THE APPROACH 



o'clock, the foot hills are not reached, I shall 

 turn back. 



The summer heat has withered everything 

 except the mesquite, the palo verde,* the 

 grease-wood, and the various cacti. Under foot 

 there is a little dry grass, but more often 

 patches of bare gravel and sand rolled in shal- 

 low beds that course toward the large valleys. 

 In the draws and flat places the fine sand lies 

 thicker, is tossed in wave forms by the wind, 

 and banked high against clumps of cholla or 

 prickly pear. In the wash-outs and over the 

 cut banks of the arroyos it is sometimes heaped 

 in mounds and crests like driven snow. It 

 blows here along the boundary line between 

 Arizona and Sonora almost every day ; and the 

 tailing of the sands behind the bushes shows 

 that the prevailing winds are from the Gulf 

 region. A cool wind ? Yes, but only by com- 

 parison with the north wind. When you feel 

 it on your face you may think it the breath of 

 some distant volcano. 



How pale - blue the Lost Mountains look 

 under the growing light. I am watching their 

 edges develop into broken barriers of rock, and 



* The use of Spanish names is compulsory. There are 

 no English equivalents. 



