d gradually away as the beautiful sunshine dried the
atmosphere, and by midday the table-cloth, as the colonists
affectionately call the white, fleece-like vapor which so
often rests on their pet mountain, has been folded up and laid
aside in Cloudland for future use. I don't know what picture
other people may have made to their own minds of the shape and
size of Table Mountain, but it was quite a surprise and the
least little bit in the world of a disappointment to me to
find that it cuts the sky (and what a beautiful sky it is!)
with a perfectly straight and level line. A gentle, undulating
foreground broken into ravines, where patches of green _velts_
or fields, clumps of trees and early settlers' houses nestle
cosily down, guides the eye half-way up the mountain. There
the rounder forms abruptly cease, and great granite cliffs
rise, bare and straight, up to the level line stretching ever
so far along. "It is so characteristic," and "You grow to be
so fond of that mountain," are observations I have heard made
in reply to the carping criticisms of travelers, and already
I begin to understand the meaning of the phrases. But you
need to see the mountain from various points of view and under
different influences of sun and cloud before you can take in
its striking and peculiar charms.

On each side of the straight line which is emphatically Table
Mountain, but actually forming part of it, is a bold headland
of the shape one is usually accustomed to in mountains. The
"Devil's Peak" is uncompromising enough for any one's taste,
whilst the "Lion's Head" charms the eye by its bluff form
and deep purple fissures. These grand promontories are not,
however, half so beloved by Cape Colonists as their own Table
Mountain, and it is curious and amusing to notice how the
influence of this odd straight ridge, ever before their eyes,
has unconsciously guided and influenced their architectural
tastes. All the roofs of the houses are straight--straight
as the mountain; a gable is almost unknown, and even the few
steeples are dwarfed to an imperceptible departure from the
prevailing straight line. The very trees which shade the
Parade-ground and border the road in places have their tops
blown absolutely straight and flat, as though giant shears
had trimmed them; but I must confess, in s