LETTER V. Si 



owner whose home was supplied with vegetables 

 of his own growing, and apples which California 

 could not beat. 



And now my six-days' travel drew to an end, 

 and the valley of the Ashinola came in sight. 

 Two villages, named in recognition of their 

 industrial achievements the Potato Ranches, were 

 passed, with their heavy log-huts all empty, all 

 shut, glaring at the passers-by through little new 

 glass windows, which looked oddly out of place in 

 these wilds. Once we passed a graveyard, sur- 

 rounded with new wooden palisades, and domi- 

 nated by a tall cross of rough-hewn wood, which 

 looked as earnest and real as the piety of the 

 Catholic fathers who give their lives and wear 

 out their educated minds in teaching these remote 

 tribes of redskins. 



Once, too, we passed another tomb of another 

 kind, a simple white tent, with the door open 

 and a flag flying, in which some chief was camping, 

 waiting until nature and the elements of air and 



O 



water should resolve his body again into the dust 

 from w T hich he came. 



Over long stretches of arid steppe-like land we 

 passed, on which land-turtles and porcupines and 

 a few grouse are found, and on which I discovered, 

 to my sorrow, that a peculiarly thorny species of 

 cactus grows abundantly. These pests are about 



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