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In the area of Kiora, lying to the southward of Ararat, the settlers, who are very anxious to discover springs of water upon their selections, have engaged the services of an old man, apparently between sixty and seventy years of age, who professes to discover springs by the aid of a divining rod. He has already pointed out two spots where he confidently states water will be found at a moderate depth, and the farmers are now engaged in practically proving his skill. We are told that the diviner holds a slender strip of steel between the finger and thumb of both hands, and walks about the land with it in this position. When water is approached, the rod trembles violently, and the motion ceases as the place is left. One of the settlers, Mr. Tomkins, with the view of testing his accuracy, had the diviner blindfolded (after pointing out the spot where water would be found) and taken to another portion of his land, but he states that the motion of the rod led him, with but little hesitation, back to the same place. The old man refuses to take money for his services till water be obtained, and when proved to exist asks £3 from each individual. He states that the rod was owned by his father, and that it will not indicate water in the hands of any of his brothers. While engaged at Kiora he showed some of the farmers letters which he had received from a number of squatters engaging his services on their stations in a similar capacity; and he left to fulfil these engagements, with a view of returning for payment when the sinking is concluded. He professes to name within three feet of the depth at which water will be obtained, but cannot say if it will prove fresh or salt.
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When any Christian is drowned in the river Dee, there will appear over the water where the corpse is, a light, by which means they do find the body, and it is therefore called the holy Dee.
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Miscellanies, quotes a letter addressed to Mr. Baxter, referring to the Welsh
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superstitions, in which the writer _naively_ says that the light
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Holy Well. . . . . . Some birds came to plume their wing, And lave their beaks in the healing spring; And gorgeous butterflies stopp'd to play About the place on a sultry day. Folks came from the east and came from the west, To take at that fountain health and rest; From the north and the south they came to dwell, By the far-famed stream of the
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Holywell.
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This may have arisen, to some extent, from the fact that water, under certain conditions, possesses undoubted
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The necessity of personal cleanliness to ensure ordinary comfort, and the value of aqueous agency in its achievement, would doubtless exercise some influence, even in remote times. Add to this the horrors of a
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the intense suffering resulting from prolonged thirst, and we can well imagine that the early tribes of men who worshipped fire would feel a corresponding reverence for what may be termed its natural complement--water. The sun's heat was powerless for good, nay, it was potent for evil, unless in close alliance with the
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From their union springs the warm moisture essential to vegetable growth. Water, too, in more modern times, has been largely employed as a symbol of purity; and, in the Roman Catholic Church, especially, has been consecrated to religious purposes, and rendered
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It is, indeed, employed by all Christian sects, in the rite of baptism, as symbolising purity. Hence it is not surprising that many springs, and especially in the neighbourhood of religious houses, should in the middle ages have been invested with a sacred character, or that superstition of a more ancient and a heathen origin should yet, as it were, haunt their precincts. On this subject Mr. Robert Hunt makes the following eloquent and pertinent observations:--
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The purity of the liquid impresses itself, through the eye, upon the mind, and its power of removing all impurity is felt to the soul. 'Wash and be clean,' is the murmuring call of the waters, as they overflow their rocky basins, or grassy vases, and deeply sunk in depravity must that man be who could put to unholy uses one of nature's fountains. The inner life of a well of waters, bursting from its grave in the earth, may be religiously said to form a type of the soul purified by death, rising into a glorified existence and the fulness of light. The tranquil beauty of the rising waters, whispering the softest music, like the healthful breathing of a sleeping infant, sends a feeling of happiness through the soul of the thoughtful observer, and the inner man is purified by its influence, as the outer man is cleansed by ablution.
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Old Friary, at Preston, which gave the name to Ladywell-street, in that borough, like that which performed a similar office for the now notorious
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Hollywell street,