X PREFACE 



name. The tract I deal with is, in truth, unfortu- 

 nately named — though the misfortune is acci- 

 dental, since, when it was labelled, in 1853, there was 

 no State of Colorado — and out-and-out Coloradans 

 might justly petition our common Uncle that the 

 mere suspicion of harboring a desert should be lifted 

 from them and the odium plainly fixed upon the 

 rival tourist-claiming nephew, California. 



The book might have been made of more instruc- 

 tive value, no doubt, had the writer been a man of 

 science — naturalist, botanist, or geologist ; for in 

 all those fields, and others that are outside my range, 

 the desert is full of matter. Yet it may not be unfair 

 to say that the observer whose interest is trained 

 upon a certain aspect of Nature may be to that ex- 

 tent incapacitated as regards the more general or 

 purely scenic bearings of his surroundings. And so 

 these discursive notes may possibly bring to the 

 reader a truer, though in some ways less explicit, 

 impression of the country described than would be 

 the case if they came from the pen of one who was 

 even a fractional savant. 



For somewhat the same reason, little is here said 

 of the really remarkable agricultural developments 

 which in the past few years have come over consid- 

 erable portions of this intractable-seeming region. 

 I am no farmer, know little of potatoes or alfalfa, 

 poultry, pigs, or cattle, until the stage when they 

 issue in finished product from the kitchen. Thus I 

 may seem to ignore what to the practical mind must 

 appear the chief, or even the only, items of value. 

 I do not forget those Imperialites and Coachellans 



