A 'Thousand-Mile Walk 
suddenly gushes with bright waters, sparkling 
and pouring from pool to pool, like dusty 
mummies risen from the dead and set living 
and laughing with color and blood. The weather 
grows in beauty, like a flower. Its roots in the 
ground develop day-clusters a week or two in 
size, divided by and shaded in foliage of clouds; 
or round hours of ripe sunshine wave and spray 
in sky-shadows, like racemes of berries half 
hidden in leaves. 
These months of so-called rainy season are 
not filled with rain. Nowhere else in North 
America, perhaps in the world, are Januarys 
so balmed and glowed with vital sunlight. Re- 
ferring to my notes of 1868 and 1869, I find 
that the first heavy general rain of the season 
fell on the 18th of December. January yielded 
to the Hollow, during the day, only twenty 
hours of rain, which was divided among six 
rainy days. February had only three days on 
which rain fell, amounting to eighteen and one- 
half hours in all. March had five rainy days. 
April had three, yielding seven hours of rain. 
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