130 East and West 
and everywhere in the distance the difference 
was apparent. It seemed indeed as if one had 
left California behind and was looking down 
upon a bit of New Mexico. Like a miniature 
Andes, the Santa Inez cuts off the moisture- 
bearing wind and literally divides two worlds. 
Behind me to the south, the infinite cor- 
rugations of the range resembled the folds of 
some dark green cloth—not velvet for it was 
dull and rough. To the north, the San Rafael 
with its innumerable spurs was clothed in 
umber and sepia with suggestions of purple— 
desert colours more refreshing than any ver- 
dure. True, there was a mottling of green, 
fading in the distance, however, into the 
royal colours of the desert and indicating a 
radically different climate. The air, too, was 
more brilliant ; no sea-mist, no smoke of towns, 
no dust—for nowhere was there any sign 
of man. Not only, then, does the Santa Inez 
defend a little desert world from the sea, but 
from the towns and villages with their noise 
and smoke, a world of silence and solitude. 
Still less like California did it seem, when, 
two hours later, I arrived far below at the 
Santa Inez River and found a broad shallow 
stream flowing over a shaly bottom through a 
flat, covered with large cottonwoods and hav- 
