TO AGUA CALIENTE 247 



into a larger valley called the Vallecito. Low moun- 

 tains bounded it on the north ; on the south rose the 

 higher wall of the Lagunas, with pines trimming the 

 edge and seeming to reproach me for the visit I had 

 failed to pay. This long caiion, dropping from valley 

 to valley, is the course of one of the desert's consid- 

 erable streams, the Carrizo. Only a trained hydro- 

 grapher would suspect it, however, for the flow is 

 wholly underground for nearly all of the year, and 

 comes to the surface only at times of unusual rain. 



The heat was intense, for we were nearing desert 

 level, and the landscape wavered like a picture on a 

 screen. Ocotillos covered the valley closely and the 

 hillsides more scantily, a few struggling up to the 

 crests where their skinny arms moved in the breeze 

 as if signalling of some rare sight that I should come 

 and see. 



At the lower end of the valley some arrangement 

 of the strata brings the moisture to the surface to 

 form a cienaga, with a few mesquits and much salt 

 grass and sacaton. Near by stood the long-deserted 

 stage-station, an ample, picturesque building of 

 what at first sight I took to be adobe bricks of the 

 usual kind, but found were blocks of natural sod 

 from the cienaga. It is the only structure of the kind 

 that I know, and the material appears to answer its 

 purpose well, better in fact than adobe. It was Inter- 

 esting to note the rough but solid construction. Not 

 only the walls and the square pillars of the veranda, 

 but the roof, was built of sod, in flat bricks about 

 nine by eighteen by five inches. The rafters were of 

 natural pine, unsquared. On this, crosswise, were 



