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" 788 Botanizing on the Colorado Desert. (November, 
first glimpse one gets of the desert is a fine bird’s-eye view. 
From the San Diego plains, all treeless, brown and dusty, an easy 
two days’ journey brings the traveler up to the level of that 
broad plateau which constitutes the summit of the coast range. 
Across this forty-five miles of mountain top, one travels pleas- 
antly ; now through handsome groves of evergreen oaks, then 
among a succession of low, rounded, stony hills, between which 
some bits of fresh, green mountain pasture spread themselves; 
here passing a settler’s cabin with its newly ploughed fields and 
its group of blooming peach_trees, and there meeting a merry, 
boisterous gang of mountain herdsmen. Having thus come to 
the eastern verge of the plateau, the great wilderness breaks all 
at once upon the view, beginning a dizzy half mile down beneath 
your feet, and stretching away to the eastward for a hundred 
miles. It was past the middle of the afternoon when I reached 
this interesting point, and paused to rest a while and to enjoy the 
novel scene, so desolately grand, which lay before me. The 
region in question is far from being a flat monotonous expanse 
of naked sands. 
Its general level is broken by many abruptly rising knobs and 
peaks and by several prolonged chains of high and sharply defined 
rocky hills, all lifting themselves up like precipitous islands above 
the even surface of a sea; and although these peaks and ranges 
are destitute of verdure, and red as the sands that drift about 
their bases, they yet combine to make a most impressive picture 
when viewed at a distance, and from this aerial elevation where | 
the desert first appears in sight. Aware that the stage station 
where I must pass the night was not more than two miles away 
_ by the steep, winding road, I lingered here until the sun was near : 
his setting, and the shadows of the peaks and pyramids I sat 
among, were measuring their dark lengths upon the plain afar 
below, and the purple evening clouds had reflected their own 
almost gorgeous coloring to the vast, varied landscape that 
_ stretched eastward and northward so very far away. This strange 
sunset scene was beautiful beyond all description, and will be | 
_ treasured for a lifetime in the beholder’s memory. 
_ Having descended from these picturesque heights, it was nearly 
dark when, as the road led around a sharp angle of the mountain, 
I found myself almost at the door of the stage company’s little 
hotel. Here were pleasant sounds; the music of water trickling 
