PINON WELL TO MECCA 151 



of the desert — and of me : I jump up hastily and 

 hurry through my morning cookery, but not before 

 he has talcen toll of my day's store of energy. 



Our Fourth was celebrated with make-believe 

 shower-baths. At intervals we resorted to the cienaga 

 and ladled water over ourselves from a tepid pool, 

 and I may say that with a temperature of 112° I 

 found it more exhilarating than some displays of 

 gunpowder and rhetoric that I remember. Between 

 times we talked "lodes" and "pockets," or my 

 friends would grind up some bit of "float" and pan 

 it out at the spring, with brief excitement over 

 "grades" and "colors." Toward evening I walked a 

 mile up the slope to the west and enjoyed a memo- 

 rable sunset. By some peculiarity of the light, the 

 landscape had much the quality of a wash drawing 

 in black and white, seen through a thin purplish 

 haze. The line of palms made a charming foreground, 

 each one a study of airy grace; beyond rose the 

 Bullion Mountains, dark dull gray with splashes of 

 white where sand had lodged far up, as if it were 

 snow ; farther to east another range, the Sheepholes, 

 of the dead hue of volcanic ash; and over all the 

 luminous arch, infinitely remote, with flecks of 

 snowy cloud like sheep straying in the blue pastures 

 of the sky. Spaciousness and solitude were the ele- 

 ments of the scene, and reacted with trance-like 

 spell upon the mind. 



As the sun went down a blood-red light suddenly 

 came over all the view. I never saw anything more 

 startling and instantaneous in its coming, or more 

 theatric in its intensity of hue. For the few seconds 



