aloft one's self in the pure air and under the unclouded dome of heaven,
and thus look down on the submergence of the valley, was strangely
different and even delightful to the eyes. Far away were hilltops like
little islands. Nearer, a smoky surf beat about the foot of precipices
and poured into all the coves of these rough mountains. The colour of
that fog ocean was a thing never to be forgotten. For an instant, among
the Hebrides and just about sundown, I have seen something like it on
the sea itself. But the white was not so opaline; nor was there, what
surprisingly increased the effect, that breathless crystal stillness
over all. Even in its gentlest moods the salt sea travails, moaning
among the weeds or lisping on the sand; but that vast fog ocean lay in a
trance of silence, nor did the sweet air of the morning tremble with a
sound.

As I continued to sit upon the dump, I began to observe that this sea
was not so level as at first sight it appeared to be. Away in the
extreme south, a little hill of fog arose against the sky above the
general surface, and as it had already caught the sun it shone on the
horizon like the topsails of some giant ship. There were huge waves,
stationary, as it seemed, like waves in a frozen sea; and yet, as I
looked again, I was not sure but they were moving after all, with a slow
and august advance. And while I was yet doubting, a promontory of the
hills some four or five miles away, conspicuous by a bouquet of tall
pines, was in a single instant overtaken and swallowed up. It reappeared
in a little, with its pines, but this time as an islet and only to be
swallowed up once more and then for good. This set me looking nearer,
and I saw that in every cove along the line of mountains the fog was
being piled in higher and higher, as though by some wind that was
inaudible to me. I could trace its progress, one pine tree first growing
hazy and then disappearing after another; although sometimes there was