But It Is Fine To See How Quickly They
Come To Life And Grow Radiant And Communicative As Soon As A Band Of
White Clouds Come Floating By.
As if shouting for joy, they seem to
spring up to meet them in hearty salutation, eager to touch them and
beg their blessings.
It is just in the midst of these dull midday
hours that the canyon clouds are born.
A good storm cloud full of lightning and rain on its way to its work
on a sunny desert day is a glorious object. Across the canyon,
opposite the hotel, is a little tributary of the Colorado called
Bright Angel Creek. A fountain-cloud still better deserves the name
"Angel of the Desert Wells" - clad in bright plumage, carrying cool
shade and living water to countless animals and plants ready to
perish, noble in form and gesture, seeming able for anything, pouring
life-giving, wonder-working floods from its alabaster fountains, as if
some sky-lake had broken. To every gulch and gorge on its favorite
ground is given a passionate torrent, roaring, replying to the
rejoicing lightning - stones, tons in weight, hurrying away as if
frightened, showing something of the way Grand Canyon work is done.
Most of the fertile summer clouds of the canyon are of this sort,
massive, swelling cumuli, growing rapidly, displaying delicious tones
of purple and gray in the hollows of their sun-beaten houses,
showering favored areas of the heated landscape, and vanishing in an
hour or two.
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