The silver state news. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1907-1909, 1908-02-10
MORNING ON THE DESERT
IS A WONDROUS THING

Morning on the desert is a ~wondrous
thing. The first glimmer of light that
filters through the slowly opening
portals of the east gives strange and
shapeless forms to the shadows of the
night.
1t stills the shrill Mutation of the
yodeling cayote, and the "barefooted
friar in orders of gray" glides into
the dark and fades as the ghost at
the crow Of the cock in the morning.
Gentle and sweet and the sigh of a
sleeping babe, the first breath of the
wind caresses the face of the desert
and whispers as to little people that
the sun is coming and it is time to
awake. Heralds of the dawn throw
their rose colored banners across the
eastern sky, dark cloud masses show
edges of gold, the vaulted dome of
heaven shows silver gray, and form
less mountins which e~ncircle the des-
ert, take form and color and define
the peaks against the eastern sky.
Wild things of the air feel the stir
of morning first, and are on the wing
while yet the ~groundlings are asleep
in the shadows. With faint swish Of
wing. a eovey of water fowl passes
swiftly overhead, and in a moment
squadrons, regiments, battillions of
wild ducks are streaming across the
sky. silhoutted black against the sill
yer and gold, winging their way from
the valley to the waters aof the Sal
ton Sea.
With the rising of the sun, the
Genii of Mirage sweep their brushes
over the plains and the mountains,
painting impossible pictures of things
that never wereon tn sea or on the
.land-grand fantasies of color and
form-playing FGargantauan jests
with nature and tricking the eye with
ncredulities the compel belief.
On the southern horizon looms a
monstrous battleship, with her three
great turrets and her protruding guns.
Tunnels. coming towers, barbettes
and fighting tops shoot up, are alb
solute realities TO the vision for a
moment. A sweep of the brush and
the ~Dreadnaught is transformed into
a Monitor with one vast turret, guns
enlongate to miles and in a moment
consract and run back into the turret.
another whimsical stroke changes the
form of the Monitor into the mas
sive bulk Of the Merrimac, with q
sloping maintop and ram bow. A
moment more and the three-turreted
battle monster comes again, her guns
run out and her fighting gunr shoot
up, and every second she changes form
and bulk as ddoes a moving picture
thrown upon a screen by a monster
magic lantern.
To the eastward a city of dreams
looms against the horizon. Heaven
uiereing spires loom into the anr,
domes and minarets appear, rectangu-
lar sky-scrapers, are sharply defined
-low-lying roofs crowd around the
great buildings. and all are reflected
clearly in the vast expanse of a shin
mering lake. The city is there as
plain as any that was ever built by
man. but immeasurably grander. It's
skyline is no dream of an artist, and
{ melts and changes and the spires
come and 90 with every stroke of
the Genii's brush.
Against the northern horizon, where
the Superstition hills lie, the ancient
Chaldean city springs into life again.
The magnificent of her
lowers is there. Terrace upon ter
race her hanging gardens spring into
btihSs anu idISitSlcuihSs HulhiuS HuEt
in the morning light of the twentity
century of man the tabled walls of
Babylon.
The whole great circle of the no
rizon s. the canvas on which the Ge-
nil of Mirage paint their weird pic
lures. an ever shifting panorama of
of Illusion that only the mind sub
consciously realizes as unrealities. To
the vision all are substantial reali-
ties.
AS the sun climbs along its mount
ing pathway and throws it's beams