reflections of sky and landscape seem almost to exceed the
originals in lustre and delicate detail. Some of the Tasmanian
rivers possess this reflecting quality in an exceptional degree.

Nor are the phenomena of broken reflections inferior in beauty
and suggestion. Instead of motionless repetition of given detail,
there are flickering, sinuous, mazy windings and twistings of
colour, light, and shadow--a capricious hurrying from surface to
surface. Knowledge of optics cannot rob them of their marvel
and their glamour. And if such be their effect on the modern
mind, what must it have been on that of primitive man! No laws
of reflection came within his ken. He looked down on the still
surface of tarn, or pool, or fountain, and saw, sinking
downwards, another world, another sky, losing themselves in
mystery. Mere wonder would yield place to meditation. Ah!
what secrets must lurk in those crystal depths, if only one could
surprise them--wrest them from the beings who inhabit that
nether realm! Possibly even the world-riddle might so be
solved! And thus it came to pass that most water spirits were
deemed to be dowered with prophetic gifts.

The Teutonic water-gods were "wise"--they could foretell the
future. In classical mythology, Proteus, the old man of the sea,
presents himself as a well-developed embodiment of this belief.
Old Homer knew how to use the material thus provided, and
Virgil, in his choicest manner, follows the lead so given. In the
fourth book of the Georgics, Aristaeus, who had lost his bees, in
despair appealed to his mother, the river-nymph, Cyrene. She
bids him consult Proteus, the old prophet of the sea. He follows
her counsel, captures Proteus, and compels him to tell the cause