The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1915-12-07
The Beauty OF the Desert.

The following article was written by
Miss Agnes Burr. daughter Of the late
Abel Burr, who formerly lived near
Burr's road. Miss Burr is publishing
much literary work under the name Of
Barbara Boyd:
Ii some one suggested that you go to
the desert for beauty of a high order,
you might think they had rather queer
ideas OF beauty, mightn't you Most
OF US think a desert a barren, desolate
place which may be endured with
patience and courage if needs be, but
which one would scarcely seek with the
expectation of finding unusual pleasure
there.
But for those who regard il, the desert
has a wonderful surprise. had been
told of the beauty of the desert by those
who love it, and / was eager to see its
great expanse of desolate sands. For so
| / pictured it. The beauty / had been
told of imagined to be the beauty of
sunrise and sunset, of color effects in
cloud and sky and atmosphere Lovely
they would be, l knew, and quite suffi-
cient to warrant the extravagant praise
had heard of the beauty Of the desert.
But expected nothing more, and there
in lay the wonderful revelation the des-
| ert was of beauty of an unusual and
rare order.
1t is like garden" murmured the
chauffeur OF the motoring party of which
was privileged to be member. And
Ike a. garden it was, a garden of thou
sands and thousands OF acres, trimmed
in by far distant mountain walls, blue
as azure or yelled in rose. 1.-THE Garden
of Allah, the garden of God, the poeti-
lcal Orientals call the desert. do not
wonder at the name. No man could
conceive or plan or create garden on SO
gigantic or SO unusually lovely scale
The gray or reddish or brown-black
desert sand or volcanic stone is swept
clean by desert winds of all debris. The
floor of the desert is as clean and orderly
rs well-kept garden. In this every
where stand great pillars of giant cactus
a rich velvety green with a pinkish
bloom" They give emphasis to the
landscape, and in their picturesque and
unprecedented grouping take away all
tameness and monOtony. Not so tai
and stately, but very graceful are othe
groups of cacti-slender swaying- stem!
lspringing fan-wise from one root, eacf
stem crowned with vivid scarlet flower
These cacti are perhaps from six to ten
feet high, the giant cactus towering
above them sometimes to a height O
from forty to sixty feet. Still shortel
are little clumps of cacti composed o
what look like puffy, feathery, whit,
fingers. In the mass, they are very sof
and pretty. And then there is a littl
round ''nigger head of cactus, a Lowell,
ipinkish green that seems almost to winl
ia twinkling eye and say, you cam
beat me for ugliness, but I'm awful.
Jolly" He is, am sure, the wit of thu
. cactus family.
In between these cacti and all abou
are rounded clumps OF sage bush, cool
[ with yellow flowers. And il this is no
| a sufficient feast for the eye, all abou
are the graceful mesquite bushes an
the palo verde trees-the mesquite Xix
a delicate, dainty evergreen with pearl,
dewdrop berries, the palo verde with tn
graceful lines and delicate green of
! willow, but replacing leaves with a mas
of slender INTERVENING stems.
, Doesn't 1t make wonderful picture
' the distant blue and rose mountains
J the clean-swept ground, the stated
columns OF giant cactus, the slender
graceful stems of the red Towering kline
the little fuzzy white clumps, the COO
gray sage brush, the deep, green mes
lquite, the willowy palo verde An
' over it all cloudless blue sky and
great stiffness, with little birds twinl
ling away on slender legs and jack raj
bits scurrying off with easy lopes.
J, Far from civilization all this is, quie
2 secluded, little visited by man, just as
came from the mind of its Create
Perhaps that is the reason it is s
unique. 1t has not been conformed |
e any man-made pattern. 1t stands 9
! lyet as unchanged expression of til
! eternal beauty.
And could not but think, as "
: rolled along, that some of us who ma
J, have to go out into what seems the d.
$ sert of life may find there beauty OF 9
unexpected and as lovely an order.