CLOUDS SURMOUNTING MOUNTAINS. 49 



j^rom piaremont, or Wynberg, or the Flats, or any place to the 

 back of Table Mountain, it may be seen that the cloud is not blown 

 to the mountain, but there it first appears ; and if some few cloudlets, 

 formed over the crests of hills belonging to the range situated to 

 windward, be seen sailing towards it, it is evident that they are 

 " A sailing, a sailing with the wind," and not attracted only, for none 

 are seen floating towards the Table-Cloth in other direction than that 

 in which the wind blows. 



Of this phenomeaon Sir John Hersohel writes, " That the mere se|lf- 

 expansion of the ascending air is sufficient to cause precipitation of 

 vapour, when abundant, is rendered matter of ocular demonstration 

 in that very striking phenomenon so common at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where the south or south-easterly wind which sweeps over the 

 Southern Ocean, impinging on the long range of rocks which ter- 

 minate in the Table Mountain, is thrown up by them, makes a 

 clean sweep over the flat table-land which forms the summit of that 

 mountain (about 3850 feet high), and thence plunges down with the 

 violenee of a cataract, clinging close to the mural precipices that 

 form a kind of background to Capetown, which it fills with dust and 

 uproar. A perfectly cloudless sky meanwhile prevails over the 

 town, the sea and the level country, but the mountain is covered with 

 a dense white cloud, reaching to no great height above its summit, 

 and quite level, which, though evidently swept along by the wind, 

 and hurried furiously over the edge of the precipice, dissolves and 

 completely disappears on a definite level, suggesting the idea (whence 

 it derives its name) of a ' table-cloth.' Occasionally, when the wind 

 is very violent, a ripple is formed on the aerial current, which, by a 

 sort of rebound in the hollow of the amphitheatre in which Capetown 

 stands, is again thrown up, just over the edge of the sea, vertically 

 over the jetty — where we have stood for hours watching a small 

 white cloud in the zenith, a few acres in extent, in violent internal 

 agitation (from the hurricanes of wind blowing through it), yet 

 immovable as if fixed by some spell, the material ever changing, the 

 form and aspect unvarying. The ' table-cloth ' is formed also at the 

 commeucement of a ' north-wester,' but its fringes then descend on 

 the opposite side of the mountain, which is no less precipitous." 



I mean not to affirm that in every case the clouds capping 

 mountains and mountain ranges have been formed in the same way. 

 All that I affirm is that thus it is there in the circumstances stated, 

 and thus it may be elsewhere oftimes when clouds are seen covering a 

 mountain brow, and that, whether these mountains be wooded or bare. 



