Baiae

“ Everyman had to provide his own "health resort" in those days: there was nothing to correspond to the modern hotel. Even at the great luxurious watering-places on the Campanian coast, Baiae and Bauli, the houses, so far as we know, were all private residences. [390] I do not propose to include in this chapter any account of these centres of luxury and vice, which were far indeed from giving any rest or relief to the weary Roman; the society of Baiae was the centre of scandal and gossip, where a woman like Clodia, the Lesbia of Catullus, could live in wickedness before the eyes of all men. ”

“ So that here, on this now lonely creek of the Posilipo, in face of Nisida and all the blue reach of the Bay of Baiæ, there was once a theatre, ringing with shouts and applause, and by it all the other buildings of a noble mansion. It is a poor ruin now, stripped of the marbles which once made it splendid. There are vast structures on the slopes and in the sea itself: an Odeon, another building seated like a theatre, and relics innumerable of one of the greatest of all Roman villas, which must have been incomparably lovely. ”

“ As for myself, I do the best I can; I have had to be satisfied with Baiae; [2] and I left it the day after I reached it; for Baiae is a place to be avoided, because, though it has certain natural advantages, luxury has claimed it for her own exclusive resort. 2. "What then," you say, "should any place be singled out as an object of aversion?" Not at all. But just as, to the wise and upright man, one style of clothing is more suitable than another, without his having an aversion for any particular colour, but because he thinks that some colours do not befit one who has adopted the simple life ”

“ Personally, I am very glad that I remained behind when the troops and so many of our citizens left, for though the living is rough and the climate is infernal, still by dint of the three voyages which I have made for amber to the Baltic, and the excellent prices which I obtained for it here, I shall soon be in a position to retire, and to spend my old age under my own fig tree, or even perhaps to buy a small villa at Baiae or Posuoli, where I could get a good sun-bath after the continued fogs of this accursed island. ”

“ There is also a kind of powder which from natural causes produces astonishing results. It is found in the neighbourhood of Baiae and in the country belonging to the towns round about Mt. Vesuvius. This substance, when mixed with lime and rubble, not only lends strength to buildings of other kinds, but even when piers of it are constructed in the sea, they set hard under water. ”

“ On a bend of the Isla, where the silver water ran round a fringed promontory and productive haughs stretched right and left, rose the turrets of Baikie. The house was strong in site and strong in architecture—a battlemented, rugged, red sandstone building, with gateway and watch-tower, court and causeway, and moat filled with oozing mud, clayey stagnant water and dank plants, and fed by springs from the clear flowing river. And Baikie was trebled in strength by the character of its master. No feudal chief far or near was feared and followed like Sir Raoul. ”

“ The new fire burned away those veils of uncertainty and doubt that had closed him round; the light of Truth shed down its rays, the lamp of guidance burned before him.
He remained in Persia for a time, then left for Rumelia, which was Ottoman territory, and in the Land of Mystery, Adrianople, won the honor of entering the presence of Bahá’u’lláh; it was there that his meeting took place. His joy and fervor were boundless. Later, at Bahá’u’lláh’s command he made a journey to Constantinople, with Áqá Muḥammad-Báqir and Áqá ‘Abdu’l-Ghaffár. ”

“ THE TOWN OF BAHIA.
The town of Bahia looks very beautiful from the sea; but on entering you find it dreadfully filthy. The stench of the lower town is horrible. Even the President's palace is a dirty and wretched-looking building: his salary, I understand, is 600 pounds a year. By the last returns the population of the town was 120,000, 100,000 of whom were blacks. All the burdens here are carried by slaves as there are no carts and the breed of horses is small, being perfect ponies. ”

“ The only idea of a god known to be entertained by them seems to be that of the Euahlayi and Kamilaori tribe, Baiame, a gigantic old man lying asleep for ages, with his head resting on his arm, which is deep in the sand. He is expected one day to awake and eat up the world. Researches go to show that Baiame has his counterpart in other tribes, the myth varying greatly in detail. But the Australians are distinguished by possessing elaborate initiatory ceremonies. Circumcision of one or two kinds was usual in the north and south, but not in Western Australia or on the Murray river. ”

“ Bahia, two days voyage from Pernambuco, is a city to which (like Constantinople) distance very decidedly lends enchantment, and I did not land {157} there. It was raining fast, and the fantastic hilltops were wrapped in clouds, as we entered Rio Bay. I was welcomed by a kind Belgian monk whom I had known at Olinda in 1896, and who drove me up to our fine old Portuguese abbey, standing on its own mount or morro close to the sea, where I had paid my respects to the last of the old Brazilian abbots a dozen years before. A vigorous young community now occupied the long-empty cells ”

“ The persecuted ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has fallen into the hands of persons who appear as sheep and in reality are ferocious wolves; they exercise every sort of oppression, endeavor to destroy the foundation of the Covenant,—and claim to be Bahá’ís. They strike at the root of the Tree of the Covenant—and count themselves persecuted—just as did the people of Bayán who broke the Covenant of His Holiness, the Báb, and from six directions shot arrows of reproach and calumny at Thy Blessed Body. Notwithstanding this great oppression, they call themselves oppressed. ”

“ It is the swarming coloured people of Bahia, crowded in the cobble-paved, half-lighted rookeries of the lower town and the tilted streets leading to the upper town, who make it possible to keep open the doors of that city’s four hundred churches. ”

“ In the spaces beyond were groups of men, of the same reddish-brown complexion as the Cup-bearer, wearing loin-cloths and footgear with puttees halfway up the leg, their long black hair done up into a crest on the crown of the head. In one group alone thirty men appear close to a fortified post; in another, youths are hurling javelins against a besieged city. 'The alternating succession of subjects in these miniature frescoes suggests the contrasted episodes of Achilles' shield. ”

“ Abia and Pharae 4.30.1 There is in our time a city Abia in Messenia on the coast, some twenty stades distant from the Choerius valley. They say that this was formerly called Ire and was one of the seven cities which Homer says that Agamemnon promised to Achilles. When Hyllus and the Dorians were defeated by the Achaeans, it is said that Abia, nurse of Glenus the son of Heracles, withdrew to Ire, and settling there built a temple to Heracles, and that afterwards for this reason Cresphontes, amongst other honors assigned to her, renamed the city after Abia. ”

“ The Abai, its largest affluent, rises at Gish Abai, near the north-east foot of Mount Denguiya, some 60 miles from the lake. The Portuguese colony settled in this region towards the end of the sixteenth century certainly visited the sources of the Abai; but they were first described by the Jesuit Paez, who tells us that the water, oozing from a marshy field, is collected in a limpid lake, supposed by the natives to be "unfathomable" because they cannot reach the bottom with their spears. ”

“ The most ambitious tradition boldly transcended the limits of human occupation, and gave to Divinity itself a place of nurture in the fastnesses of the Cretan mountains. That many-sided deity, the supreme god of the Greek theology, had in one of his aspects a special connection with the island. The great son of Kronos and Rhea, threatened by his unnatural father with the same doom which had overtaken his brethren, was said Page 7 to have been saved by his mother, who substituted for him a stone, which her unsuspecting spouse devoured, thinking it to be his son. ”

“ All these women are most likely childless, and many a noble Roman house threatens to become extinct.
There are others, again, whose foibles are more innocent. Baebia, for example, is merely a victim to superstition. She is always consulting the astrologers, the witches, and the dream-readers; she is devoted to the mystic worship of the Egyptian Isis, with its secret rites of purification, or she is a proselyte to the pestilent notions of the Jews. ”

“ Basilea laughed to herself as she observed the seaman's efforts to escape, and to obtain some answer to a question first.
At last he seemed to accomplish both, for he wrenched himself from the powerful presence of the priest, and hastened towards the Stadhuis, while the other called after him in a voice meant to be subdued, but still so resonant that Basilea could hear every word: "The Prince will be back to-morrow evening!" ”

“ After the ascension of the Báb, he had the high honor of serving and watching over the revered and saintly consort of the blessed Lord. He was in Persia, mourning his separation from Bahá’u’lláh, when his distinguished son became, by marriage, a member of the Holy Household. At this, the Afnán rejoiced. He left Persia and hastened to the sheltering favor of his Well-Beloved. He was a man amazing to behold, his face so luminous that even those who were not believers used to say that a heavenly light shone from his forehead. ”

“ Late one evening, after Missionary Ginsburg and I had returned from a trip into the interior of the State of Bahia, we arrived in the city of Nazareth. It is a town of about 10,000 inhabitants. We were to wait here until the following morning for the boat which was to take us to Bahia.
As we went down the street we saw a great throng of people surging about an image which was being carried upon the shoulders of some men. Two priests walked in front to direct the movements of the procession. More than half of the people in the city must have been in the procession. ”

“ After two years of this he came on to Adrianople, seeking a haven in the loving-kindness of Bahá’u’lláh. He went to work as a peddler, and when the great rebellion34 began and the oppressors drove the friends to the extreme of adversity, he too was among the prisoners and was exiled with us to the fortress at Akká.
He spent a considerable time in the Most Great Prison, after which Bahá’u’lláh desired him to leave for Sidon, where he engaged in trade. Sometimes he would return and be received by Bahá’u’lláh, but otherwise he stayed in Sidon. He lived respected and trusted, a credit to all. ”

“ Religion and social standing. 8. There is nothing peculiar about the religion of the Bais except their tribal worship of the snake, and their reverence for a clan goddess, Mathotê, who is worshipped at the Mathotepur fair, in the Sîtapur District. She became a Sati at the death of her consort. The ordinary Bais give their daughters in marriage, amongst others, to the Sengar, Bhadauriya, [124] Chauhân, Kachhwâha, Gautam, Parihâr, Dikhit and Gaharwâr Râjputs, and receive daughters in marriage from the Banâphar, Janwâr, Khîchar, Raghubansi, Raikwâr, Karchauli, and Gahlot. ”

“ No person could imagine anything so beautiful as the ancient town of Bahia; it is fairly embosomed in a luxuriant wood of beautiful trees, and situated on a steep bank, and overlooks the calm waters of the great Bay of All Saints. ”

“ The Rise and Establishment of the Administrative Order With the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the first century of the Bahá’í era, whose inception had synchronized with His birth, had run more than three quarters of its course. Seventy-seven years previously the light of the Faith proclaimed by the Báb had risen above the horizon of Shíráz and flashed across the firmament of Persia, dispelling the age-long gloom which had enveloped its people. ”

“ Byzantine history, combined with my search in old Byzantium, and Ali Baba’s rapt attention to my expounding of it, made that winter a very happy one. I generally returned when the city was bathed in the sunset light; and these hours with Ali Baba, listening, his oars poised over the waters of the Golden Horn—truly golden at this hour—were hours of enchantment for me. How could we help becoming fast friends, sharing as we did such magical moments together. ”

“ The wild Indians of this province were, at the close of the century, well-nigh extinct.
The population of Bahia was estimated, at the close of last century, at one hundred thousand souls, two-thirds of whom were mulattoes or negroes. It abounded in convents, nunneries, and other religious establishments; but it likewise possessed public tribunals, and professors of the liberal languages and sciences, as well as a theatre and a mint. It is singular that this city should have been without a single inn ”

“ Confusion also arises from the fact that Baha is set forth as the Manifestation of all the "promised ones." He is set forth as the Messiah for the Jews, God the Father, the Word, and the Spirit for the Christians, Aurora or Shah Bahram for the Zoroastrians, the fifth Buddha for Buddhists, reincarnated Krishna for Brahmans, the Mahdi or the twelfth Imam or Husain for the Moslems.170 "All are realized in the coming of Baha [93] Ullah."171 In accord with this, Baha declared in his "Epistle to the Pope": "Consider those who turned away from the Spirit [Christ] when He came to them. ”