Table Mountain · The Cloth Laid Over the City

Table Mountain has a flat summit, and cloud rolls over the ridge and spreads out as a single sheet hanging above the city — local people call it “the tablecloth”.

One legend has a pirate and the devil competing on the summit over who could smoke a pipe better; the smoke the two of them made never cleared, and that became the cloud. Another says it is an old man’s wife airing cloth on the mountain.

The cable car stops running in high wind. People in Cape Town say: when you see the tablecloth, you know the wind is strong today.

Natural Mysteries / Cape Town · South Africa / Time immemorial