One morning I watched a battle of the clouds over the
Canyon.
The wind had been blowing hard all night. About five o'clock I
arose, attracted to the rim of the Canyon by a great black cloud that
seemed banked up and resting on the north rim, covering, as with a blanket
of blackest smoke, the long, visible stretch of the Kaibab Plateau. By and
by the sun shot piercing beams of golden glory underneath the cloud, yet,
strong and powerful though they were, they could not penetrate the cloud
itself. There was the great wall of the Canyon; fierce, fiery,
crimson-golden rays shooting in thin streaks above, banked over and pressed
down upon by a towering mass of angry clouds. The wind blew strongly and
fiercely from the east, bringing fleecy-edged clouds with it. Down in the
Canyon the effects were wonderful. The walls reflected the anger of the
clouds, and the fire of the sun. Here and there a wall, a tower, or a
pinnacle would be lit up with a golden glory, but all around was smoky and
forbidding. It even seemed as if a grayish black smoke was ascending from
the depths beneath, through which the sun - invisible behind the cloud
above - shot lancelike beams, which silvered the smoke and made it a little
more gray. On the far western walls, rich purples and reds appeared. Then,
suddenly, a soft and fleecy cloud appeared in the clear blue of the morning
sky, floating towards me.
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