VALLEYS, PLAINS, AND LOWLANDS 
243 
district isolated from the table-land family. 
The Arizona and the Colorado countries are 
very different from it, and neither of these 
bears much lkeness to the Asiatic table- 
lands, like the steppes of Siberia or the great 
plateau of Tibet. All of them are fine in 
horizon and mountain lines, in skies, and in at- 
mospheres. All of them again have picturesque 
spots, where swales and basins fall into graceful 
shapes, where water runs, and grass grows. And 
again, all of them are stimulating in their wild- 
ness and aloofness from civilization. These are 
the primeval tracts, never subjugated by the 
plough—the free spaces of the world, where the 
wind blows up and over the hills and ridges, 
blowing toward No Man’s Land. The feeling 
of solitude, of being alone with nature, is omni- 
present ; and there is enough of the savage in 
everyone to feel pleasure in that sensation. We 
may aspire to the stars mentally and spiritually, 
but nature made our feet to tread the earth. 
The animal in us cannot be wholly eradicated 
by any course of ascetic training. I have seen 
wild horses on a high ridge snorting with de- 
light at the sun and the wind ; given the op- 
portunity, the physical in man will assert itself 
just as strongly. 
Plateaus 
and steppes. 
The prime- 
val tracts. 
