THE FORESTS AXD DESERTS OF A IUZOXa 2l'l 



ing of the second day, and find its hed, whic-h is usually drv, 

 filled to the hrini with a yellow loam puddU-. a rushing tiirreiit! 



We should have to camp here until the flood abates hut for 

 the enterprise of a trad.n-. who has spanned the river with a steel 

 cable by means of which we transfer our pac^ks. swimmiuir •)ur 

 horses. Now we have in truth entered a desert, sndi .-k w.- have 

 met nowhere else in the territory. 



The scene is one of utter desolation. Not a tree or a shrul) 

 breaks the monotony of the fiat tabledand ; here it is eroded 

 into deep, dark, varicolored green, blue, and yellow-brown ravine.^ 

 and chasms, there overtopped by high mesas with llaming red 

 edges, the sands reflecting the sun's rays in a white and vi-llow 

 glare, and the white summer clouds in turn reflecting not only 

 the heat but the colors of the desert. In the distance peculiarly 

 sha})ed purplish peaks and pinnacles and solitary buttes mark the 

 limit of the desert proper and our destination two days hence, 

 while now and then a mirage brings into view a sheet of water 

 so distinct and natural that in spite of our knowledge of the im- 

 material nature of the apparition our eyes refuse to accept the 

 reasoning of our minds. Now and then we pass over different 

 soils, alkali in nature and still more forbidding than the sand ; 

 then again heavy loam soils with scant brush growth. If there 

 ever was a region Aviiich would be thought beyond the })ossil)ili- 

 ties of useful occupation, you would think that tins was the one ; 

 and 3'et as we reach the trading post of the enterprising German 

 whose cable helped us over the river we are as ready to distrust 

 our eyes believing to see a mirage as when we found ourselves 

 deceived in the phantasmal lakes, but there certainly seem to be 

 green corn-fields. We are not, however, deceived ; tbere is real 

 corn of various kinds, and sugar-cane and potatoes and other 

 garden truck, not less than 40 acres in cultivation right in the 

 sand and without irrigation. 



Listen to what the enterprising cultivator writes of his success 

 in the first year's experiment : " Our crop has furnished us 80 

 tons of hay and fodder ; sugar-cane did the best, 8 feet high ; corn, 

 the old Indian variety, has done well ; watermehMis, onions, and 

 sweet potatoes seem to be at home here, ami all that without a 

 drop of rain for 18 months. Our trial plantings have fully paid 

 us. Now we have a lake here, made by construction of a mud- 

 dam across a dry wash, and filled l)y the floods from the upper 

 country, 1 by H miles in extent and 20 feet deep. The reservoir 

 was filled about September 15, and has lowered until now, Jan- 



