INACCURACY.
It is stated in the ancient work on Water-courses that at a certain place there was a “stone-bell hill.” The commentator, Li Yüan, considers the name to have arisen from the fact that the foot of the hill is washed by a deep pool, and that on the slightest agitation of its surface by the wind, waves would splash against the rock and produce a sound like that of a great bell.
This explanation, long regarded with suspicion, was at length exploded by a real bell being placed in the pool, which, no matter how violent the waves, never gave forth a sound. How much less then, it was argued, would stone.
By-and-by, an official, named Li Pŏ, set to work to investigate, and discovered at the pool two stones which when struck emitted ringing sounds of different pitches, the vibration continuing some time after the stroke, and at length dying gradually away. Thus be believed that he had finally settled the point.
Of this settlement, however, I always entertained grave doubts. For many stones will yield a ringing sound when struck; why then should these be more particularly bell stones than any others?
Subsequently, I had an opportunity of seeing for myself these so-called stone bells, when accompanying my eldest son on the way to his post as magistrate. The priests of a neighbouring temple bade one of their novices carry an adze, and with this he chipped off several pieces and showed me how they rang when struck. I smiled, but was not convinced; and that same night, the moon shining brightly, I stepped into a boat with my son and we proceeded to the base of the hill where the rock rose almost sheer to a height of near a thousand feet, looking like a fierce beast or huge hobgoblin about to spring upon us. Flocks of birds, startled at our approach, flew out and whirled away into the sky. There were also sounds as of old men coughing and laughing within a chasm of the rock, which one would have said was the noise of herons or cranes.
