The Courier-Review.
29
there is a legend or superstition, that far in the interior and hard by the beaten track of travel, a mountain stands called Jabar Cadem—the turning mountain—for strange to relate, this mountain can be turned from side to side, being set upon huge spheres of stone, as the legend runs, and in this mount two spirits dwell—the one beneficent to man, the other hostile; on one side, this mountain is as fair to look upon as a garden in the Valley of Cashmere; pomegranates and grapes in clusters and all the fruits of the field mingle with the orchids and roses whose Iris like beauty, mantles the mountain side with a mass of bloom; fountain-thrown waters make cool the air heavy with perfume while from dell and grove come the singing of birds in whose sweetness is mingled the beauties of all instruments—flutes and viols and harps and mellow horns; upon the mountain's other side are yawning caves and scarred and blasted rocks, no green thing is there; from the caverns, issue the breath of plague and pestilence and in the semi-darkness serpents crawl. It is the good spirit's task to keep the mountain's fairer side turned to the traveler's track, and the desire of the evil one to turn the other. This turning mountain is not unlike the law as it is; when unperverted, as fair as the grove by the lake in Korassan, but at all times capable of being made to be a thing with fangs, all evil.
Let us trust that this revolving mountain of the law will soon become fixed, and fixed with its fairer side made blessed by the sunshine of ABSOLUTE EQUITY, presented to the people.
T. A. McNeal: "The Breezy West."
In speaking of the breezy West, I can only say, Mr. Chancellor, that as far as I know I can only discourse as to Kansas, but I suppose that is what is meant by the breezy West.
It has been said that whatever else may be said of Kansas, it can at least be said to be original. She is original in the style of her politics, religion, and in the character of her winds she is without precedent or shadow. It has been several years, my friends, since I first
made acquaintance with the winds that do business in the state of Kansas. I was struck with the peculiar manner that they had of picking up the dust and grass and cobble that is within her gates. I got into this state in a windy month of a windy year. I believed that I had accidentally struck the kingdom of Aeolus himself, and had got mixed up with the headquarters of the committee running his campaign. I noticed the peculiar blistering, bleaching, burning character of the "breezy West." I noticed, as I said before, how they seemed to stay with the stranger until his epidermis hung from his wind-burnt nose in shreds, and if he opened his mouth in protest, it filled as far back as his wisdom teeth with geological specimens and the deposites of the old sandstone period. The driver of a pair of mules with whom I had taken shelter from the extremity of the weather, seemed to bear it with a stoical philosophy that excited my curiosity, if not my admiration. I was amazed at the calm manner in which he continued to chew upon his quid, and when he spit occasionally, I noticed that the saliva floated away upon the graceful breeze until, I afterwards learned, it was stopped by the bald head of a man living in the adjoining county. It is said that on that occasion the man remarked to his wife that never back in the old state of Illinois had he seen such a large drop of rain fall from a clear sky.
Well, I attempted to whistle, but for some time I could not hear a sound; but bye and bye I heard, some rods to the right of me, a fragment of a tune. It was my whistle, and the wind had blown it off before it could get the chance to make a sound. It is said that sometime after that a traveller passing along the road picked up four bars of "The girl I left behing me," I mean the tune, in a cottonwood tree.
I was struck by the fortitude with which these tearing breezes were borne by the old settlers. I asked a fellow if these winds were not annoying. He said not at all; on the contrary the wind is one of the things to which we call the attention of the stranger when he comes here. The wind destroys the germs of disease by