CACTUS AND GEEASE-WOOD 



149 



orange lichens, and still another will be mottled 

 by patches of coal-black lichens. 



Strange growths of a strange land ! Heat, 

 drouth, and starvation gnawing at their vitals 

 month in and month out ; and yet how deter- 

 mined to live, how determined to fulfill their 

 destiny ! They keep fighting off the elements, 

 the animals, the birds. Never by day or by 

 night do they loose the armor or drop the spear 

 point. And yet with all the struggle they se- 

 renely blossom in season, perpetuate their kinds, 

 and hand down the struggle to the newer gen- 

 eration with no jot of vigor abated, no tittle 

 of hope dissipated. Strange growths indeed ! 

 And yet strange, perhaps, only to us who have 

 never known their untrumpeted history. 



The 



conimuous 



struggle. 



