Much affected by the scene, I was about to leave, when suddenly over the face of the water came clanging and rolling sounds, like the notes of bells and drums. The boatman was horribly alarmed; but on examination we found that the base of the rock was pitted all over with holes, of I know not what depth, and that the sounds were due to the water which had been forced up them rushing noisily out as each wave retired. And steering our boat into a chasm between two rocks, we there found a large boulder of a size to seat a hundred persons, right in mid-channel. This too was full of holes, and when these had been filled with water driven in by the wind, the water would flow out with a noise similar to that we had just heard.
Laughing, I turned to my son and said, “Don’t you see? These sounds are identical in timbre with the notes of the two famous bells of old. Ah! the ancients deceive us not. But how should people undertake to decide about what they have neither seen with their eyes nor heard with their ears? Li Yüan was a man of experience equal to my own. Yet his explanation was inaccurate. He doubtless would not be bothered to get into a boat and anchor here at night beneath the cliff. Therefore he could not ascertain the real cause of the phenomenon, while the boatmen and others, who may have known, had no means of publishing the truth. Li Pŏ put his trust in an adze, and thought he had solved the problem thereby.”
I accordingly made a note of this adventure, with a sigh for the remissness of Li Yüan, and a smile at the credulity of Li Pŏ.
OLD SQUARE-CAP THE HERMIT.
Old Square-Cap was a hermit. In his youth he had been a knight-errant, and the leader of knight-errantry in his hamlet. He was also an enthusiastic student of all kinds of books, hoping by these means to make his mark upon the age. But he never succeeded, and retired late in life to the hills. He lived in a hut. He was a vegetarian. He held no intercourse with the outer world.
