AN EASTERN SKY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11684, 28 April 1916, Page 4

AN EASTERN SKY.

GLORIES OF DAW?' _i> T D SUNSET. " T wish \x were possible for you to look y -\<\\ mo upon the arresting beauty of dawn and evening, as the sun rises over and sets behind the desert Jiills, with never a cloud in all tlio .sky,' writes the Rev Dr Ewing to his Edinburgh congregation from "somewhere" in the "Eastern Mediterranean. " Peculiarly delicate aro the tints of violet, pink, pinkish purple, saffron and pearl over which the eye passes to the deep azure above. Suddenly they vanish as the sun leaps into the sky, glorious in his splendour, flooding the world with golden light. With what absolute supremacy ho "'rules the day" in these lands. Even now, in the early days of February, the man who goes abroad with unprotected head is apt to rue his folly. ~ Ln the heat and glare of noon all desert creatures rest, and the wide reaches of glowing sand, when no wind moves over the wastes, beconio" tho home of brooding silence. As tho day declines, there is a revival of life, and with the fading light the hues of tender loveliness como forth again, painting the lower heavens in colours that must for ever bo tho rapture and the despair of the artistic soul. This evening I watched the play of changing beauties away in the direction of Mount Sinai, the outrunners of which . were visible from where I stood. Touched by the almost level beams of the sinking sun, they appeared like battlements of terra-cotta under a sky of pearl, pink and violet. The graceful stems of many palms rose in tho middle distance, throwing up their dark green fronds against tho radiant background with indescribably charming effect."