Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1894-02-08
BABA SYRA'S QUEST.
"raics of Ton Travellers" Series.
by Edgar L. Waterman.

enhancing Slroam YET unuCnleu ny man..
Retaining its Indian name Of Wisauck-
sickan, or the yellow.colored stream, 1t
has its source miles away among the
fertile Dutch meadows and witching
hills of Bucks and Montgomery coun-
lies, 1t springs from region full of
quaint superstitions, and every rivulet
feeding it, or homestead or hamlet it
passes furnishes an added fancy, legend
or weird old tale; until, reaching the
gorge through which for 12 miles it
winds in fantastic abandon before
emptying into the Schuylkill. il be-
comes very witch nest of phantasm,
hobgoblin and myth.
For seven or eight miles above its
mouth the channel is strangely tor
turous between banks of rocks of mica
schist, rising in every imaginable fan
tastic form to picturesque and noble
heights. These banks are bewilderingly
multiform, clothed in the rarest and
most varied foliage, while ascending
and browning the heights on either side
are the noblcst of American forrest
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
q rivulet as 1t enters the gorge, the
stream increases in volume from upland
to the last deep pool where the Schuyl-
kill gnlps il down at a swallow, and
stream and bank, shadow and shine,
rock and forest, water below and sky
above, blend in one matchless and per-
feet dream of rest.
There is not spot upon which you
may stand your feet, place your hand
or rest your eye which docs not
throb and pulse back to your own, in
stantly-accorded sympathy. The sense
of genial solitude and of loving restful-
ness is almost startling. 1t is as sooth-
ing 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
shrlnks 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 dissertation. Here reaches
a long, lake.like tarn, rippleless, dark as
ebon, but shining like FURNISHED silver.
Beyond, there is 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 cleaning circle, like the fut.
tering wings of myriad posing butter
flies, the stream is whisperingly break
ing away from another tarn above, but
SO softly that all is silent still.
Then another deep pool on whose
surface the oyerarching trees rim dark
shadows like black onyx fringing bed
of sapphire where is mirrorcd the blue
sky above. This voicelcss spot, may
hap, is fed by swiftly speeding water,
level and even for a little, by thread
of trembling Hastings where all tho
elhns' songs are sung, or by feecy
cascade white and spumy as shower
of thistledown; but there is. never tumult
nor turbulence here.
Again appears little lake, or wide
swirl of waters where the spirits of 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 a
simmer 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 almost blended with the rocks
and the outreaching roots of great trees;
rivulets trickling down from countless
springs, or shadowy creeks creeping
into the greater stream through
legend haunted gorges; tiny waterfalls
where the sunshine tiltering through
the tree branches darts and quivers over
notified splashes of shade; whirlng eddy
where leaf of tree or feather of passing
bird is dancing lively minuet to ceaselesa
rythm of unheard tune; murmurous
shadows in beauteous windings fol
cleaning distances, but hesitant and
soft as whispered lullaby rhyme; deer
and dark backwater, where the rounded
rocks point straight to heaven; stealthy
outlets where the waters sinuously
weave in and out around the polished
bases of great powders, like threads Of
silver cleaning through some Jagged
armor; covert channels winding through
stolen passages beneath overhanging
lodges, as ii the waters huddled together
for sedition; feathery cascades where
the mists of the clouds are again re.
solved to mist and swirl into humid
soundless feeciness 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 un.
ceasing expression of unobtrusive beauty
and surprising tenderness.
The gypsies, born nature.lovers thai
they are, are ever lowering near. 1t /:
their Already Of delight The camp fires
are seldom dim among the little glens
and hollows above the Wissahickor
gorge, the long, bright summer through
The city and its dickering are near
The farms aud their dukkering are close
at hand; and beside them is the melodi
GUS stream which for very love they
have come to call, in their secre
Romany tongue, "suttur-gillie coro," Of
the dear, sweet sleep-song dell.
On June morning not many year!
ago, the going Of Baba SYRIA from out q
Wissahickon gypsy camp was so sad /
thing to these tawny folk of the ten
and the road that all the place was
hushed and still.
Baba Syria was only feeble ole
gypsy woman; SO old that her owl
name of Syreira Stanley had not beer
heard in camp for years; so old that the
gypsy word for great-great aunt, ant
old, old mother, bahia, had long since
obliterated her own; so old that Gri
selda, her only child that had lived, wa,
born when Baba SYRIA was still an agec
woman, as gypsies measures age; so oil
that twenty years had already gont
since Griselda, a full grown lass, haC
left this very camp-spot never to return
and the old souls quest began, and al
had called her "Baba syria" long before
But the olden mystic fires had burnet