From Yuma to Los Angeles. 251 



of vegetation, the infinite expanse and the far-off mingUng of earth and sky. 

 It is in this region that the Arizonian towns and hamlets of the mud-builders 

 are so frequently discovered. I do not mean archaeological ruins, but living 

 towns, full of Mexicans and people. You see them at a distance of a mile or 

 two, these low adobe buildings set in a row, as if fronting on a street — per- 

 haps it is a street. The houses are as cubical as a die block, and about as 

 high. They have square doorways, and in these the traveler is likely to see 

 several walnut-hued, Indian-like faces, half-covered around with long streams 

 of the blackest hair. In fact, the hair of these people, especially the women, 

 is so black that it is white. But I was speaking of the houses. They are, to 

 all intents and purposes, an exact reduplification of the structures that 

 covered the ancient Babylonian plain a thousand years before Nebuchad- 

 nezzir was a boy. The only difference, as I understand it, between the 

 houses on the banks of the lower Euphrates and the Tigris, as they were built 

 and inhabited almost 4,000 years ago, and these adobe huts of the mixed races 

 populating Western Arizona is that the rule of building among the old 

 Babylonians required that ah structures should be set with their corners, 

 rather than their sides, to the cardinal points of the compass. All the 

 modern people, so far as I know, choose to set their buildings so that the sun, 

 at rising, at noon, and at evening, shall strike the three sides rather than the 

 angles of the structure. Canst thou tell me why, man that knowest ? 



CHAPTER II. 



FROM YUMA TO LOS ANGELES. 



The Colorado Desert. — Committee from Escfwl. — Fruit Banquet en route. — Ontario 

 and Pomona. — Orange Orchards Galore. — First Glimpse ai The Angels.—Dmvn 

 to Santa Ana. — Glance by Daylight. — Excursion through the Valley. — There- 

 fore, Resolved. — The return to Los Angeles. — Sketches of the City. — Good-night. 

 The Southern Pacific Railwaj'' as it reaches from the plateau of Arizona 

 for the southeast corner of California descends with some rapidity to a lower 

 region of countrj-. On this part of our route we again ran into the darkness. 

 Our trains entered the Golden State at Fort Yuma about midnight. At this 

 point the railway bends northward to reach an approximate parallel with the 

 Pacific coast. During the remainder of the night we ran through what is 

 called the Colorado desert — a long, low trough between the Sierra Madre 

 and the Coast Range mountains; and with the coming of dawn we found 

 ourselves in a region of lifeless aspect which might well merit the designation 

 of desert. The route from Yuma to a short distance north of Indio is nearly 

 all below the level of the sea. At one place the track descends to a depth of 

 300 feet below that level. From this great sag the train creeps up, through 

 a course of some 120 miles, to the little town of Indio; and h^re, for the 

 18 



