240 ON THE FKONTIEB. 



fancy travelling it again, in the good company of my 

 reader. 



We have left " The land of the orange and vine," by the 

 Cajon Pass one of the mountain gateways of the Sierra 

 Nevada and stand at an altitude of something over five 

 thousand feet in the Summit Gap. Behind is a charming 

 scene of luxurious verdure, bounded by the blue Pacific. 

 Before us all this is changed. Coming quite up to the base 

 of the mountains, among whose crests we stand, and extend- 

 ing far as eye can see, is a vast panorama, whose essential 

 features are those of a howling desert. Our eyes roam over 

 a dreary expanse of sand, spreading out in immense unequal 

 rolls and undulations to the horizon, broken through in many 

 places, by low detached masses, ranges, and solitary peaks 

 of bare, black, volcanic rocks. Through this forbidding 

 country winds the Mojave river or rather its course does. 

 Only at long intervals of years does the Mojave river wind 

 to anywhere. 



The desert stretched before us is not totally devoid of 

 vegetation ; some green things are there. The sandy plain, 

 glaring and shimmering in the roasting heat, is in places 

 dotted with the grotesque, weird forms of gigantic cerei 

 candelari ; the tall, dull green columns of the opuntas, and 

 those vegetable hedgehogs, the globe cacti ; and patches of 

 Spanish lances, greenwood, and other desert growths are 

 sparingly scattered around. Every plant has thorns; none 

 seem to have true leaves. Their forms are all eccentric, 

 strange, and fantastic. What plants are there, are night- 

 mares. 



