80 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



dumpy babies a few inches high to fine old patriarchs 

 close to five feet. They were bisnagas Echinocac- 

 tus cylindraceus the famous vegetable water bar- 

 rels of the desert. It was the season of their bloom- 

 ing and a circlet of greenish yellow flowers rested 

 upon the head of each like a chaplet. Selecting one 

 about half the height of himself, Eytel sliced the top 

 off horizontally with an ax, disclosing a solid heart 

 of white, hard, moist pulp, resembling unripe water 

 melon. By chopping into this with the ax, pum- 

 meling the fragments with the butt of the helve, to 

 release the watery content, and tossing out the pulp 

 as it was pressed, there was formed in a few minutes 

 a basin containing a pint or so of a cloudy looking 

 fluid. We dipped into it with our cups, and found 

 it cool and refreshing, slightly acid and quite de- 

 void of the acridity which spoils the liquid squeezed 

 from other cactuses. 



Like many a rough character among men, the bis- 

 naga hides beneath a bristling exterior a kindly 

 heart, which long ago the Indians discovered. 

 From them the early white travelers on the desert 

 learned the secret of the hidden reservoirs, which 

 have saved many a man from perishing of thirst, 

 while many another, ignorant of the nature of these 

 remarkable wells in the desert, has doubtless died in 

 agony within sight of them. The desert tribes went 



