The next time, our party lodged on the aerial summit of the mountain, by a fire of logs, which might have served the country for a beacon. The weather proved favorable, and we rose before the dawn to enjoy the opening scene. The sky was perfectly serene, but all the world below was enveloped in darkness and fog. Our fire had sunk to embers. The gloom, the desolation, the deathlike stillness of our situation, filled every mind with silent awe, and prepared us for solemn contemplation. We spoke little, and felt disposed to solitary musing. I retired alone to a naked rock which raised its head over a precipice, turned my face to the east, and waited for the rising sun, if not with the idolatrous devotion, yet with the deep solemnity of the Persian Magii. Presently the dawn began to show the dim outline of the Blue Ridge along the eastern horizon, at the distance of twelve or fifteen miles. When the morning light opened the prospect more distinctly, the level surface of the mist which covered the valley became apparent; and the mountain tops in almost every direction, looked like islands in a white, placid, and silent ocean. I gazed with delighted imagination over this novel and fairy scene; so full of sublimity in itself, and from the sober twilight in which it appeared, so much like the work of fancy in visions of a dream. The trees and rocks of the nearest islands soon became visible; more distant islands were disclosed to view, but all were wild and desolate. I felt as if placed in a vast solitude, with lands and seas around me hitherto undiscovered by man.