haps with terror, for the
eyries of her comrades. Then, with a long cry, she disappeared again
towards Lake County and the clearer air. At length it seemed to me as if
the flood were beginning to subside. The old landmarks, by whose
disappearance I had measured its advance, here a crag, there a brave
pine-tree, now began, in the inverse order, to make their reappearance
into daylight. I judged all danger of the fog was over. This was not
Noah's flood; it was but a morning spring, and would now drift out
seaward whence it came. So, mightily relieved, and a good deal
exhilarated by the sight, I went into the house to light the fire.

I suppose it was nearly seven when I once more mounted the platform to
look abroad. The fog ocean had swelled up enormously since last I saw
it; and a few hundred feet below me, in the deep gap where the Toll
House stands and the road runs through into Lake County, it had already
topped the slope, and was pouring over and down the other side like
driving smoke. The wind had climbed along with it; and though I was
still in calm air, I could see the trees tossing below me, and their
long, strident sighing mounted to me where I stood.

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 tree-tops 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 fi