Half an hour later, the fog had surmounted all the ridge on the opposite
side of the gap, though a shoulder of the mountain still warded it out
of our canyon. Napa Valley and its bounding hills were now utterly
blotted out. The fog, sunny white in the sunshine, was pouring over into
Lake County in a huge, ragged cataract, tossing treetops appearing and
disappearing in the spray. The air struck with a little chill, and set
me coughing. It smelt strong of the fog, like the smell of a
washing-house, but with a shrewd tang of the sea-salt.

Had it not been for two things - the sheltering spur which answered as a
dyke, and the great valley on the other side which rapidly engulfed
whatever mounted - our own little platform in the canyon must have been
already buried a hundred feet in salt and poisonous air. As it was, the
interest of the scene entirely occupied our minds. We were set just out
of the wind, and but just above the fog; we could listen to the voice of
the one as to music on the stage; we could plunge our eyes down into the
other, as into some flowing stream from over the parapet of a bridge;
thus we looked on upon a strange, impetuous, silent, shifting exhibition
of the powers of nature, and saw the familiar landscape changing from
moment to moment like figures in a dream.

The imagination loves to trifle with what is not. Had this been indeed
the deluge, I should have felt more strongly, but the emotion would have
been similar in kind. I played with the idea as the child flees in
delighted terror from the creations of his fancy. The look of the thing
helped me. And when at last I began to flee up the mountain, it was
indeed partly to escape from the raw air that kept me coughing, but it
was also part in play.