THE SAND-DUNES OF THE ISLANDS 225 



I well recall my first visit to the sand-dunes. We 

 were in camp at Rowland's, then the home of one 

 Gallagher, hermit and herder who with Mexican Joe 

 had lived on the island many years. I rode up the 

 canon and went down from the divide to the clear 

 white sand. Where it came from was a mystery, but 

 I fancy it was made there. The wind, which blows 

 heavily almost every day, had blown away the light 

 portions and left the sand clear and beautiful. As I 

 rode out to the dunes I found they were moulded into 

 long graceful lines, gentle slopes of two or three hun- 

 dred yards or feet, as smooth as if thousands of planers 

 had worked at them for ages and made them perfect. 

 The hand of man could not have produced such har- 

 monious carving, such glorious symmetry. My horse's 

 hoofs rang on a crust as I rode over them, the delicate 

 hardening being due, perhaps, to salt. Everywhere, 

 scattered like stars, were bleached snail shells lying 

 entirely on the surface. Riding on, I came to what 

 had been a canon two or three hundred feet deep, but 

 the sand had reversed the action of a glacier, had 

 flowed up instead of down, filling it from brim to 

 brim, and at a distance the resemblance to a glacier 

 was perfect. 



The sand had flowed up from no man's land; but 

 in places the caprice of the wind displayed itself in a 

 singular and subtle manner. Suddenly I came upon 

 a cone cut out by the wind in so perfect a manner 

 that I could imagine that a great top had been screwed 

 down into the sand, then lifted out by some mighty 

 hand, leaving the perfect cone. At the bottom was a 

 solitary bush or tree, once a verdant living thing, buried 

 and unburied countless times, and now coated with 



