CHAPTER IV. 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM. 



DRIVING recently across the unreclaimed 

 desert, we came suddenly upon a small patch 

 of wheat, the fag-end of a stretch of land 

 under ditch. There had been welcome 

 thunder showers, and the air held a dewy 

 softness not common in the Arid Belt. But 

 for the glorious mountain range over whose 

 bright face the clouds trailed giant shadows 

 the varying greens from emerald to sombre 

 olive, the swift play of light and shade across 

 golden wheat-field and verdant pasture, were 

 almost English in their unaspiring loveliness. 

 The eastern mesa wore its tenderest, most 

 changeful aspect, and the red domes of the 

 Catholic church made entrancing spots of 

 colour in the middle distance of brown 



