TO THOUSAND PALM CANON 105 



slant of from five to twelve degrees, and the slender 

 angle where it joins the dead level will even then be 

 clearly marked. Nature's love for the curve is aban- 

 doned here : she works with T-square and mitre-box 

 instead of with the free hand that rules elsewhere. 



For mile on mile we marched up this roof-like 

 slope over a surface mainly gravelly, but sprinkled 

 with boulders and varied with river-like stretches of 

 unmixed sand where washes came down from the 

 northern mountains. Cactus, encelia, and creosote 

 rang the changes on creosote, encelia, and cactus, 

 and lanimal life was at a minimum. In several hours 

 I saw but three birds, all cactus wrens, though I 

 heard perhaps as many more talking plaintively, it 

 seemed to me, of the loneliness of this post-nesting 

 season. Even lizards were few, and a red racer was 

 the only member of the serpent tribe to enliven the 

 way; nor he for long, for these fellows are like the 

 Ghost in "Hamlet"; one can barely say *"T is 

 here!" '"T is here!" when '"T is gone!" 



At last we came to the divide and could view the 

 other side of the roof. The downward slope was as 

 smooth as the one we had climbed, but plainly much 

 longer. On the north still ran the brick-like wall of 

 mountain; on the south a jumble of sand-hills and 

 gullies, most Arabian in look; and ahead mountains 

 on mountains, drab in near distance, purple in 

 farther, with blues in ever-paler tone as range re- 

 ceded beyond range. In the flickering heat they 

 seemed as if painted on a canvas that wavered in 

 the wind. This, indeed, is a common feeling in view- 

 ing a desert landscape. In the intense light, so much 



