104 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



forces. Sulphurous and terrific they piled almost to 

 the zenith, until it seemed that when the stroke fell 

 it must crush the mountain out of being. There was 

 the usual pause; then Jove gave the signal. A spear 

 of lightning shot through the murk, and the battle 

 was joined. By the incessant flash and glitter we 

 could see what seemed a perpendicular shaft of 

 solid water falling from the black vortex of the clouds 

 upon the head of the mountain. It was as if a volcano 

 had opened, and that dark column was spouting up- 

 ward from a huge crater and spreading mushroom- 

 wise into death-dispensing clouds. 



It was quickly over: indeed, it could not last long 

 at that rate. Then, after that concert of the Thun- 

 derer's best, my host turned on "Dem Golden Slip- 

 pers," as more suited to our capacity. 



The storm had done its work and the morning 

 came clear and, by comparison, cool, I left my hos- 

 pitable friends early, and riding southeast was soon 

 well into the long pass. A remarkable regularity of 

 slope, as well as of level, is one of the desert's com- 

 mon characteristics, and one that contributes greatly 

 to that sense of austerity which is its universal effect 

 on the mind. There is seldom any modulation be- 

 tween mountain and plain. Rock plunges into sand 

 with startling abruptness; or, where some carion 

 debouches, the rock wall will meet at sharp angle a 

 bajada ^ that may run for miles in even grade at a 



^ This Spanish word, signifying a long, downward slope or apron, 

 is one of those useful terms that California has kept alive from the 

 former regime. Like mesa, it fills a real need in briefly naming a char- 

 acteristic element in Western physical geography. Hardly will one 

 find a desert landscape in which the bajada is not a feature. 



