Tiny
Gusts Of Wind Played With Them, And Tossed Them Hither And Thither.
Banks
of smoky gray lay over certain portions, but there was no regularity, no
evenness, either in the clouds themselves, or in their disposition.
East
and west thick masses hid all vision; immediately at our feet the clouds
filled the lower canyons below the plateaus, with a glorious, fleecy,
silvery white, that tempted one to walk upon it into the realms of
fairyland and wonder. Fleeces of irregular shape, but a mile long and two
miles wide, slowly lifted themselves from a horizontal position to a
vertical one, thus converting themselves from blankets into curtains. Yet
behind and through them, - as a coy beauty half reveals, half conceals, her
charms, - so the walls and buttes, the pinnacles and buttresses, took on a
new and delicate beauty, a subtleness of charm and refinement that only
such a veiling could produce. Every moment the panorama changed. This was
veiled completely, that entirely uncovered, while other features were dimly
discernible, or so softened by the fleecy, attenuated clouds that they
seemed the airy fabrics of a child's dream of oriental splendor. Now as
filmy steam, then as densest vapor boiling up from a world-deep cauldron of
unearthly beauty, the moisture moved, here catching rapidly ascending
currents of air, there lazily floating with serenest ease. It was hard to
tear oneself away, and the mind still lingers and will often again recur to
it, as one of the many never to be forgotten experiences of this most
wonderful place.
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