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Volume XI II 
MarcK- April, 1911 
Number 2 
THE OASIS OF THE LLANO 
By FLORENCI5 MERRIAM BAILEY 
WITH ONE PHOTO 
O UR first camp at the foot of the Llano Estacado after a long cold day’s 
drive over the treeless plains was in a warm, sheltered, well-wooded 
amphitheater at the foot of one of the northward pr Sections of the Llano 
wall known as Mesa Pajarito, whose bluff rose four hundred feet above the plain. 
The mesa was appropriately named as far as its amphitheater went, for, protected 
from the wind and warmed by the afternoon sunshine, it was ringing with the 
songs of pajaritos" , little birds — Mockingbirds and a large supporting chorus. 
The trees of the amphitheater, dark solid junipers lightened by delicate green 
feathery mesquites, were spaced with yucca and tree cactus, one grove of which 
reached above our heads, and which gave the characteristic arid land touch. We 
looked at the rich vegetation about us with keen interest, for, lying between the bare 
plains over which we had come and the bare Staked Plains above us, it seemed a 
veritable oasis. In matter of fact it was a section of a band of vegetation that en- 
circles part of the Llano separating the two sets of plains, a band of vegetation 
which owes its existence to the Llano wall. As Dr. Bigelow in his Pacific Railroad 
report on the botany of the region wrote — “it is to be remarked that the wind 
blows with tremendous force over these immense denuded plains, and this, we have 
reason to believe, is one great cause of the destitution of timber in this region. In 
confirmation of this opinion is the fact that wherever the least shelter by a bluff or 
rock is afforded, the modest cedar will rear its head, thankful as it were for this 
partial protection.” The Llano wall besides cutting off the wind that has made 
fires sweep over the plains affords partial shade, broken soil, and more moisture 
from both snow and rain, thus enabling the ground at its foot to support heavier 
vegetation and consequently more animal life than the plains. 
In the same way a canyon cutting through an arid cactus desert may have its 
