6 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



color I have noted on them would make tedious par- 

 agraphs. From almost snow-white they have taken, 

 often in rapid turn, all the hues of gray, of blue, 

 of rose, of chrome, of brown, and purple, reaching 

 even, under gloom of storm, an approach to absolute 

 black. Sand is actually as responsive as a chameleon, 

 and I could never tire of the vagaries of those dunes. 



But most they charmed me at sunset — that hour 

 when the soul itself is suffused with changing hues, 

 and comes to its best perception. Then none but 

 warm and gentle shades are seen, and the mind, like 

 a tranquil lake, receives them and renders them into 

 something clearer and deeper than thought. (Is it 

 not at evening that we most naturally and truly 

 reflect?) Words quite fail to disclose the felicity of 

 those spiritual moments of color. Like music, they 

 speak the unearthly tongue, and it is only into music 

 that they could be translated. I mean, of course, the 

 real accents of the Heavenly Maid, not the new, 

 loud, German noise which goes with the rattling of 

 the sabre and aptly illustrates Kultur. Far from that, 

 my sand-hills at evening are an Abendlied, a child's 

 ethereal dream, a reverie, a sigh.'"'-^ ^" 



Rock, contrary to sand, gives back its own color; 

 but here it is pure and vivid color, untinged with 

 overlying hues of vegetation that elsewhere come 

 in to perplex the eye. The prevailing surface hue of 

 desert rock is a dark rust-red. I should name it 

 Egyptian red, for in my mental picturings of the 

 land of the Nile this same dull but powerful note 

 rules like absolute Pharaoh. The color, however, is 

 not inherent in the stone, which is mainly granite 



