The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-10-12
LOWER CALIFORNIA.
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there is valley of contradiction, full of fascna
olation and of horror. 1t is called LA Prader
Honda" the deep meadow, from its marvelou
wealth and coloring of vegetation at certain sea
sons and times
The Pradera reposes between two menacine
ranges of barren mountains which yet retain thu
ancient marks left by the waters when the deser
was inland lake. When [ saw ola Pradera''
few days ago it was under shroud of sand, and OF
ashes that the angry volcanoes of the mountains
had, long ago. vomited upon it.
Turning to my Mexican companion and extend
ing my hand toward the Prada asked: "Is there
any life there" Isl senor," he answered, "there
is life there, but it is life that is death to you and
me- You see these intermittent and miniature for
ests of bsnoga and cienga cacti? They shade and
protect from the fierce rays of a burning sun the
deadly rattlesnake, the horned snake that strikes
to kill, the kangaroo rat the tarantula the cha
walla, the white Scorpion the arana centipede liz
ards and poisonous spiders" The sun beat down
upon the deadly silence, upon the dull gray floor
of the desert where the punched blades of the
yucca brittled stiff in the hot, sandy waste But
before coming here I had heard of another and
wonderful life than the reptile existence dwell
upon by my friend. There are times when torren-
tial storms of rain rage fercely among the noun
tains bordering this arid land or drifting cloud
loaded with water strikes towering peak. When
these things happen, rivers of water flow madly
down the burrows worn in the face of the great
hills and hitting the desert, separate into sheets
of liquid refreshment which gives life and beauty
IN otio +Io in
spired writer, by the command of God, ''to satisfy
the desolate and waste ground and to cause the
seed in the parched earth to spring FORTH Then
the ashen white waste is all aglow with myriad bios
SONS, and the desert sands are covered with most
beautiful carpet of wonderful flowers for many of
which the science of botany has no name
Of all these plants that bloom in this vale of
Hinom, perhaps the most pleasing to the eye are
the flowers of the cact and the rapdity with which
their dry and the apparently dead stalks throw out
beautiful blossoms after their roots watered is
one of the marvels of the desert. The cacti of La
Pradera are an annual manifestation of the real
ism of death and resurrection and, as the plants
into fullest bloom in early spring, this desert
at the time of Easter is one vast circular meadow
where the rarest and most beautiful flowers have
rection of their Lord and Master. The largest and
most wonderful flower of them all grows am told,
ugly, short, misshapen cactus which, for
eleven months of the year is to all outward seem
ing, dead, but when its roots watered, blooms
with Supremacy delicate and waxy petals. There is
another cactus low creeping plant of round trunk
and pointed STEM repellant as a snake, and ugly to
look upon that, at about the time of the vernal
equinox, is covered with large pink flowers, beaut-
full as orchids and fragrant the fairest rose in
my lady's garden. Then by the sides, and between
the Mexican agaves and the white plumed yuccas
with trembling seriated leaves are scattered in lux
uriant prodigaty columbines, phoxes, verbenas and
as many as twenty or thirty varieties of Towering
plants for which my limited knowledge of botany
supplies no names Unfortunately, for the present,
the names of many of these rare species are not
known even to our professional botanists, and the
common varieties of those which are classified and
found in other parts of California bear no such
facinating and gorgeous array of flowers as those
Indigenous to the 'Pradera" desert.
GUANO ISLANDS.
The Islands of ST. George off the east coast of
the Peninsula of California are singular group
of squeezed or lifted rocks on which the dew never
settles and where rain never falls for years These
are the famous "rookery islands" where, for un-
counted years. enormous numbers of birds of the sea
and of the land have built their nests, deposited
their eggs and Matched their young. By some mys
FERROUS law of instinct and selection the Birds from
the beginning allotted small islands and sections
the larger islands to the different species of thu
feathered race SO that the sea birds, like the fri
gate pelicans, the gulls, petrels and the like hav
their own allotmens and the land birds theirs ant
between them there is no friction or intrusion OF
each others premises. With the first sign of dawn
they begin the fight for their feeding grounds
and for hours the heavens are internationally OBJ