A COVERT OF ROOK

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1618, 4 March 1903, Page 79 (Supplement)

A COVERT OF ROOK

(By a Banker.)

/ One of . the most remarkable instances of the / strange / results : >vhich have ensued from :tJae protection; afforded by a sorb of natural umbrella, ican be seen hear the picturesque town hf Bbtzen.' GTyrod. \ -A//;'/

Ascending the..beautiful, .valley of the Adige the scenery. is at first almost of tropical character; pomegranates, figs, olives, and other- fruits and flowers / which- revel in a v r a , nn, S'unhy olimate -abounding in luxuriant growth. As the road ascends / higher and, higher , the character of the vegetation continues to -alter, until at length, somewhat diverging from the main route, we find,, our- . Selves amidst wild Alpine gorges and. dark ravines; where some giant forced had rent the solid mountains, and cleft .apparently fathomless fissures in its mass.• Here a vast. upreared mass of rock, its dark precipitous cliffs rising sheer from the yawning abysmal gorge beneath;/ here a cluster of lofty pinnacles towering high into the azure; /and here a. mighty snow-clad dome, its. ; pure contrasting with the darker hues of the jagged peaks and rooky: plateaux in the foreground. . ' And noW the/scenery. is diversified by a broad icy . mids of ice,/refit and. shattered, and! mingled in Wild Cphfusipn; here piled / up in ; chaotic? disorder; here, forced ' aloft by the impelling forces from; i>he higher rangers of the frozen river, •a series of perpendicular- columns; while here and there • -are crevices > cut/ deep ’down in theiee, displaying the loveliest turquoise or sea-green hues it- is possible to imagine. . ‘ . Still proceeding, we at lengtli reach our quest. There, a,t a point which at some former epoch was probably the moraine of an ancient glacier, is an assemblage of extraordinary columns of earth, many of them fifty or sixty, feet or more in height. Upon the summit of the, majority, and formerly, doubtless, of all, rests a large rounded block or

slab of stone which has formed, a natural "umbrella,preventingthe rhins of, centuries or of ages from washing the earth beneath .them;.;those; portions: of the. surface which were not protected’ /having' beeaar gradually denuded; and carv ried down the valley. / The appearance presented is most quaint and- grotesque; and somewhat -resembles an exaggerated OrientalV : graveyard; or if the fancy could 1 ; imagine it to be an , assemblage /? of; petrified, turbaned. giants, clad in flowing robes, /and holding solemn conclave to the singularr ity/ of the scene ed ; in symmetrical lines, all converging towards the central: group, while • here' /and there detached sections • stand, sentry: over the rest. ' \ T And ’so these strange natural earth columns must ever continue to incr ease in height until the earth surrounding them is wholly washed away, and the solid bed-rock reached. ;

And so to some the sight of these stone>/capped ; figures • . suggests the thought, that like /as the protecting rock above them has shielded them from the storms and the blasts of ages, , sot thoise who ;are iipder the protection -of the Rock of - Ages, from Whose riven side flowed the stream which has: healed them, fear not the storms; and surges of this life; for Mightiest of all is their Protector.