CHAPTER VII 



THROUGH THE GIANT CACTUS FOREST IN A 

 MOTOR CAR 



SOMEWHERE in the weird giant cactus forest 

 that fills the delta of the Rio Yaqui in 

 Sonora, Mexico, for fifteen hundred square miles, 

 there was a stone bearing a strange inscription 

 in hieroglyphics, to locate which was the object 

 of our travels across, and through, what in all 

 probability is one of the strangest and most 

 extraordinary forests in the world. 



The sequoias of the Sierra Nevada and Coast 

 ranges, the huge eucalyptus trees of Australia 

 are among the wonders of plant life, unique and 

 incomparable, and so this forest of the Rio Yaqui 

 stands by itself one of the marvels of the plant 

 world, alluring in its riotous colors, its uncanny 

 beauty, its fascinations of shape, size, and 

 variety. 



In 1908 when the Yaqui wars of three cen- 

 turies came to an end by the forcible expulsion 

 of the worst of the Bronchos to Yucatan, and their 

 ancient home became safe to travellers, from the 

 brigandage that has made the name Yaqui synony- 



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