The Village 19 



will only remark that I, for one, could not wish 

 for better neighbors than our Indians: I should be 

 pleased, indeed, to feel sure that they could say as 

 much for us. They are but few in number, forty 

 or fifty, for the Cahuillas are scattered in small 

 Tancherias over a wide territory. The white popula- 

 tion is variable. In winter and spring, when the 

 "Standing Room Only" sign hangs out, there may 

 be a total of two hundred or more residents and 

 visitors (the latter much the more numerous:) in 

 the hot months residents may number a dozen or 

 two and visitors there are none. In desert phrase, 

 the whites have "gone inside" (i. e., to the coast), 

 an odd turn of speech but one quite appropriate 

 to the point of view of the man of Big Spaces — 

 "inside" where one is shut in and boxed up. You 

 will understand when you have lived a little while 

 in Our Araby. 



For so small a place, the number of people who 

 have fallen under the charm of Palm Springs, and 

 their variety of class and kind, are rather surprising. 

 You would agree as to the latter point if I were to 

 begin to mention names. Wealth and fashion, as 

 such, are not much attracted to our village: Palm 

 Beach, not Palm Springs, is their mark: but among 

 the fraternity of brains the word has passed about, 

 and persons of mark are ever finding their way 

 here, returning again and again, and bringing or 

 sending others. But then, the importance of persons 

 of mark in any community is apt to be over- 

 estimated; the important thing is the general 



