The bee., 1883-03-17
Scenes In the Colorado Desert.

! The plain is not of vast extent later
lally. Black and purplish mountains
are always in sight, and spurs of them
cross the course Boulders and peb-
bles are scattered thickly on the sur
face at first, among patches of bunch
grass; then the jaws of the black and
lpurple mountains open, near Seven
Palms, aud show the genuine white
Isand desert, strewn with boulders still,
but bare of vegetation and varied with
dunes and large hills of clean sand.
One expects a glimpse OF blue water
between the dunes at every moment,
as if riding to COney Island or Long
Branch. We traverse q singular de-
preston, which is below the level or
the sea for hundred miles, at its low
est po..1t nearly throe hundred feet.
At Dos PalmaS, in the very bottom OF
the pit, board shanty saloon, covered
with inscriptions in an amateurship
lettering, stands alone at little dis
tance from the track. Surely the keeper
of it must consume his own drinks,
and lead melancholy existence un-
precedented among barkeeptrs. No; q
horseman in Mexican accouterments
dashes across the plain-though where
he should dash from, and how he
should be riding anything but the
mummy of dolphin or a sea horse
here in the very bottom of the sea
itself, is mystery-and pulls up there,
and enters. And it further appears
that from this place a stage starts
every other day for points on the
Colorado river, and for Prescott, the
remote capital of Arizona Territory.
This is but a faint survival of bustle
which once reigned before the day of
the railroad, when the route of the
southern overland mail was hither,
and long trains of emigrant and freight
wagons, carrying water in casks for
two and three days supply, passed con-
tinually over these wastes east and
west.
Nothing would appear more de
pressing on general principles than
such country, but as matter of fact
it is entertaining instead. 1t is
stimulus to the curiosity, and ends by
having real fascination. One would
not wish to be abandoned alone in it
without resources, it is true, but he
does not tire of looking at it from q
car window. It's blazing dryness is in
its favor. 1t is disinfectant and pre-
servative. Perhaps there can never
be the most poignant extreme of
sadness in scenes without the element
of decay by dampness. 1t is chemical
and not botanical processes that are
principally going on. Wonders of al
most any sort may be expected. Phan-
toms might fit about over it, hiding
among the frequent mirages.
A considerable part of Arizona as
we'll is of the same character, but it is
estimated by competent authority that
with irrigation thirty-seven per cent.
can be redeemed for agriculture and
sixty per cent. for pasturage. 1t may be
called to mind that even the appar-
emily hopeless bottom of the Colorado
Desert, below the level of the sea, is
also below the level of the Colorado
river, and that water from this cOpious
stream might be spared fer it and
spread over it with comparative ease.
The truly patriotic resident of Arizona
is by no means ashamed of his encom-
passing desert, and with reason. 1t is
in realitya laboratory of useful prod
ucts. Paper is made from the yucca,
or Spanish ! aronet, which abounds in
certain parts of it. There are tracts
of salt, borax, gypsum, sulphur, asbss-
tos and kaolin, and quarries of pumice
stone, only waiting for shipment. 1t
is maintained also that it has deposits
of the same precious metals which,
mined in places where water is more
accessible, have given the Territory
the fame it enjoys.-HGrper's M0JG-
zine.