For half an hour we must toil on and on through this winding-sheet of gloom; perpetually on the same upward way, but strong in faith and hope of what must in the end be presented to our eyes; on still, and up higher, when suddenly a momentary break appears overhead, and a portion of sky is seen—oh, so blue!—but it is lost again.
In a few minutes, however, another opening, another blue patch is seen; and then another, and another. Before three minutes more are passed, all the hurrying clouds seem blown on one side. Fair sky is everywhere above and around, a brilliant sun is shining, and there, there below us, is the upper surface of the clouds, extending far and wide, like a level plain, shutting out lowland and city and sea all from view, and in their place substituting brilliant reflections of solar light, which make the surface of this new mist-country look whiter than snow! Yes, indeed, we are now "above the clouds;" and this view that we have attempted to describe is the first example of the heightened, the advanced, the glorified appearance of even Earth’s sombre fog-banks to those who are privileged for a time to look on them from the heavenward side.
"Above the clouds!"—not only no rain, no mist, no dew, but a scorching sun, and an air, both by day and by night, dry to almost an alarming degree. The further we advance, and the higher we ascend, the drier becomes the air; while at the same time the strength of the north-east trade-wind is continually decreasing, and at the height of about six or seven thousand feet has completely died away.
Not that it has ceased elsewhere as well, for the driving clouds below show that it is still in its accustomed violence there. The distant movements of those rollers of white cloud betray that it must yet be raging down there in all its strength, tearing the mist piecemeal, and bowing down the heads of suffering palm-trees, and lashing the sea into foam-crested waves. Heaven grant that no cry of shipwrecked mariners be borne on the breeze; and, more still, that no evil thoughts be engendering in the cities of men.
It was when our party on the mountain were in the fullest enjoyment of their daily and nightly views of the heavens, that their friends in the towns of Teneriffe near the sea-coast wrote to them most sympathizingly: "Oh! what dreadful weather you must have been suffering! Down here we have had for three weeks the most frightful continuance of storms—constant clouds, rain, and howling winds; and if that was the case with us, what must it not have been with you at the greater height!"
Yet at the greater height, at that very time, the air was tranquil and serene, the sky clear, and bad weather entirely confined to that lower depth in the atmosphere beneath "the grosser clouds."