MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 



ceived notions of deserts. To begin with, this 

 waterless region rustled with bird and animal 

 life quail, doves, rabbits, coyotes. Deer were 

 plentiful, and there were antelope, too. The 

 soil was a wavering network of various sorts 

 of tracks. The born hunter derives more en- 

 joyment from a new country, from the obser- 

 vation and study of animal habits, than from 

 the chase itself. If he be a naturalist at heart, 

 thirst, fatigue, blistered feet become pleasures. 

 Most amazing of all was the vegetation. 

 Our way led us through a veritable jungle, 

 sprung from a soil as dry as gunpowder. 

 Every plant, every bush, every trunk bristled 

 with thorns and spikes and hooks and dag- 

 gers why, I don't know, for nobody could 

 possibly want to do them violence. There 

 were high trees shaped like huge, elongated 

 pineapples, which bore foolish finger-length 

 branches and leaves smaller than clover; 

 others that writhed and twisted spirally or 

 had lop ears and elephants' trunks; cacti 

 from the size of sea anemones up to giant 

 Jewish candlesticks with forty-foot branches; 

 trees that sat on top of the ground like gourds, 

 or squatted on flat rocks and dropped legs 

 down into the sand ; century plants with hot- 



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