The White Goat and his Country 
by a chasm sixty-five miles long. It rained 
in the night, and at seven next morning, 
bound for Port Columbia, we wallowed north- 
ward out of town in the sweating canvas- 
covered stage through primeval mud. After 
some eighteen miles we drew out of the rain 
area, and from around the wheels there imme- 
diately arose and came among us a primeval 
dust, monstrous, shapeless, and blind. First 
your power of speech deserted you, then your 
eyesight went, and at length you became un- 
certain whether you were alive. Then hilar- 
ity at the sheer discomfort overtook me, and 
I was joined in it by a brother American; but 
two Jew drummers on the back seat could not 
understand, and seemed on the verge of tears. 
The landscape was entirely blotted out by the 
dust. Often you could not see the roadside, 
—if the road had any side. We may have 
been passing homes and fruit-trees, but I think 
not. I remember wondering if getting goat 
after all— But they proved well worth it. 
Toward evening we descended into the 
sullen valley of the Columbia, which rushes 
along, sunk below the level of the desert we 
had crossed. High sterile hills flank its 
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