Cloudland

“ Luminous and enormous, there heaved up above the garden trees something that looked at first like [228] a coloured cloud; it was flushed with light such as lies on clouds opposite the sunset, a light at once warm and wan; and it shone like an opaque flame. But as it came closer it grew more and more incredible. It took on solid proportions and perspective, as if a cloud could brush and crush the dark tree-tops. It was something never seen before in the sky; it was a cubist cloud. Men gazing at such a sunset cloudland often imagine they see castles and cities of an almost uncanny completeness. ”

“ The inquiry embraces long periods. In all times and countries we have seen the known world lose itself in the fogs of cloudland—never uniformly, it is true, but in constantly changing proportions. Here and there we have a glimpse, now and again a vision over wider regions ”

“ Cloudland, for a realm so near us and so closely associated with our welfare, has been sadly slighted by man's genius. The ancients were surprisingly stupid in their views and discussions of air, wind, and clouds. ”

“ All day you watch across the sky
The silent, shining cloudlands ply,
That, huge as countries, swift as birds,
Beshade the isles by halves and thirds,
Till each with battlemented crest
Stands anchored in the ensanguined west,
An Alp enchanted. All the day
You hear the exuberant wind at play,
In vast, unbroken voice uplift,
In roaring tree, round whistling clift. ”

“ OLD CLOUD'S REST
Inspired by a vast panorama of snow-clad and sun-kissed granite peaks in the Yosemite Valley, of which Cloud's Rest (5912 feet) is the highest.
How proud you rear your haughty crest,
And snow-clad, frown on heights below;
Tho' humbler, they like you are drest
In mantles of eternal snow.
Old Cloud's Rest!
Five thousand feet you climb the skies,
And view your sisters with disdain—
Yet seismic powers that bade you rise
May level you to dust again!
Old Cloud's Rest! ”

“ When all is warm and clear upon the heights, and the tops of the hills are fervid with the beams of heaven, there still lies a cold white mass of cloud about your feet. It is not yet morning in the valley. There the cloud has been slumbering all night—there it found its home. It also will by and by receive the beam, and then it will arise, enveloping the hill as it ascends; the hill will have a second dawn; the cloud will assume its proud station in the sky; but it will return again to the valley at night.
I am sailing on the lake of Brienz on a day golden with sunbeams. ”

“ It is a desolate place, and is made more so by the clouds coming down and completely damping us and the view. It is rather dreary jogging along with these human ponies in a dense mist, out of which loom palely the foremost bearers, when, as suddenly as we came into it, the fog lifted, leaving us the most beautiful cloud effects of white filmy vapours, trailing low down on the mountain side, with a patch of blue sky just beginning to show, and the sun shining up there behind those opaque masses of cloud and mist, making them appear so fleecy and transparent. ”

“ We first noticed a small cloud gathering about the top of the mountain, which presently commenced circling around the peak, occasionally reaching over far enough to drop down upon us a few sprinkles of water, although the sun was shining brightly where we were. As the cloud continued to circle, it increased in size, momentum, and density of color, spreading out like a huge umbrella. Soon thunder could be heard, growing louder and more frequent until it became one continuous roar, fairly shaking the earth. ”

“ As we start up the valley, perhaps, the “white horses” of last night’s rain-storms are still racing down the slopes, and our staircase of mingled grass and rock bears the shadow of the dense cloud overhead—a scene of unrelieved dreariness to those who are unaware of what glories it may be the gateway. Toiling upwards, we reach the swirling fringe of vapour, which closes gradually round us and wraps from us all view of the familiar landscape below. Still on and up we press, till, as we set foot on the higher ridges, the magic of cloud-land begins ”

“ Observers at the coast often little imagine, when looking at a cloud-concealed mountain peak, that although the cloud-belt from below looks black and lowering and rain is falling heavily in the gloomy forests, there is on the upper side a region of bright sunshine, and that the peak stands out, unseen by them, above a sea of clouds sparkling brilliantly in the sun and dazzling in their whiteness. It will be seen from the table given in Note 61, that during my sojourn on the summit of Mauna Loa the sky was cloudless or almost free from cloud during nearly half the time. ”

“ In this mountain land too there are countless varieties of what may be called cloudscapes; the numerous summits attract and then break up the cloud masses into rough and fleecy shapes, some thick enough to obstruct the light, others edged by silvery gleams, and others again brilliant with the sun shining through them,—the whole exhibiting wonderful examples of aerial chaos. ”

“ Mountaineers take no chances on the ledges after dark. It is dangerous enough work to skirt narrow precipices in daylight; and sunset is often followed by a thick mist rolling across the heights in billows of fog. These are the clouds that one sees across the peaks at nightfall like banners. How does it feel benighted among those clouds?
A few years ago I was saving a long detour round the base of a mountain by riding along the saddle of rock between two peaks. ”

“ I have thus far referred mainly to the drama of the sunshine; but more varied, more fascinating, more adventurous is the drama of the clouds, those mist mountains that come and go, forming ranges loftier than the hills, whiter than the snows, but endowed with the two-fold gifts of inaccessibility and evanescence. Them we can neither climb nor map. Clouds we have with us everywhere, but it is among mountains that we learn to know them, how they form and fade, mount aloft or drift asunder. The mountain clouds have a plainlier realised individuality than those that pass over cities and plains. ”

“ On what anvils and wheels is the vapor pointed, twisted, hammered, whirled, as the potter's clay? By what hands is the incense of the sea built up into domes of marble?"
[9] The opposed conditions of the higher and lower orders of cloud, with the balanced intermediate one, are beautifully seen on mountain summits of rock or earth. On snowy ones [37] they are far more complex: but on rock summits there are three distinct forms of attached cloud in serene weather ”

“ The clouds which gather here in this valley, at one time completely hiding the immense rocks, and absorbing them in a waste, impenetrable gloom, or at another letting a part of them be seen, like huge spectres, give to the people a cast of melancholy. In the midst of such natural phenomena, the people are full of presentiments and forebodings. Clouds, a phenomenon remarkable to every man from his youth up, are in the flat countries generally looked upon at most as something foreign, something super-terrestrial. ”

“ A cloud upon the dome and these ever varying rockings and bendings of the falls are sure storm signs, but yesterday morning’s sky was clear, and the sun poured the usual quantity of the balmiest spring sunshine into the blue ether of our valley gulf, but ere long ragged lumps of cloud began to appear all along the valley-rim, coming gradually into closer ranks, and rising higher like rock additions to the walls. ”

“ An occasional cloud, fleecy and jagged, sails lazily aloft, marking its shadow on the mountain side. In a few days—a few hours, perhaps—the blue sky will be unbroken, the air hushed, a hot breath will move among the leaves, or pant over the trickling fountains. ”

“ Almost before I could believe my eyes, a cloud had come up from the valley on the other side, and the plains were hidden. What wonderful luck was mine! Had I arrived five minutes later, the cloud would have been over the pass, and I should not have known of its existence. Now that the cloud was there, I began to doubt my memory, and to be uncertain whether it had been more than a blue line of distant vapour that had filled up the opening. ”

“ The cloud-shape enlarges, heightens without changing contour. It is not a cloud, but an island! Its outlines begin to sharpen,—with faintest pencillings of color. Shadowy valleys appear, spectral hollows, phantom slopes of pallid blue or green. The apparition is so like a mirage that it is difficult to persuade oneself one is looking at real land,—that it is not a dream. It seems to have shaped itself all suddenly out of the glowing haze. We pass many miles beyond it ”

“ A thin veil of cloud floats far down below, and, in the stillness of the morning, the faint roar of the river, coming up from the dimly seen bottom, makes the valley seem miles in depth. All day long the clouds, driven by the northeast trade winds, roll over the Blue Mountains from the cool north side and quickly melt away in the dry air above the warm southern valleys. ”

“ In the valley or on the plain you do not commonly notice the shadow of a cloud unless you are in it, but on a mountain top or on a lower elevation in a plane country, or by the sea-side, the shadows of clouds flitting over the landscape are a never-failing source of amusement. It is commonly easy enough to refer a shadow to its cloud, since in one direction its form is perceived with sufficient accuracy. ”

“ But now, as we came to the herd and turned to circle about it, the westward view was wonderfully changed. The background of mountains which in the morning had been so shadeless was now almost wholly in shadow. The cloud-puffs of an hour ago had spread and united into black canopies of storm-cloud. The range had assumed its darkest and most sublime aspect. As the eye runs up and down the long sweep of vision, here and there a white peak, flooded with sunshine from an unseen space between the storms, shines with an unearthly brightness amid the general blackness. ”

“ Presently we saw the dark cloud rise gradually from behind the hills, completely clearing their summits, and then sweeping along until it hung over the valley, in form and appearance like some monstrous night-moth, resting the tips of its enormous wings on the mountains on either side. ”

“ At the sun's disappearance below the western horizon, the immense cloud, in quickened motion, grappled with the glow of retreating light, and rolling down to the clear and jagged outline of the distant mountains, hung arrested above the steaming forests ”

“ The slowness of our ground speed, due to the fierce wind, allows me plenty of time to admire the strangely beautiful surroundings. Above is the inverted bowl of blue, bright for the most part, but duller towards the horizon-rim. The sun pours down a vivid light, which spreads quicksilver iridescence over the cloud-tops. Below is the cloud-scape, fantastic and far-stretching. The shadow of our machine is surrounded by a halo of sunshine as it darts along the irregular white surface. The clouds dip, climb, twist, and flatten into every conceivable shape. ”

“ The stars glittered frostily through the rifts in the clouds. Schunemunk Mountain was a shadow along the western horizon, and the eastern highlands banked up and blended with the clouds. Nature has its restless moods, its storms and passions, like human life ”

“ It is usually hidden behind the clouds by day, and is visible in the evening. As one sees it first, in the late afternoon, a white cloud is stretched across its middle height, concealing the mountain all but the very summit which appears like a celestial island floating upon radiant clouds in the high heavens. ”

“ Sometimes the blue haze from the Blue Ridge Mountains makes the sunlight turn to a golden mist. Clouds often cast huge moving shadows over the fields and forests below—and sometimes they shut out the patchwork entirely, leaving the visitor in a gray world, with only himself and the clouds below and above. ”

“ We next come to a variety which is anything but a harbinger of good, namely, the long stripes or bands of cirrus which stretch outwards from the margin of the cloud canopy of a cyclonic storm. In some ways these appendages to the great nimbus resemble the strips of cirriform cloud which fringe the summit of a thunder-cloud. They look as if they must have been formed by the blowing away, by a rapid wind, of the top of an uprising column of vapour-charged air. ”

“ What, indeed, can be more striking than the aërial landscapes of fine weather, in which, by an easy fancy, we can trace trees and towers, magnificent ruins and glaciers, natural bridges and palaces, all dashed with torrents of light or frowning in shadow, glowing like burnished silver, glittering in a golden light, or melting into the most enchanting hues? But with all this beauty the eye is seldom capable of judging correctly of the proper size and forms and motions of clouds. The same cloud which to one observer may be glowing with light, to another may be enveloped in shadow. ”

“ A few fleecy clouds in the west partially obscured the sun until it neared the horizon, then a shaft of sunlight broke through once more, telegraphing its approach long before it reached us, the rays being visibly hurled through space like a javelin, or a lightning bolt, striking peak after peak so that one almost imagined they would hear the thunder roll. ”