Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/216

 strath. On the other side of the river the strath is ribbed into ridges by the file-like teeth of innumerable rills and runlets. These are nature's files eating away the mass of the earthquake's upheaval. The swift Kawarau there is but nature's bosom, sweeping the detritus of the workshop down into the open plains of the low country, there to be worked up by the rosy fingers of that cunning artificer old Helios into ruddy fruit and golden grain, and all the witching loveliness of grass and flower and tree.

What a laboratory is this! We are looking here at nature in her apprentice stage.

The mist is now gathering its serried battalions and slowly retiring to the mountain tops. The valleys come out more distinctly. The sound of falling waters becomes more clear and musical.

Hurrah! Yonder is the sun, and we are to have a fine day after all. What a glorious vision have we here! Surely, reader, could you but behold this with me my rhapsodies might be pardoned.

This gorge is named Nevis Bluff Pass. How eerie and uncanny look those rotten crumbling masses overhead. The road winds in and out amid heaps of fallen débris, and the rocks hang ominously over the horses' heads. Below, the impetuous river is in a more savage mood than ever. The water, pent up and impeded by fallen rocks, roars and swishes and churns itself into foam, as it dashes in impotent wrath against the great buttresses and barriers that seek to retard, its