The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-06-15
AN AMERICAN DESERT.
BY ANNIE WESTERN WHITNEY.

impossibility. With its vast extent
Of sand and it's lack of water, except
in spots where nature has generously
provided rest and refreshment for
man and beast, the thought Of any
thing like home life would seem an
absurdity. In our own United States,
however, there are deserts naturally
as barren as Sahara, and on them live
people whose lives: to those who love
the trees, the birds, and the flowers,
would seem the essence Of desolation.
These deserts are in Nevada, Utah,
Arizona, Wyoming, and California,
and on some of them no trees, grass
or weeds grow naturally, while what
water is found on them in spots is so
salty as to be unfit for man or beast.
The State of Nevada, whose whole
population is only forty thousand
hardly enough to make a good-sized
city-is practically one vast desert.
It's lack of verdure and of water has
always made it a dangerous State for
enigrants to pass through. At times
ranchmen and cattlemen have under
taken to drive their cattle across the
State but in the majority Of cases the
experiment has proved disastrous.
There is record Of an attempt some
years ago, by experienced shepherds,
to take eighteen thousand sheep from
California to Wyoming. While pass
ing through Nevada eight thousand
sheep died in FIVE days for want Of
water, while the men themselves were
only saved from terrible suffering by
finding pools too small to supply the
sheep.
But the great iron horse has found
his wav across the State, and now
travellers complain Of the "alkaline
plains, whose dust sits through the
double windows Of the trains and
irritates their throats as they fly
across the State asfast as steam car,
carry them. Few Of these travellers
realize the desolate lives Of those liv-
ing IN the tiny settlements they pass,
nor do they know that before and be-
hind them are sswater trains bring
ing from distance the only drinking
water these people have, as we'll as
water for the very engines that carry
them along.
And little, in turn, do the people
living on this desert know Of the lives
of those passing in these same trains.
a bright little fellow recently inform
ed stranger that his mother had
taken him away on train, "and," he
said, with all the delight child takes
in telling of something wonderful, II
saw q tree r
Think of a boy with his eyesight,
living in the heart Of our United
States, who had never seen tree!
Yet many Of the children living on
this great desert have never seen a
blade of grass, and have never eaten
fresh vegetable, except such as can be
brought from a distance; while horses
COWS, sheep, and even cats and dogs
would be curiosities to them. They
know nothing Of the delight to be
derived from flower or vegetable
garden, nor do they know anything OF
life in the woods, or Of how the sing
ing birds build their nests among the
trees and care for their young. And
it is not the children alone who have
not seen these things, but often their
mothers and fathers as we'll.
Into one Of these settlements,
where there are FIVE families and eight
children, young girl has recently
gone to teach. The country around
her is level, there are no trees, no
grass, nothing green. for the ground is
covered with white deposit Of alkali
which is death to plant life. There
are no roads, for there are no neigh
bors; and no horses, for there is 40
place for them to go, no work for
them to do, and nothing for them to
live on. The railroad on each side of
the station is straight as far as the
eye can see, but no ''next station
can be seen, for it takes an express
train an hour to go from one station
to another. How strange life this
young teachers will be. How many
beautiful stories she will have to tell
these children Of the everyday life
elsewhere that will seem to them like
wonderful fairy tales, yet are true, for
she has seen and lived in them.
This great desert is not all one vast
plain. There are mountains and val
leys, but they are bare and desolate.
A kind of sage-bush and low, short