134 The National Geographic Magazine 



found (for all stock trails are now left 

 behind), the lighter outfit pushes on to 

 outspan in sight of monument 178 (lon- 

 gitude 113° 20') — the first " dr}^ " camp 

 on the Old Trail. Here sign of antelope 

 and deer are seen, and the galleta is re- 

 covering slowly from the over-pasturage 

 of the mid-centur}^ ; Mr. Gill finds a 

 curious aboriginal cache in a cavern 

 of the volcanic butte on which the monu- 

 ment stands ; and showers come and go 

 throughout the night. 



ACROSS PLAYAS AND MALPAIS 



The second morning from Santo Do- 

 mingo is cool and cloudy; blankets and 

 saddles are stiff with the wet, the ani- 

 mals fractious; but three miles of smooth 

 going and a rising sun bring comfort 

 with the passage through a congeries of 

 granite picachos rising abruptly from 

 the level plain — and the pass is a gate- 

 way into Tule Desert. The first quarter 

 of this expanse alternates between bare 

 playa and a lax thicket of creosote 

 {Larrea) growing in extraordinary lux- 

 uriance (clumps twelve feet high and 

 branches fifteen feet long are common), 

 while the silty floor is riven every few 

 rods b}^ giant shrinkage-cracks, often a 

 foot or more wide and a yard or two 

 deep. Fortunately the showers here 

 have been light; ye.t the alkaline silt is 

 tenacious mud, fetlock-deep for the 

 mules and twice felloe-deep for the 

 wagons. The next fraction of the val- 

 ley is a tongue of the Red Desert, 

 reaching in b}^ the western end of Sierra 

 Pinecate and stretching a dozen miles 

 northward to lap the base of parti-col- 

 ored Sierra Pinta; for five miles the old 

 trail (which was lost in the playas) re- 

 appears here and there as a deep-worn 

 way, partly filled and often obliterated 

 by drifting sands; and the dead drag is 

 the more dispiriting for the steady up- 

 grade toward the malpais belt dividing 

 Tule Valley. 



This malpais — theme of many a trav- 



eler's tale — forms a notable feature of 

 the old route. It is a vast sheet of black 

 lava stretching toward Sierra Pinta from 

 a group of craters (and probably un- 

 seen fissures as well) a few furlongs or 

 miles south of the roadwa}^; but while 

 so youthful, in geologic sense, that the 

 principal lines and lobes of flowage and 

 the rugged scarps of the margins remain 

 distinct, the surface is weathered into a 

 pavement of pebbles bedded below in 

 light yellow sand but polished above 

 by a "desert varnish" of remarkable 

 brilliance; and the pebbles are set so 

 close that the varnished surfaces form a 

 neaily continuous mirror miles in ex- 

 tent, reflecting light and heat with 

 painful intensit}^ The malpais belt- 

 forms a low mesa on which an occa- 

 sional scrubby mesquite or saguaro 

 {^Cereus giganteus) or pitahaya {Cereiis 

 ejigehnannii) has found lodgment; it 

 affords fine views of the Painted Range 

 on the north, of the serrate crests and 

 pointed peaks brought out by the after- 

 noon sun in Tule Mountains, and espe- 

 cially^ of Sierra Pinecate, now falling 

 into the rear on the left; and the last 

 view serves to rectify the reports of the 

 pioneers by showing that Pinecate is 

 not a crater but a range, that the mal- 

 pais stops miles short of its nearer base, 

 and that it rises from the Red Desert 

 quite like other ranges of western So- 

 nora, though to a loftier height than 

 any neighbor. Through the polished 

 pavement of black malpais the old trail 

 is distinct as a line on a map; the larger 

 pebbles and boulders have been thrown 

 out of the way of wheels by generations 

 of travelers, while the smaller are ground 

 into the ashen sand; and at intervals 

 not exceeding a few hundred rods the 

 bordering pavement is broken by cross- 

 shape pebble- piles marking the journey's 

 end now of a youth, again of mother 

 and child, elsewhere of two or three 

 adult companions, but more commonl^^ 

 of the single traveler, as told vaguely 

 by the size and form of the heap^all 



