230 East and West 
the sunshine in April on the lava over whose 
burning surface he creeps with the awkward 
motions of a seal, using his forelegs somewhat 
as if they were fins. His bright pinkish 
yellow or flesh-coloured skin, mottled or 
marbled with brown, renders his thick clumsy 
body very conspicuous, and on seeing this 
grotesque figure, one is inclined to reflect—as 
did a certain lama on meeting a cobra—upon 
how great must have been his sins who is 
now imprisoned in such a body. ‘There is no 
agreement of opinion among the unscientific 
as to the nature of this reptile, but Van 
Denburgh states positively in his Reptiles of the 
Pacific Coast and Great Basin that the Gila 
monster has poison glands in the lower jaw 
and that the poison is about as deadly as 
that of the rattlesnake. He says furthermore 
that the creature is slow to attack but when 
sufficiently angered strikes very quickly and 
holds on with the tenacity of a bulldog. 
The rains are over, the sun burns in the 
broad blue sky, and the garden is brilliant 
with its millions of acres of encelia—burning 
bushes everywhere—its yellow-flowered creo- 
sote and mesquite and the vivid magenta 
blossoms of the cacti. I recall how at this 
season the spurs of the Santa Inez are blue 
