THE MAKE OF THE DESERT 



25 



The effect of 

 rains. 



York were comparatively rainless for the same 

 length of time we should have something like 

 the Mojave Desert, with the Hudson changed 

 into the red Colorado. The conformations of 

 the lands are not widely different, but their 

 surface appearances are as unlike as it is pos- 

 sible to imagine. 



For the whole face of a land is changed by 

 the rains. With them come meadow-grasses 

 and flowers, hillside vines and bushes, fields of 

 yellow grain, orchards of pink-white blossoms. 

 Along the mountain sides they grow the forests 

 of blue-green pine, on the peaks they put white 

 caps of snow ; and in the valleys they gather 

 their waste waters into shining rivers and flash- 

 ing lakes. This is the very sheen and sparkle 

 the witchery of landscape which lend allure- 

 ment to such countries as New England, France, 

 or Austria, and make them livable and lovable 

 lands. 



But the desert has none of these charms. 

 Nor is it a livable place. There is not a thing 

 about it that is " pretty, " and not a spot upon 

 it that is " picturesque " in any Berkshire- Val- 

 ley sense. The shadows of foliage, the drift of 

 clouds, the fall of rain upon leaves, the sound 

 of running waters all the gentler qualities of 



Harshness 

 of the desert. 



