Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-06-29

The plan of the building was not un,
like that of train of railway
II might be more appropriate to say, Oh
emigrant-wagons There was a series OF
rooms, ranged in line, access to them
being had from narrow corridor,
which opened on the rear veranda.
Several of the rooms also communicated
directly with each other, and, through
low windows, gave on the veranda in
front; for the house was merely COM
paratively narrow array of apartments
between two broad verandas, where
most of the living, including much Oh
the sleeping, was done.
Logically, there can be nothing uglier
than a Spanish-American dwelling OF
this type. But, as n matter of fact,
they appear seductively beautiful. The
thick white walls acquire a certain
Boftness of tone; the surface scales off
here and there, and cracks and crevices
appear. In a damp country, like Eng
land, they would soon become covered
with moss; but moss is not to be had in
this region, though one were to offer
for it the price of the silk velvet, triple
ply, which so much resembles it. Never.
theless, there are compensations. Tho
soil is inexhaustibly fertile, and its
fertility expresses itself in the most
inveterate beauty. Such colors and
varieties of flowers exist nowhere else,
and they continue all the year round.
Climbing vines storm the walls,
and toss their green ladders
all over it, for beauty to walk up
and down. Huge jars, standing on the
verandas, emit volcanoes of lovely
blossoms; and vases swung from the
roof drip and overflow with others, as
II water had turned to flowers. In the
garden, which extends over several
acres at the front of the house, and, as
1t were, makes it an island in gor-
geous sea of petals, there are roses,
almonds, oranges, vines, pomegranates,
and hundred rivals whose names are
unknown to the present historian,
marching joyfully and triumphantly
through the seasons, as the symphony
moves through changes along it's cen.
trail theme
Everything that is not an animal OF
a mineral seems to be flower. There
are too many fiowers,-or, rather,
there is not enough of anything else.
The faculty of appreciation wearies,
and at last ceases to take note. 1t is
like conversing with person whose
every word is an epigram. The senses
have their limitations, and imagination
and expectation are half of beauty and
delight, and the better half; otherwise
Shnnl1 bavn No souls A CO
let, discovered by chance in the by
ways of an April forest in New Eng
land, gives pleasure as poignant as,
and more spiritual than, the miles upon
miles of California splendors.
Monotony is the ruling characters
tc,-monotony of beauty, monotony
of desolation, monotony even of variety.
The glorious blue overhead is monot-
onous; as for the thermometer, it PAGES
up and down within the narrowest
limits, like prisoner in his cell, or u
meadowlark hopping two and fro in a
seven-inch cage. The plan and aspect
OF the buildings are monotonous, and
so is the way of life of those who in
habit them. Fortunately, the sun does
rise and set in Southern California;
otherwise life there would be at an
absolute stand-still, with no past and
no future. But, as it is, one can look
forward to morning, and remember the
evening.
Then, there are the not infrequent
but seldom very destructive earth.
quakes; the occasional cloudbursts and
tornadoes, sudden and violent as gun
r1Oxydar onI G-ol1,,
founding contrast between the fertile
regions and the desert. There are
places where you can stand with one
foot planted in everlasting sterility and
the other in immortal verdure. In the
midst of an arid and hopeless waste,
you come suddenly upon the brink of a
narrow ravine, sharply defined as if cut
out with an axe. and packed to the
brim with enchanting and voluptuous
fertility. Or you will come upon moun-
tains which sweep upward out of burn
ing death into sumptuous life. When
the monotony of life meets the mo-
notony of death, Southern California
becomes land of contrasts; and the
contrasts themselves become monoto-
nous.
Gen. Trednoke's ranch was very near
the borders of these two mighty forces.
An hours easy ride would carry him to
a region as barren and apparently as
irreclaimable as that through which
Childe Roland journeyed in quest OF
the Dark Tower; lying, too, in tenn
perature SO fiery that it coagulated the
blood in the veins, and stopped the
beating of the heart Underfoot were
tine Dust, and whitened bones; the ain
was prismatic and magical, ever con-
1uring mp phantom pictures, whose
characteristic was that they were at
the farthest remove from any possible
reality. The azure sky descended and
became lake; the pulsations of the
atmosphere translated themselves into
the rhythmic lapse of waves; spikes of
sage-brush and blades of cactus became
sylvan glades, and hamlets cheerful
with inhabitants. Only, all was silent:
and as you drew near, the scene tremy
bled. altered, and was gonel
Hideous black lizards and horned
soads crawl and hop amid this desolal
ton; and the deadly little sidewindeu
rattlesnake lies baslxing in the blaze Of
sunshine. which 1t distils into venom