Egmont's Omen

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

Egmont's Omen

Spectre of the Brocken

(By

"Panitahi")

They say it’s an ill-omen. The mist' sneaked up the eastern slope and hid the sparkling plains miles below. ' It billowed up ,fr,om’the .shadow of. the ridge into the afternoon ‘sunshine. And then the Spectre of the Brocken, appeared. ■

No. breath of wind stayed the' scourge of: the sun on our backs as we stood on , the ridge that ■sprawled its lazy length up the baked mountainside in a tapering column of naked..rock and wellgroomed scoria from the brocaded bush to the highest snow. Behind us the sun had < made the sea a dazzling sheet of gold whose brilliance' scorned the soft green of the minute coast'and stood aloof behind-a barrier df unbelievably white .breakers—at our'altitude startlingly silent. From the mist in the east the Spectre silently mocked us.

Ch, the Spectre is easily enough explained; it is merely our shadows, greatly enlarged, on the. face of the mist. Round the shadow is a giant halo that looks as though it would like to be a rain-

fcow. While the mist stays there in the sunshine If airly close the Spectre will mimic us on a grand ifecale. A battle royal with ice-axes leaves us unscathed 'but so awful a thing does the Spectre taiake of it that- we have to laugh and shout.

t The silence hurls back our words with a muttering at our rudeness.' \God, it is quiet and lonely. Soon the sun will have set and that mist will 1 tome closer and colder. (Perhaps what the Swiss bay is true—the Spectre of the Brocken may be fen evil-omen. . ' ■

We shuffled’down the scoria shivering fe. little in the sudden cool; shadows. - Not until Egmont’s heights were far above and we were Striding across the-springy moss did our- joy return. We paused to watch the wonderful golden haze of- sunset smooth out the little harshness of Taranaki’s sweeping plains; and knew why the •Chinese have a saying—lf you have two loaves of -bread, sell one loaf and buy a lily. Still, they say it’s an ill-omen.