210 THE RAINBOW 



against the dark background underneath, suggested the 

 bloom of a plum. As the day advanced, the south- 

 eastern heaven became more luminous; and the pale 

 disk of the sun was at length seen struggling through 

 drifting clouds. At ten o'clock the sun had become 

 fairly victorious, the heather was adorned by pendent 

 drops, while certain branching grasses, laden with liquid 

 pearls, presented, in the sunlight, an appearance of 

 exquisite beauty. Walking across the common to the 

 Portsmouth road my wife and I, on reaching it, turned 

 our faces sunwards. The smoke-like fog had vanished, 

 but its disappearance was accompanied, or perhaps 

 caused, by the coalescence of its minuter particles into 

 little globules, visible where they caught the light at a 

 proper angle, but not otherwise. They followed every 

 eddy of the air, upwards, downwards, and from side to 

 side. Their extreme mobility was well calculated to 

 suggest a notion prevalent on the Continent, that the 

 particles of a fog, instead of being full droplets, are 

 really little bladders or vesicles. Clouds are supposed 

 to owe their power of flotation to this cause. This 

 vesicular theory never struck root in England ; nor has 

 it, I apprehend, any foundation in fact. 



As I stood in the midst of these eddying specks, so 

 visible to the eye, yet so small and light as to be per- 

 fectly impalpable to the skin both of hands and face, I 

 remarked, " These particles must surely yield a bow of 

 some kind." Turning my back to the sun, I stooped 

 down so as to keep well within the layer of particles, 

 which I supposed to be a shallow one, and, looking 

 towards the " Devil's Punch Bowl," saw the anticipated 

 phenomenon. A bow without colour spanned the Punch 

 Bowl. Though white and pale it was well defined, 

 and exhibited an aspect of weird grandeur. Once or 

 twice I fancied a faint ruddiness could be discerned on 



