DESERT ANIMALS 



151 



of the Mojave is the yucca of New Mexico and 

 Old Mexico but hardier ; the wild cat of the 

 Colorado is the wild cat of Virginia but swifter, 

 more ferocious ; the Yuma Indian is like the 

 Zuni or the Navajo but lanker, more sinewy, 

 more enduring. Father Garces, who passed 

 through here one hundred and twenty-five years 

 ago, records in his Memoirs more than once the 

 wonderful endurance of the desert Indians. 

 "The Jamajabs (a branch of the Yumas) en- 

 dure hunger and thirst for four days," he writes 

 in one place. The tale is told that the Indians 

 in the Coahuila Valley at the present day can 

 do substantially the same thing. And, too, it 

 is said that the Yumas have traveled from the 

 Colorado to the Pacific, across the desert on 

 foot, without any sustenance whatever. No 

 one, not to the desert born, could do such a 

 thing. Years of training in starvation, thirst 

 and exposure have produced a man almost as 

 hardy as the cactus, and just as distinctly a 

 type of the desert as the coyote. 



But the Indian and the plant must have some 

 water. They cannot go without it indefinitely. 

 And just there the desert animals seem to fit 

 their environment a little snugger than either 

 plant or human. For, strange as it may ap- 



Desert 

 Indians. 



The 



animals. 



