TABLE-CLOTH PHENOMENON. 59 
gives them the appearance of opacity, and so 
arose the phrase of "The table cloth being 
spread on the mountain." This vapour rolls 
on, in increasing volumes, until it comes to the 
precipitous termination of its mountain career; 
where it falls over the precipice in masses ; un- 
til, in its descent, it meets with the denser at- 
mosphere below, in which it is quickly absorbed, 
and disappears. 
It is a very "curious sight to observe this 
process going on. As the vapour, in its fall, 
gets under the shade of the perpendicular wall 
of rock, it assumes a dark and threatening ap- 
pearance, as if this s great body of cloud was 
about to pour a deluge on the devoted town 
beneath. These fleecy-looking masses, how- 
ever, are rather the bales than the bags of 
iEolus, which send forth wind instead of rain. 
These sudden and overpouring gusts overturn 
everything in the streets ; blow trees up by the 
roots; and drive clouds of sand and gravel from 
the shore, as far as the ships at anchor in the 
Bay. We have known, on such occasions, per- 
sons blown off their saddles, when riding near 
Cape Town, and carriages and horses turned 
completely round by its force. 
On another occasion, we were much amused, 
by a pair of gold spectacles being blown from 
the nose of a very short-sighted person, who 
