216 



THE DESERT 



are growing along the banks, and live-oaks are 

 in the stream-bed among the bowlders. As you 

 move up and into the mountain the bed be- 

 comes more of a rocky floor, the earth-deposits 

 grow thinner, and presently little water-pockets 

 begin to show themselves. At first you see 

 them in pot-holes and worn basins in the rock, 

 then water begins to show in small pools under 

 cut banks, and then perhaps there is a little 

 glassy slip of light over a flat rock in a narrow 

 section of the bed. Gradually the slip grows in 

 length and joins the pools, until at last you 

 see the stream come to life, as it were, out of 

 the ground. 



The banks begin to rise. As you advance 

 they lift higher and higher, they grow into 

 abrupt walls of rock ; the strata of granite crop 

 out in ragged ledges. The trees and grasses 

 disappear, and in their place come cold pale 

 flowers growing out of beds of moss, or cling- 

 ing in rock-niches where all around the gray 

 and orange lichens are weaving tapestries upon 

 the walls. The bed of the stream seems to have 

 sunken down, but in reality it is rising by steps 

 and falls ever increasing in size. The stream 

 itself has grown much larger, swifter, more 

 noisy. You move slowly up and around the 



