174 East and West 
That descent from 6500 feet to 2000, to- 
gether with the slight approach to the equator 
of an eight hours’ railway journey, produces a 
decided change in the climate and conse- 
quently in the flora, which may be casually 
noted from the car window; that is to say, 
such obvious differences as the change from 
pine timber and areas of low juniper, to mes- 
quite and chaparral. It is while you are 
leisurely observing this that there suddenly 
dawns upon the vision a columnar vegetable, 
erect upon the hillside like a monolith of pale 
green jade, and you discover with a certain 
thrill of satisfaction that you have entered the 
Giant Cactus Belt. 
Native to Arizona and Sonora, as the 
sequoia is native to California, the giant 
cactus or saguaro is the largest of its race and 
no other vegetable has a more decided and 
unique personality. In its simplest form it is 
a monolith, but it has many forms. Indeed 
it is protean, putting out arms from its colum- 
nar trunk, sometimes one, sometimes ten, 
some erect, some shaped like the tusks of the 
mammoth. It reaches a height of fifty or 
sixty feet and a diameter of two and even two 
and a half feet, its maximum girth being not 
at the base but some distance from the ground. 
