40 



The National Geographic Magazine 



looms on the northern horizon 70 miles 

 away, and plays with passing cloudlets 

 made and unmade in swift succession; 

 but the turreted volcanic mass just be- 

 yond the Gila (christened " Klotho's 

 Temple" by Mr. Gill*) is more anx- 

 iously scanned as a landmark of grow- 

 ing promise. Even before midday stock 

 trails — the first seen since leavnng the 

 Sonoyta range — begin to appear. In 

 midafternoon a stray cowboy is spoken 

 by Carroll ; but it is long after nightfall 

 of the sixth day from Santo Domingo 

 before the animals are comforted with 

 hay and barle}^ from the single store in 

 Gila City. 



* EiiJ-ht or nine miles east of Gila Citj' ; lati- 

 tude 32° 46', longitude 114° 14^, altitude 1,800 

 feet. 



A LESSON OF THE TRAIL 



No traveler over the Old Yuma Trail 

 can fail to feel the incongruity of its 

 present condition with its past history. 

 It is the way of the western world to 

 grow in population and wealth, to in- 

 crease in industrial and intellectual ten- 

 sion ; yet most of this ancient way is 

 peopled only by graves, enriched but 

 b}^ memories, nearly as lost to labor 

 and to thought as the sand-tombed cities 

 of Arabia and farther Turkestan. The 

 routes of Cabeza de Vaca and de Soto 

 and Coronado are gone save to delving 

 historians, the trans- Appalachian roads 

 of our own grandsires are largely for- 

 gotten, many of the trails of the argo- 

 natits are effaced beyond retracing ; but 

 America probably presents no other lapse 



'The turreted volcanic mass 



christened ' Klotho's Temple ' by Mr. Gill.' 



