2 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



The desert is the opposite of all that we naturally 

 find pleasing. Yet I believe that its hold upon those 

 who have once fallen under its spell is deeper and 

 more enduring than is the charm of forest or sea or 

 mountain. This must seem a strange statement to 

 make, but I make it with consideration and in the 

 light of others' experience besides my own. The 

 beauty of great woodlands, the mystical solemnity 

 of the sea, the power and glory of mountains — 

 right well we love all these: yet somehow, that pale, 

 grave face of the desert, if once you look long upon 

 it, takes you more subtly captive and keeps you 

 enchained by a stronger bond. It is as if you were 

 bemused by the gaze of a sorceress: or had listened 

 over long to some witching, monotonous strain: or 

 had pondered too deeply on old legends of weirdry 

 or parchments from tombs of strange, forgotten 

 lands. Certainly it is not love, in any degree, that 

 one feels for the desert, nor could any other single 

 term convey the sentiment. But whatever it is, 

 there is something of haunting in it, and it is a 

 haunting that lasts for life. 



The explanation of this puzzling allurement may 

 lie partly in the fact that the mind of man is not 

 steadfast in its attitude toward Nature: it seems to 

 change in reverse, as it were, to the spirit of the time. 

 As usual, it is the opposite that attracts. The gentler 

 features of the earth, its flowers, meadows, quiet 

 hills, have always met response, and most so when 

 the times were most troublous. But the vast and the 

 wild raised no thrills but those of dislike and fear so 

 long as life was, in a manner, similar; that is, while 



