Campfires on desert and lava

Front matter

,0 r ^

L

.V C

Preface

Primarily, the expedition described in the following pages was an exploration of a genuine terra incognita. While it is true that the Pinacate region was known to a few Papago Indians and perhaps half a dozen Mexicans, to the reading and thinking world it was totally unknown; and the more we gathered maps and inquired about it, the less we knew. On all available maps the space around the Pinacate dot was a blank, and usually the dot itself was far out of place. T There was not a soul who knew enough about the country to say "lava."^

Naturally, the animal and plant life of the Pinacate region was as much unknown as its geography; hence our combination of botanist, zoologist, sportsman, and geographer. In any wild country, that is "a good hand to draw to,'* and with the three jolly good fellows whose company I shared, I could enjoy exploring any country this side of the Styx. Indeed, I would take my chances with them beyond it.

Ever since it was my good fortune to see the Rocky- Mountain big-horn at its culminating point in British Columbia, I had been keenly desirous of studying that species at the point where its progress southward is stopped by fierce heat, and scanty food and water. It viii PREFACE

seemed to me that in the Pinacate region we might in all probability find one of the jumping-off places of the genus Ovis in North America; which we did.

Much depends upon the point of view. No man should make the mistake of exploring a desert in hot weather. It is equalled in folly only by the exploration of the polar regions in winter. A hard season always begets unreasonable prejudices in the mind of the observer. The choice of companions also has very much to do with the point of view. Don't visit any desert under the handicap of Indian ''guides." They are enough to depress the spirits of a barometer; and some of them will even abandon you in the wilds! Go with from one to six good white men, with red blood in their veins, or postpone the event.

Of the books that I had read previous to my desert experience, not one gave me a clear-cut and adequate impression of southern Arizona. Of the northwestern corner of Mexico, practically nothing had been written. I based my expectations upon existing records — and never was more surprised in a country. This book represents an effort to show the Reader a strange, weird, and also beautiful country as it looked to me.

I did not sample the terrors of the deserts. The seamy sides of lands and peoples do not attract me. I have little patience with travellers who are eternally getting into scrapes, and having heart-rending "sufferings" and ** adventures." In all save the wildest of the wild regions of earth, such doings indicate bad judgment and a lack of the Savvey of the Trail which every explorer

PREFACE ix

and sportsman should possess. It Is possible for men to have terrible "experiences" anywhere. Men have been frozen to death in the streets of New York, and very recently others have perished miserably in the New Jersey marshes, within sight of hundreds of electric lights. The deserts have their dangers also — for men who ignorantly and rashly rush into them; but in any country the best travellers are those who know how to do their work and avoid such things.

In November, southern Arizona is fascinating, no less. The boundless space, the glorious sunshine, the balmy air, the cleanness of the face of Nature, the absence of dust, filth, waste paper, polluted streams, dirty humanity, and many other things that wear on Life in a great city, strongly appeal to me. The countries that will grow corn and wheat and hogs in great abundance per acre are not the only lands worth knowing. Consider Arizona. Certainly it is a Land of Health, and if ever I am called upon to die in the East, I will go there and live.

The Discerning Reader will not need to be told categorically how greatly I am indebted to my companions. Dr. MacDougal, Mr. Phillips, and Mr. Sykes, for their many and valuable contributions to this volume, especially in photographs and maps. Their best results were generously and unreservedly placed at my disposal, and he who reads will appreciate their value. Mr. Sykes has mapped the Pinacate region absolutely for the first time; and there are at least three men who are ready to vouch for the accuracy of his work.

X PREFACE

We are greatly indebted to the Mexican Government for the authority so graciously and promptly granted to enter Mexico with our outfit, and also to President Roosevelt and our Department of State for kindly and opportunely bespeaking that favour for us.

W. T. H.

New York, June 15, 1908.

Chapter I Page

Pinacate, the Mystery — A Desert Experience and an Exploration — Dr. Daniel Trembly MacDougal — Moving Pictures of the South-west — Four State Comers in One Day — The Threshold of the Great Desert Region — New Mexico — Two Oases — El Paso, and the Small Rio Grande — The Dreariest Deserts — Arrival at Tucson.

CHAPTER H

Tucson, and the Desert Botanical Laboratory . 14

The Amphitheatre of Tucson — A Demoralized Compass — The Santa Cruz River — The Flavour of Mexico — The Yaqui Indian and His Industry — Impressions of Tucson — The University of Arizona — The Hand of the Carnegie Institution of Washington — The Desert Botanical Laboratory, Its Plant, and Its Problems.

CHAPTER HI

Our Social Register — A Model Outfit — A New and Different World — An Encounter with Indians — Our First Accident Averted — A Cattle Ranch Around a Desert Well — Animal Life of the First Day — The First Camp-Fire.

CHAPTER IV

First Impressions of an Arboreal Desert .... 25

The Frame of Mind — The Nursery Idea — Strange Association of Plains and Mountains — Desert Amphitheatres — Unique Granite Mountains — The Arroyo and Its Uses — Millions of Specimen Shrubs and Trees — ^A Flood Basin.

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

PAGE

The Lost Cactus Garden — The Beautiful Palo Verde — An Unworked Table Decoration — The Deadly Mistletoe — The Acacia, or "Cat-Claw" Thorn— The Unique and Wonderful Ocatilla— A Bouquet of Green Wands — The Octopus of the Desert — The Ironwood Tree — The Omnipresent Creosote Bush, and Its Purpose.

CHAPTER VI

Unrolling the Panorama of the Desert • • • • 55

Fine Weather, Hot and Cold — The Best Kind of a Wash — Two Ravens Pester Our National Emblem — Coyote Mountain and Well — Hayes's Well and the "Well Ahead" — A Narrow Escape — A Papago Indian Village — Tank- Water and Well- Water — Camp on the Santa Rosa Plain — Animal Life — The Passe South-western Indian — The Organ-Pipe Cactus.

CHAPTER Vn

From the Quijotoa Pass to the Mexican Oasis . 70

The Cubo Valley — A Tj-pical Flood Basin — The Prize Giant Cactus — A Beautiful Camp at Wall's Well — The Ajo Lily — Montezuma's Head — Down the Ajo Valley — A Lava Ridge — The Grave of a Murdered Mexican — Across the Boundary and into Mexico.

CHAPTER Vni

An Isolated Communit}' — Sketch of Sonoyta — Judge Traino Quiroz and His Family — The Sorrows of an Amateur Photographer — Life in Sonoyta — Fruits — Absence of Grafters — Our Ofi&cial Entrance into Mexico — Lieutenant Jesus Medina and the Fiscal Guard — An Annoying Slip of a Pen — Mr. Jeff Milton, Inspector of Immigration — A Man of Many " Gun " Episodes.

CHAPTER IX

A Small Deer Hunt to the Cubabi Mountains . . 102

Cubabi Peak — Coyote and Skunk — Rain in the Desert — Disagreeable Trait in Mexican Rural Guides — A Fertile Mountain Valley — Enter Coues White-Tailed Deer — The Repression of Charlie — Death of a Doe — Its Size and Food Supply — A Down-pour and Darkness on the Desert — Mr. Sykes Comes in.

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER X Down the Sonoyta to the Lava iii

The Start Westward— Bad Mules— "The Devil's Road"— A Ruined Hacienda — A Lonesome Little Cemetery — We Meet Mr. Daniels — The Sonoyta River in Flood — The Water-Storage Cactus — A Rattlesnake in Camp — Quitovaquita, on the Boundary — Rube Daniels's Passion for Powder — An Accident — A Japanese Incident — Pinacate from Afar — Another Rattlesnake in Camp.

CHAPTER XI An Eventful Day at the Edge of the Lava. . . 135

The Finest Organ-Pipes and a Red-Tailed Hawk — The Alkali Plain — The Ocatilla's Flower — View of Pinacate — A Much-Perforated Plain — The First Volcano Crater — A Circus with Prong-Homed Antelopes — My Locoed Coyote — The Malpais Plain — A Bridge to Cross a Ditch — Lost Wagons and Benighted Men — A Bivouac in the Desert — Rescued in Spite of Ourselves — A Long Night Ride.

CHAPTER Xn The Panorama of MacDougal Pass and Volcano . 154

In the Tule Desert — Farther Than Ever from Pinacate — The Comer of a Vast Volcanic Area — A Weird Cyclorama — Monument No. 180 — A River of Verdure — Pathfinding Along the Edge of the Lava — ^A Volcanic Curiosity — A Great Choya Field — The Sand Ridge — A Galleta Meadow — The Doctor's Garden — Fresh Mountain Sheep Tracks — The Papago Tanks, Found in the Dark — Mr. Sykes Finds a Huge Crater — Nature's Planting on the Crater Floor — Two Rifle Shots.

CHAPTER XHI

The Papago Tanks and the Lava Fields . . . .170

An Unpleasant Episode at MacDougal Crater — Mr. Daniels Leaves Us — By Pack-Train Across the Lava — The Papago Tanks —

Aqueducts Through the Lava — Our Little Oasis The White

Brittle-Bush — Vegetable Life on the Lava.

CHAPTER XIV

Extinct Volcanoes and Mountain Sheep .... 186

A Blank Sheep Hunt to the Author's Mountains — Mr. Milton Scores With Two Sheep— Mr. Phillips Kills Two Rams— The Clover- Leaf Crater — The Sykes Crater — Awful Lava Cones — The Dead Ram and Its Surroundings — Mr. Phillips Tells the Story of the Rainbow Rams.

xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER XV

PAGE

Doubtful Dog Experiments — The Troubles of Bob — The Troubles of Bob's Friends — A Dog with no Savvey — Rex and Rowdy — A Canine Glutton — Rowdy's Contract at the Papago Tanks — His Waterloo — The Sickest Dog on Record — The Bad Break of Rex.

CHAPTER XVI

The Cactus Display, from Tucson to Pinacate . .210

Desert Plant Life More Interesting than Animal Life — The Cacti — The Giant Cactus — Its Culmination at Comobabi — Diminution Southward and Westward — Structure — The Organ-Pipe Cactus — The Finest Specimen — The Barrel Cactus and Its Water Supply — A Demonstration Beside the Trail — Cactus Candy — Small Forms of Echinocactus — Bigelow's Accursed Choya — The Pain of an Encounter — Mr. Sykes's Accident — Strength of Spines — The Tree Choya — Opuntias — Leafless Bushes with Water-Storage Stems.

CHAPTER XVn

A Journey Over the Lava and Another to the Gulf 228

Work on Specimens — Arroyos — Awful Lava Ridges and Lava Plains — Mutiny in the Line — The Gulf of California — Two Antelopes Killed on a Lava Plain — The Highway to Pinacate — The Tule Tanks, sans Tules — Our Camp — Mr. Sykes Goes to the Gulf,

CHAPTER XVHI

A Great Day With Sheep on Pinacate 241

A Scattered Party — The Distant "Cut Bank" — View from 1,000 Feet Elevation — A Lost Aneroid and a Maze of Coat-Pockets — The Choya Peak — Hard Travelling for Human Feet — Two Sheep Sighted — A Run for Them — Bad Shooting and a Badly Rattled Sportsman — Mr. Phillips Apologizes for Killing His "Bunger" — Chase of a Wounded Ram — Success at Last — Moonrise over Pinacate Peaks — The Lava Field by Moonlight.

CONTENTS XV

CHAPTER XIX

PAGE

By Saddle Horse to the Foot of the Peaks — Weakness of the Camera on the Lava Beds — The Notch — Mountain Sheep — Pinacate Peak at Last — More Mountain Sheep — A Fearless Band and a Great View of It — General Aspect of the Peak — A Great Extinct Crater — The Climb to the Summit— A Wild Revel on the Top— The Cyclorama Below — The Sad End of the Sonoyta River — "The Big Red Peak" — A Circle of Photographs — Our Cairn and Record — The Doctor Gets His Sheep — The Flight from the Summit — Three Decide to "Lie Out" Near the Two Rams.

CHAPTER XX

"Lying-Out" on Pinacate, and the Final Sheep . 277

A Camp-Fire in a Lava Ravine — A Dinner of Broiled Liver — The Resources of the Party and Their Distribution — The Gunny Sack as a Producer of Warmth — Mr. Phillips Takes Advantage of a Sleeping Comrade — The Coyotes Spoil a Museum Sheep — "Why Don't You Shoot that Ram?" — Curiosity Long Drawn Out — An Unexpected Trophy — Mr. Sykes Stalks a Mountain Sheep on Pinacate.

CHAPTER XXI

The Yarn of the Burning of the "Hilda" . . . 291

The Characteristics of Mr. Godfrey Sykes — A Versatile and Remarkable Man — The Yam of the Hilda — A Quick Transformation Scene on a Desolate Shore — A Foot-Race with Death — Impassable Mountains — Seven Hard-Tack for 160 Miles — A Tough Coyote — A Fish in Time — Swimming the Colorado — ^A Bean-Pot at Last — The End of Charlie McLean.

CHAPTER XXII

Notes on the Mammals Between Tucson and the Gulf 302

Desert Conditions — The Pack-Rat and Its Wonderful Nests — The Kangaroo Rat — Harris's Chipmunk — No Arboreal Squirrels — Jack Rabbit and Cotton-Tail — The Coyote — Prong-Homed Antelope — Deer — Peccary.

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXIII

PAGE

November Bird Life in the Land of Little Rain . . 316

The Disappointing Road-Runner — Gambel's Quail and Its Pursuit — The Wisdom of the Cactus Wren — The Crissal Thrasher's Nest — Western Red-Tailed Hawk — The Red-Shafted Flicker — Nests in the Giant Cactus — The Crows at the Papago Tanks, and a Murder — Doves — A Bittern Fishing — The Mud-Hen of Sonoyta — Scarcity of Reptiles in November.

CHAPTER XXIV

Bird's-eye View of the Genus Ovis — Its Vanishing Point at Pinacate — Straight Ovis canadensis — The Making of a New Form — Colours — Size — The Feet — The Pelage — The Horns, Skull, and Teeth — Habits — Geographical Distribution in Mexico — Summary of Facts and Conclusions.

CHAPTER XXV

Mountains Being Buried by Sand — The Meeting of Desert and Lava — Antelopes for Mr. PhiUips — The Represa Tank — The Mexican Wagon Wins Out — Heading for Gila Bend — The Ajo Valley — Gila Bend — A Dinner Fit for the Gods — Back to Civilization.

Index 359

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Rainbow Rams, on the Lava Peak {Colored Plate) Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Pinacate Beetle 3

Dr. Daniel Trembly MacDougal i8

A Lucky Strike in the Desert 30

Filling the Water Cans at the Papago's Well 30

Typical Arboreal Desert Plain, and Coyote Mountain .... 38

A Typical Desert Landscape 42

The Deadly Mistletoe at Its Worst 48

The Beautiful Ocatilla, or "Devil's Chair" 5^

Papago Indian Houses and Oven, at Comobabi 64

Adobe House at Wall's Well 64

Mr. Sykes Reflects Gloomily over the Grave of a Murdered Mexican, beside a Creosote Bush 68

Organ-Pipe Cactus and Young Giant Cactus 68

Palo Verde and Mesquite Trees in a Flood Basin 70

The Finest Giant Cactus {Colored Plate) 7^

Wall's Well and Montezuma's Head 7^

The Ghost of a Dead Industry, at Wall's Well 76

Gambel's Quail, and Ocatilla with leaves and thorns .... 80

Nest of Pack-Rat, in the Ajo Valley 80

The Sonoyta River, where Desert Meets Oasis 82

View Across the Sonoyta Oasis, Looking South-west 84

xvii xviii ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Sketch Map of the Sonoyta Oasis in 1907 85 "

"Main Street" in Sonoyta, Looking East . , 86

Stone Mill and Forge of Judge Quiroz 90 -^

The Leading Citizen of Sonoyta, Judge Traino Quiroz, and His

Family 90

Desert Vegetation and JefF Milton (Colored Plate) 100 ^

Horns of Coues Deer and White-Tailed Deer

Santo Domingo, Looking North-westward

Details of Typical Desert Vegetation on Hilltop at Santo Domingo

The Sonoyta River in Flood, Below Santo Domingo ....

A Piece of Human Drift-Wood from Japan

Mr. Milton Contemplates the Passive Rattlesnake

The Sonoyta River, at Agua Dulce

The Finest Organ-Pipe Cactus (Colored Plate)

Pinacate, as It Appears from Twenty-one Miles Due North-east .

Prong-Horned Antelopes, and Their Feeding-Grounds ....

A Desert Botanical Garden (Colored Plate)

The Edge of the Lava Field, MacDougal Pass

Monument 180 on the International Boundary

Near View of a Tree Choya and Creosote Bush

The Outfit Coming Through MacDougal Pass (Colored Plate) .

MacDougal Crater, from the South-east

The Papago Tanks

Details of the Lava Wall of the Upper Tank

The Spiny Smoke-Tree

The White Brittle-Bush

Our Camp in the Oasis Below the Papago Tanks

Sykes Crater, Looking South-eastward (Colored Plate) ....

59 60-

64- 68 -

76^ 80 > 82/ 82 86^

ILLUSTRATIONS xix

FACING PAGE

The Carnegie Ram on the Lava Peak 192.

Measuring the Carnegie Ram 196^

The Members of the Expedition, on Porous Red Lava, at the Pa-

pago Tanks 204^

Extracting Water from the Barrel Cactus, or Bisnaga . . . ,216/

Bigelow's Choya {Opuntia Bigelowi) 224 .

A Broad-Leafed Prickly Pear {Opuntia), at Sonoyta .... 224

Into the Lava Field by Pack Train 230 .

Mr. Milton Kills Tv70 Antelopes on the Lava 234 ^

Mr. Sykes and the Carnegie Ram on the Red Lava Peak . , 234

The Lava Field and Our Camp at the Tule Tank 238 /

The Tule Tank 240

The Lava Where the Rattled Ram Fell 246

The Author's First Ram, and Its Lava Surroundings .... 250

The Sheep Bed in the Lava Niche, and the Sentinel Cactus

{Colored Plate) 252 -

View of Pinacate Across the Lava Field, from the Tule Tank . . 256

Carnegie Peak from the Summit of Pinacate Peak 268

The Camp-Fire on Pinacate 282

Fortress of a Pack-Rat at Tucson 304

Tree Choya Cactus, Containing the Nest of a Cactus Wren . . 320

A Cactus Tree of the Desert Botanical Garden 320

Heads from Pinacate 330 ^

Left Horn of a Pincate Mountain Sheep . . 338

The Side of the Awful Choya Peak 348 /

The Sand Burial of the Saw-Tooth Mountains 348

MAPS

The Sonoran Desert Region Between Tucson and the Gulf of

CaHfornia 22

The Pinacate Region, North-western Sonora, Mexico , , , .no

Pinacate Beetle {Rhodes armata)

The " Bug-that-stands-on-his-head "

CHAPTER I

Pinacate, the Mystery — ^A Desert Experience and an Exploration — Dr. Daniel Trembly MacDougal — Moving Pictures of the South-west — Four State Corners in One Day — The Threshold of the Great Desert Region — ^New Mexico — Two Oases — El Paso, and the Small Rio Grande — The Dreariest Deserts — Arrival at Tucson.

To every intelligent human being — so far as heard from — there is something fascinating in the idea of exploring the unknown and mapping the mysterious.

Dear Reader, would you like a swift flight over a south-western wonderland, that to you and to me will be like a visit to another world ? Would you be pleased to go where everything is strange and weird and different ? Would you like to go hunting in the most wonderful desert region of all America, visit an odd Mexican oasis, and play pathfinder to grim and blasted Pinacate ? Then come with me: for this time the game is worth the candle.

It is not yet a calendar month since we struck He-la. Bend (they spell it G-i-l-a), after a glorious month on the trail and in camp, and climbed aboard the Golden State

Limited. We were half dead with strenuous exploring, but serenely happy in the possession of countless treasures stored up for future enjoyment.

That jaunt was undertaken as a particularly choice desert trip, combined with some actual exploration in a land of absolute mystery, and hunting such as the red gods might permit. For more years than one likes to confess I had longed to become acquainted with the great south-western desert region, and had suffered mortification because so many years had passed over my head without an opportunity to do so. But to him who waits with Determination, all things come to pass.

On a whizzing cold night in January, 1907, Dr. Daniel Trembly MacDougal said to me:

*' Look here! I wish you to go with me on a fine desert trip, in the near future; and I also wish you to know that there are mighty few men whom I ever invite to go with me into the deserts. When I say that I would really like to have you go with me, I mean it!"

Recently Dr. MacDougal was the Assistant Director of the New York Botanical Gardens. He is now Director of the Department of Botanical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, with headquarters at the Desert Botanical Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona. He is a botanist of distinction, a desert specialist of the first magnitude, and a jolly good fellow all the time and everywhere. It seemed to me that my Hour had at last arrived. In one fleeting moment a compact was closed and the event fixed. After long and careful deliberation, we decided to go overland from Tucson to Sonoyta,

Mexico, and explore the unknown country round about Pinacate Peak.

Pinacate, the mysterious! On two or three maps it appears as a small blotch in the midst of a great blank. On two of those maps it is far out of its proper place. Admiral Dewey, when a commander, surveyed the Gulf of California, and from the deck of his ship located the peak with very fair accuracy. For two hundred years of historic times the country surrounding Pinacate has been totally unexplored, and wholly unknown save to a few Papago Indians, and possibly one or two local Mexicans who are unknown beyond the Sonoyta Oasis. And yet, curiously enough, Sonoyta has been known and occupied by Mexicans for at least two centuries.

Why, we asked each other, is the Pinacate region unknown ? Why is it that no American traveller, no explorer, geographer, sportsman or naturalist ever has set foot in that area, nor mapped its mysteries ? Why is it that no white man outside of Sonoyta knows where the lower half of the Sonoyta River runs ? Some one has said that the river runs north of the mountain, and two maps show it that way; but does it? And where does it end ? It must be a terribly difficult region to have so long remained unmapped. We reasoned that the absence of water was at the bottom of the well of mystery.

From January until October Dr. MacDougal's constant efforts at Tucson failed to find even one man who ever had been through the Pinacate region, or who knew how to reach the mountain. The report of the last International Boundary Commission — an admirable series of maps and documents — contains only one three-line reference to Pinacate.

And so it was that up to November, 1907, the Sphinx of Pinacate had not spoken, and the mystery remained. On November 2 — but let us not ignore the ante-chamber to our Wonderland. There are many things of interest this side of Tucson, and a few that we cannot ignore. From Topeka to Tucson (not Tuck'-son, but Too-sohn^) the moving pictures are well worth while.

It is in southwestern Kansas that one sits up straight and begins to take note of the flight of the world. When the Golden State Limited of the luxurious Rock Island route has passed Alma, perceptibly loses its speed, and for five minutes or more runs slowly, you notice that something new is happening. It is the southern water-shed of the Kansas River, and in about ten miles it rises nearly 400 feet. The beautiful maples and cottonwoods of the Kansas valley disappear actually before your eyes, and a vast stretch of smooth and almost treeless prairie rises like magic.

The engine labours, but half speed is the only result. As you crane your neck around the north-eastern corner of the observation car to look ahead, you see black smoke, a black mass of iron and a siding. Presently, like a wounded snake, the train drags its slow length along, and passes a big, rusty, untidy-looking locomotive that stands alone on the side-track, like a solitary buffalo bull with his old coat but half shed. Its iron sides are patched and stained with rust, and it looks as if not having seen the inside of a round-house for a year and a day.

As the last car clears the end of the switch we notice that a man stands there, and with some haste the switch is thrown. A moment later the towering black mass ghdes out upon the main track, pauses an instant, then comes rushing after us.

The old buffalo bull is charging us!

Puffing and snorting, he rushes up close, thrusts out a tongue of steel, and licks our coupler. A grimy keeper waves an arm. The old bull bellows twice, then, hang! — we are butted straight ahead. Our train starts forward at twice its former speed, regardless of the grade.

Mile after mile we go, our black helper puffing and swaying until at last we reach the top of the water-shed at Alta Vista. There the old buffalo withdraws his tongue, shuts off his steam, and halts to wave a black smokewreath in farewell. It was a long climb, and the roof of Kansas now looks very bald, indeed.

In one short half day on the Sunset Limited you see Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, and the flatness of the world at those four corners is really beyond compare. Mile after mile and hour after hour there is naught but treeless prairies, as level as a lake. Any land ten feet high would be a hill of notable proportions. There are no hills; but there are farms by the thousand, each tiny wooden homestead marked by its own indispensable windmill. Once I counted twenty-four windmills in sight simultaneously on the eastern side of the line, each one a monument to agricultural endeavour.

Although very new, the country looks decidedly prosperous, for the dwellings are painted, and the barns and sheds are — for a new country — luxurious. The young trees, that nearly always furnish a setting for each homestead unit, even now are very much in evidence. At present, to a lover of pastoral scenery, the country looks a trifle monotonous and uneventful, but in the season of green things it must make a really beautiful picture of thrift and prosperity.

It is good to see people scattering thus over the face of Nature, and by strength and keenness winning for themselves good clean homes and independence, instead of piling up like senseless human sheep of one idea, as do so many millions of people in the congested East. Every effort at making a farm, a ranch and an independent, self-supporting American Home is entitled to the highest respect; and as the train speeds by the checkerboard farms of Oklahoma and adjacent states, we wish the home-makers God-speed with all our hearts.

But this picture soon dissolves from view, and we enter the great arid region of the South-west. Speaking generally, we may say that the deserts of eastern New Mexico begin a few miles south of the town with the melodious Indian name of Tucumcari. Here ends the farm, and here begins the ranch, the naked and rocky buttes, and the gray and melancholy wastes of low mesquite and greasewood brush. Here begins the alwaysgreen yucca, or "soap-weed," * which looks like an understudy of the well-known but more robust Spanish bayonet. It stays with us more or less continuously to the eastern line of Arizona, where it ceases to be a notable

* Yucca radiosa.

feature of the desert vegetation. It reaches its zenith just north of El Paso, where over hundreds of acres it grows so thickly and luxuriantly that it has the appearance of being cultivated. What a pity 'tis that this thrifty plant is of no important use to man!

For some distance down from Tucumcari, the agricultural energy of the north has overflowed on the deserts of New Mexico; and on many odd bits of debatable ground, beside hopelessly inadequate water-holes, plucky men and lonesome women are striving to create homes and land values, and rear stock. Here you see the first signs of the great struggle between Man and Desert which is going on over a wide empire of territory stretching fifteen hundred miles from western Texas to the Pacific Ocean. This is now our Irrepressible Conflict; and its features and phases are of very great interest and importance to this nation.

Not far below Tucumcari you see the first adobe houses, quickly picked out by their flat tops, their walls of brown earth, their tiny windows and meagre dimensions. To this day I am wondering how on earth those practically level earth roofs ever shed rain. We can understand their small windows, because in this midsummer glare of 130 degrees Fahrenheit, the darkness of those earthen boxes is much cooler, or, I should say, a little less fiercely hot — than would be a well-lighted room.