23 *h® what and the why of desert country 



The "hard" conditions they sometimes have to cope with 

 appear to strangers much more difficult than they are, 

 merely because they are not those to which the strangers 

 are accustomed. After all, few environments are entirely 

 favorable. No one out in a blizzard or ice storm in south- 

 ern New England is likely to think of it as calculated to 

 coddle man, beast or vegetable. For months in a New Eng- 

 land winter, every living thing has been on the desperate 

 defensive; most have temporarily given up the struggle 

 and are lying low. A great many will never revive from 

 the inanition into which they have sunk. In the desert, 

 heat and drought are no more difficult to survive. Some 

 of the techniques of survival are different, some are sur- 

 prisingly similar to those which are used to cope with cold. 



We human beings are not very rugged as living organ- 

 isms go. In fact we are extraordinarily tender creatures 

 who can exist even uncomfortably only within a very nar- 

 row range of temperature and only if protected from most 

 of the manifestations of nature. In the New England win- 

 ter we warm ourselves with fires and if we go out we 

 bundle ourselves up in wool or even in rubber to ward 

 off cold and dampness. We think it nothing extraordinary 

 to stay all day in the house because the weather is a little 

 more unfavorable than usual. In the desert the only dif- 

 ference is that the inclemencies from which we protect 

 ourselves are different. If we tend to keep out of the sun 

 in midsummer, occasionally even stay in the house almost 

 all day because it is too hot to go out, inhabitants of the 

 so-called temperate regions are compelled even more fre- 

 quently to keep out of the cold and the wet. Actually we 

 are considerably less at the mercy of the elements than 

 they are. 



