88 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



form nimbus or rain clouds, of which more anon. The 

 time to study these clouds is at dawn, when the 

 heralds of the coming sun touch and glorify them. 

 At night, in their pure whiteness under the glare of 

 the silver moon, they look cold, and when they glide 

 across the face of the satellite they cast quite a gloom 

 over Nature, which we instinctively resent. Even then 

 they do not cease to be beautiful, but they do not appeal 

 to our senses as they never fail to do in the daytime. 



They are the lowest of all the clouds, so low in 

 fact that it is not necessary to scale a very high 

 mountain in order to get among them and experience 

 the same sensations as we have when enveloped in 

 a heavy mist, which is indeed a cloud in contact 

 with the earth. Sometimes we may see them clinging 

 around a mountain as if held to it by some invisible 

 power of attraction and investing it with something 

 of their own mystery and impalpability, hiding its 

 grim outlines, and parting with much of their moisture 

 for the replenishment of its springs. In many parts 

 of the world their thus clinging to a mountain is an 

 infallible sign of bad weather shortly to arrive. A 

 notable instance of this is the well-known "table- 

 cloth " on Table Mountain, Cape of Good Hope. For 

 some time before the coming of one of these tremen- 

 dous gales, known and dreaded on the South African 

 coast as the south-easter, a huge mass of cumulus 

 cloud is seen resting upon the plateau at the summit 

 of the mountain which gives it its distinctive name, 

 completely hiding it from view, and sometimes, in- 

 deed, rolling down its sides as if it would completely 

 envelop the whole giant mass. Even when the storm 

 does commence, the clouds still cling to the mountain 



