Home of the Mountain Lion 151 



him. To the north lies the Mojave desert, to the 

 south a maze of mountains, billows of eternal silence, 

 rolling on into the distant haze to reappear far down in 

 Mexico, rising in stupendous peaks, dividing the penin- 

 sula so that one can stand on its summit,' on the eyrie 

 of the mountain lion, and glance at the Pacific on one 

 side, the Gulf of California and the mountains of 

 Arizona on the other. 



To the north-west, great ranges drop away to an 

 altitude of five thousand feet, deeply wooded with pine, 

 leaping downward like some living thing into the Cajon 

 Pass to rise a green maze to Mount Cucamonga, 

 tumbling away to the west, rising again in San Antonio 

 to ten thousand feet, while far beyond are peaks which 

 tell of the Sierra Nevada, taking one in imagination 

 the entire length of this stupendous range that forms 

 the backbone of California and stands a protecting bar- 

 rier between the desert and the deep sea. 



