al
most blended with the rocks and the out
reaching roots of great treesS rfvulets
trickling down from countless springs, or
shadowy creeks creeping into the greater
stream through legend-haunted gorges;
tiny waterfalls where the sunshine filter
ing through the tree branches darts and
quivers over notified splashes of shade;
whirling eddy where leaf of tree or
feather of passing bird is dancing lively
minuet to ceaseless rhythm of unheard
tune: murmurous shadows in beauteous
windings for cleaning distances, but hes
liant and soft as a whispered lullaby
fuNlUG uOGD anu udIh UttGh W dbcI. W uCIo
the rounded rocks point straight to
heaven; stealthy outlets where the
waters sinuously wave in and out around
the polished bases of great boulders, like
threads of silver cleaning through some
jagged armor; covert channels winding
through stolen passages beneath over
hanging lodges, as if the waters huddled
together for sedition feathery cascades
where the mists of the clouds are again
resolved to mist and swirl into humid,
soundless fieeciness below-each and all,
IN all places, forms, moods, are to this
enchanted stream as if the gentle spirit
of the place, which shall forever soothe
and solace, must reveal itself to the
human soul alone in endless and unCeas-
ing expression of unobtrusive beauty and
surprising tenderness.
The Gipses, born nature-lovers that
they are, are ever lowering near. 1t is
their Already of delight. The camp-fires
are seldom dim among the little glens
and hollows above the issahickon gorge,
the long, bright summer through. The
city and its dickering are near. The
farms and their dukkering are close at
hand; and beside them is the melodious
stream which for very love they have
come to call, in their secret Romany
tongue, "suttur-gillie coro," or the dear,
sweet sleep-song dell
On a June morning not many years
ago, the going OF bdDd Sy'ra from out
Wissahickon gypsy camp was so sad a
thing to these tawny folk of the tent and
the road that all the place was hushed
and still.
Bahia Syria was only feeble old Gypsy
woman; so old that her own name of
Syreira Stanley had not been heard in
camp for years; so old that the Gypsy
word for great-great aunt, and old, old
mother, bahia, had long since obliterated
her own; so old that Griselda, her only
child that had lived, was oorn when Bahia
syria was still an aged woman, as Gipsies
measure age; so old that twenty years
had already gone since Griselda, full
grown lass, had left this very camp spot
never TO return, and the old souls quest
began, and all had called her "Baba
Syria" long before.
But the olden mystic fires
had burned with deadly hatred
then. Griselda had forsworn
her race, She had come and gone be-
tween the camp-side and the great city at
will Those who seek the souls of
heather, if kindred and neigh bors be lost,
had planted in one Gypsy heart the spirit
ual seeds of endless unrest. Griselda had
come to Bahia syria, Bible in hand, and
besought her to forsake the tent and the
road; to lead the gorgio (non-Gipsy) mer-
ripen or life: to come with her into the
peace of Christian paths and ways. The