36 Our Araby 



even of solemnity, like the innocent blue of child- 

 hood's eyes. Heavenly is a well-worn term, but 

 here it comes to one's lips instinctively: such per- 

 fection in color seems not of earthly kind. 



The sky of the desert is well worth studying at 

 other times than the sunset hour — for instance, at 

 the moment when the sun comes striding up in 

 inexpressible magnificence of power. Over this 

 Garden of the Sun he rises morning after morning 

 in such splendor as you will never see but in 

 the desert, for here no mists or earthly exhalations 

 dim the flashing glory of his first horizontal beams. 

 It is then that one grasps the true meaning of that 

 everyday word, the sun, and realizes him at last 

 for what he is — a Flame, inconceivably vast, in- 

 effably pure, unutterably terrible. 



For those who delight in cloud-form and sky- 

 scenery, no area of sky that I know approaches in 

 interest that which stretches from the southern 

 extension of San Jacinto Mountain eastward to 

 Santa Rosa Peak. In the rainy season this tract of 

 air forms the very frontier of the opposing meteoro- 

 logical forces, where day after day one may watch 

 the battle between Rain and Drought fought in 

 fashion more spectacular than one sees it elsewhere. 

 Some particular interplay of air-currents, combined 

 with and perhaps arising from the configuration of 

 the land below, give rise to a remarkable diversity 

 of cloud conditions. Above Santa Rosa there will 

 hang for days a vast banner of vapor like the plume 

 that curls from the lip of a volcano, while in the 



