150 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



count, the water; but when I come on these aban- 

 doned settlements of the Indians, at places where 

 they would no doubt have wished to remain, I take 

 them for links in an old but still lengthening chain 

 of wrong. 



The population of Twenty-nine Palms at the time 

 of my visit numbered two, so that my arrival, on 

 the eve of the Fourth of July, seemed to cast an air 

 of festivity over the scene. The two, one a prospector 

 and old haunter of the locality, the other a consump- 

 tive from "inside" who was sacrificing every com- 

 fort of life for the sake of the dry air of this lonely 

 spot, received me cordially enough, but remained 

 convinced, I think, in spite of my plain story, that I 

 was "lookin' up mineral, ain't you now?" They 

 felt it an Insult to their intelligence to be asked to 

 believe that any one would come to Twenty-nine 

 Palms In July for the sake of seeing the country and 

 "them old pa'ms." "Country?" said the sick man, 

 waving toward a sunset landscape that would have 

 thrown Turner Into a frenzy — "Country? Th' ain't 

 no country round here to 'mount to nuthin'. You 

 ever see any, Mac?" And Mac sententlously re- 

 plied, "Durned If I ain't forgot what real country 

 looks like, anyways." 



Nevertheless, the country was satisfactory to me. 

 To lie at dawn and watch the growing glory in the 

 east, the pure, dark light stealing up from below the 

 horizon, the brightening to holy silver, the first 

 flush of amber, then of rose, then a hot stain of crim- 

 son, and then the flash and glitter, the Intolerable 

 splendor, of the monarch, Phoebus Superbus, tyrant 



