246 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



no manual. This carpet of desert plants I walk 

 over almost without curiosity, as I might walk 

 *t over a flowery carpet in a parlor. Their names 

 are nothing more to me than the jabberings of 

 the Mexicans who pass me on the desert with 

 loads of wood. Sometimes, indeed, I guess at a 

 relationship, as now and then I catch a word of 

 Spanish. This flower, I say, may be a Mgosotis. 

 But nine chances to one I do not so much as 

 guess. It 's a pretty red flower, or a dainty white 

 blossom, and there 's an end of it. As I said just 

 now, the state of my mind is pre-primeric. I am 

 too ignorant even to ask questions. 



A sad case, certainly, but, like sad cases in 

 general, it brings its own partial compensations. 

 I have the more leisure for the birds, and for 

 looking at the mountains. Two months ago it 

 would not have seemed possible, but it has come 

 true ; I can sit upon the ground with half a 

 dozen kinds of unknown flowers about me, and 

 gaze upon the Catalinas or the snow-capped 

 Santa Ritas as peacefully or rapturously as if I 

 had never used a manual or a pocket lens since 

 I was born. Have I been converted, and become 

 as a little child ? Possibly ; but I anticipate a 

 speedy backsliding when conditions alter. 



Yet I perceive that, like the prophet, I am 

 waxing tropical, and using language that requires 



