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FEATURESSearching for the Ming: Part SixZhang Dai Translated by Duncan Campbell
This is the sixth page of Duncan Campbell's translations of excerpts from Zhang Dai's Search for West Lake in My Dreams. The other pages can be accessed via the following links: Environs 西湖外景West Creek 西溪Millet Mountain is sixty-two zhang high and has a circumference of eighteen li and two hundred paces. At the foot of the mountain is Stone Man Ridge, rising up sharply in a most reverential manner. It is shaped like a man, his double topknot jutting out. Once one has crossed the ridge, one comes across West Creek and the several hundred people living here have gathered within a market village. Legend has it that soon after he retreated to the south and first arrived in Wulin, Emperor Gaozong, observing the richness of the land here, intended to use it for his capital. Later on, having obtained Phoenix Mountain, he was recorded as saying: 'West Creek, we'll leave as it is for the moment', the place having been given its present name as a result of this.[Fig.16]  Fig.16 West Spring 西溪, reprinted without attribution in Old Photographs of West Lake, p.166.
It is a most isolated spot, with many ancient plums of a dwarf variety. Their boughs are twisted and tangled, just like the pines of Yellow Mountain. Enthusiasts, when they get to this place, buy up the smallest trees they can find and take them home to use as part of bonsai arrangements. There is an Autumn Snow Hermitage here and within the hermitage there is a large expanse of bulrushes. It is a most extraordinary sight to see them when, under a bright full moon, they turn as white as snow. To my mind, West Creek is the very embodiment of the elegance of the scenery of Jiangnan, for here one can indulge one's eyes with beauty and ones ears with the music of pipes and song. If one wished to find an isolated creek or a secluded valley wherein to hide away from the world, like Peach Blossom Source or Chrysanthemum River of old, I can think of no better place.  Fig.17 The Yuhang Way 余杭道上, photograph from the early Republic, reprinted without attribution in Old Photographs of West Lake, last image. My friend Jiang Dao'an owned a villa besides West Creek and invited me to join him in retreat. As I was still immersed in the purposeless affairs of the world at the time, I was never able to do so, a circumstance that I continue to regret to this day. 粟山高六十二丈，周回十八里二百步。山下有石人嶺，峭拔凝立，形如人狀，雙髻聳然。過嶺為西溪，居民數百家，聚為村市。相傳宋南渡時，高宗初至武林，以其地豐厚，欲都之。後得鳳凰山，乃雲："西溪且留下。"後人遂以名。地甚幽僻，多古梅，梅格短小，屈曲槎椏，大似黃山松。好事者至其地，買得極小者，列之盆池，以作小景。其地有秋雪庵，一片蘆花，明月映之，白如積雪，大是奇景。余謂西湖真江南錦繡之地，入其中者，目厭綺麗，耳厭笙歌，欲尋深溪盤谷，可以避世如桃源、菊水者，當以西溪為最。余友江道闇有精捨在西溪，招余同隱。余以鹿鹿風塵，未能赴之，至今猶有遺恨。 Searching for the Ming |