Through the Giant Cactus Forest 113 



mines of the Sierra Madre, bound for Hermosillo, 

 Esperanza, or Culiacan, we carue upon floor-like 

 roads, which are made by merely cutting down the 

 cactus trees, leaving a hard and natural road- 

 way over which a motor car can move at any 

 speed. Once in the forest its illusions and 

 fascination encompassed us. We were headed 

 for Tobari, an ancient port on the gulf, a route 

 which would take us down the entire length of 

 the delta, some thirty miles from the Rio Yaqui. 

 Another party was to follow the river, our forces 

 to join at the town known to the old map makers 

 as Port St. Martin, but now Tobari. The all- 

 pervading impression as we wound in and out 

 was of color, intense, enduring, insistent, greens 

 of every possible tint and shade; trees not only 

 with green leaves, but the trunk, and limbs, and 

 branches, painted in greens so delicate and 

 quaint, that the limit of artificiality was reached. 

 The forest itself was made up in the main of 

 three distinct cactus trees that ranged from 

 twenty to forty feet in height; while specimens 

 of the tallest have been seen, and estimated at 

 sixty or more feet in height. The largest and 

 most persistent was the saguaro, a splendid 

 fluted column rising directly upward, often in 

 a single column forty or fifty feet, again with 

 symmetrical branching arms forming a perfect 

 candelabra. These colossi, weighing tons, were 

 a conspicuous feature, seen everywhere, and at 



