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As the hours pass the place grows on you: a weird beauty begins to loom up from among the mist-wreaths, the jagged rocks, the restless waves, and you forget the desolate moor, which in itself displays attractions you will realize later, in the grandeur of the desolate sea.
A cold white mist enfolded all things here, instead of the stifling yellow fog that had filled the London streets when he walked westwards from the City at the same hour on the previous evening. Above his head the sky was clear and bright, the mist-wreaths melting away as they mounted towards the stars.
But, alas! the worthy second luff was mistaken for once in his life; it was every whit as thick up there as it was down on deck, and not a thing could I see but the fore and mizzenmasts, with their intricacies of standing and running rigging, their tapering yards, and their broad spaces of wet and drooping canvas, hanging limp and looming spectrally through the ghostly mist-wreaths.
As we neared the mouth of the harbor a little breeze now and then wrinkled the blue water, shook the spangles from the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral mist-wreaths that still clung along shore. The measured dip of our oars and the drowsy twitterings of the birds seemed to mingle with, rather than break, the enchanted silence that reigned about us.
Yes, the fog was certainly thinning away under the influence of the now risen sun; and in a few minutes it was possible to see with tolerable distinctness, not only the ground beneath them, but also the clumps of bush in their immediate neighbourhood, while other and more distant objects were momentarily stealing into view as the mist-wreaths thinned away and vanished.
When the lower world is under pushing steam, they wear the look of the revolted sons of Time, fast chained before scornful heaven in an iron peace. Day at last brings vigorous fire; arrows of light pierce the mist-wreaths, the dancing draperies, the floors of vapour; and the mountain of piled pasturages is seen with its foot on the shore of Lago Maggiore.
Such were the distinguishing features of the gorge of Cliviger when Nicholas traversed it. Now the high embankments and mighty arches of a railway fill up its recesses and span its gullies; the roar of the engine is heard where the cry of the bird of prey alone resounded; and clouds of steam usurp the place of the mist-wreaths on its crags.
The tide had now turned, and was therefore again in our favour; and in an hour from the time of our emerging upon the main stream we reached the sloop, just as the first faint mist-wreaths began to gather upon the bosom of the river.
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