238 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



hold it in their own still hearts ; the desert, 

 in its blank, remorseless spaces, covers dry 

 bones of dead men out of mind and for- 

 gotten ; the wind that bows and sighs through 

 the white nights in the bosks by the errant 

 river's bed breathes the weird, strange 

 tale. 



To go back to the beginning of the desert 

 is beyond the imagining of man. Centuries 

 before the advent of the Spaniard, a great 

 tribal people, cunning in the arts, building 

 them dwellings of stone such as they that 

 came after had not wit to build, was even 

 then passing away. But what of the centuries 

 preceding ? What of the prehistoric past ? 

 The wide and battlemented horizon under 

 the glittering arch of the sky is dumb. It 

 betrays nothing conceals so much. In that, 

 perhaps, lies part of the secret of its power 

 over us its pregnant silence. 



Those who are sent to this far corner of 

 the earth to seek health know little, really, 

 even of what can be known of the ' wonderful 

 country'; the distances are too great, the 

 desert and mountain tracks too rough for 

 extensive research. Its canons green with 



