The Hermetic Museum, Vol. II — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)

* Accident is a mighty helper; let your hook always be baited; in the least likely river you may catch your fish."

AMERICA: WATER.

In these days, when commerce has opened up, as it were, a highroad across the seas to America (or India in the West), there is no very great difficulty in reaching that continent; but far different were the circumstances under which it was fist

Vor. IT, O

discovered. After leaving the *Islands of the Blessed," I became a passenger on board of a ship which had an eagle for its figurehead ; and, after weathering many severe gales and hurricanes, we at length landed in Brazil, a great province of America, entirely covered with forests. The surface of the country is only dotted here and there with the homestead of a settler; there are few towns, and the inhabitants are sunk in ignorance, and unskilled in the arts of civilisation. How, then, could I hope to hearanything about the Phoenix among people who could hardly read or write? Yet there are in this country many rare and beautiful birds which are not found elsewhere, though, of course, the Phoenix, being a miraculous bird, must not be sought among common fowls. 'The trees of the land are of a rich colour and sweet fragrance; and one day when I was enjoying the wild beauty of the forest, and listening to the natural music of the birds, I happened to find an apple of unusual and exquisite beauty, which on a closer view exhibited . the following inscription :—

* Within is that which, if you deliver it to its "

* grandmother, there will thence arise a son who"

* may cling to his mother in loving embrace. "

* From this union will arise in a short time a"

* noble tree which will render to the husbandman "

*a golden harvest."

After much thinking, it occurred to me that the seed which was in the fruit must be placed in the earth (its grandmother, since the parent tree was its mother) So I took it as a gift of God, sowed the seed, and when there had sprung up a little tree, T grafted it into the parent tree (first having sawn off that tree close to the ground) and when the two had grown together, they became a much more glorious tree than either of them had been before; and the fruit was that of the scion which had been inserted into the parent tree.... tis said that before the Spaniards reached Brazil, there were no horses in that country, so that the natives regarded a horse soldier as a monster half man and half beast; but when both horses and asses had been introduced by the strangers, it was thought most desirable to obtain also some mules which are the common offspring of these two animals. Now, there was a certain chief who possessed a

VOENE SEE TRES. aT, CEDE M Y. Pu large number both of asses and horses, and he took particular interest in this matter. He knew very well how to breed horses from horses, and asses from asses, but he was not acquainted with the proper method of breeding mules from both ; while he was aware that all experiments which are made in the dark, ze, without the light of previous experience, are both dangerous and uncertain. The consequence was that all his efforts to produce a mule out of a stallion and a she ass were doomed to failure, no doubt because their seeds were not mixed in the right proportion. At last a Sage who was passing that way, and whose insight into the secret working of Nature was infinitely keener and more complete than that of those ignorant people, gave our chief the following advice:—

*"I[f you would obtain a mule resembling the

* paternal ass in length of ear and slowness of"

* gait, you should feed each of the parents with "

* just as large a quantity of food as their nature '

* requires. Would you know what this proportion "

"is? (Give to the male twice as much as to the "

* female, then a mare will conceive a mule from "

* an ass."

This advice was taken by the chief, and, after several failures, his perseverance was crowned with complete success. Nor does it appear contrary to Nature's general plan that two different parents should produce offspring which differs from them both. Look at the leopard, which is said to be the offspring of the pard and the lioness ; in the same way the wolf and bitch beget the lynx ; a scion inserted into a good tree produces fruit different from those of the parent stock; new varieties of flowers are obtained by a judicious mingling of the pollen ; and the red powder called * our Tincture," being mixed with quicksilver over the fire, produces gold which is utterly unlike either the one or the other. Now, these Americans are able to perform a most singular experiment with metals, and particularly with gold. ^ They have a kind of water in which gold becomes soft like wax, and capable of being moulded with the hand into any shape they please. This water is not a corrosive, since it does not burn the fingers of those who take up the gold. But we need not doubt that it is some chemical

»

)