THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN 



tree yuccas. Tormented, thin forests of it 

 stalk drearily in the high mesas, particu- 

 larly in that triangular slip that fans out 

 eastward from the meeting of the Sierras 

 and coastwise hills where the first swings 

 across the southern end of the San Joaquin 

 Valley. Xhe-yuaca bristles with bayonet- 

 pointed leaves, dull green, growing shaggy 

 with age, tipped with panicles of fetid, 

 greenish bloom. After death, which is 

 slow, the ghostly hollow network of its 

 woody skeleton, with hardly power to rot, 

 makes the moonlight fearful. Before the 

 yucca has come to flower, while yet its 

 bloom is a creamy cone-shaped bud of the 

 size of a small cabbage, full of sugary sap, 

 the Indians twist it deftly out of its fence 

 of daggers and roast it for their own delec- 

 tation. So it is that in those parts where 

 man inhabits one sees young plants of 

 II 



