344 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



monotony. When at last deeper tones of color began 

 to outline the canons, imagination came feebly to 

 life, but I felt, as ever, that the sole human attribute 

 suggested by the desert is hopeless, prosaic endur- 

 ance, never anything of the dramatic or stimulat- 

 ing. All is tedious, explicit, bald. A poet here would 

 soon be gasping for want of air. 



All the afternoon we marched steadily, and at 

 sundown came to a point where a track branched 

 southwesterly toward the Chuckwallas.^ Before 

 turning into it I let Kaweah graze a few minutes on 

 such scanty galleta grass as he might find, while I 

 lay motionless hoping to radiate off a little of the 

 heat I had been absorbing, particularly the last two 

 hours, when I had offered a frontal mark to the sun. 

 Although there is little slackening of the heat until 

 the moment of sunset, thereafter the air cools rap- 

 idly, so by the time we were ready to move there 

 was a decent temperature; while the mingled twi- 

 light and moonlight made a kind of bath of dusk, in 

 which my jaded frame was gently massaged with 

 soothing psychologic touches. 



The track dwindled fainter and fainter. Some 

 storm had lately broken over the Chuckwallas and 

 spread a sheet of sand and gravel over the whole 

 northern slope of the mountain. Before long we were 

 wandering in a chaos of washes. I dismounted and 

 led Kaweah, picking every foot of the way with ut- 

 most care, yet often going far astray. Luckily there 



* The name comes from a species of lizard, Sauromalus ater, com- 

 mon in many parts of the desert but especially in this range. It is 

 harmless, but ugly, with much the look of a miniature alligator. 



