Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-02-06
iTrdveleette
lRcNik|ah.
Fort Yuma.

Fort Yuma is known throughout the
army, and its reputation is nothing to
boast about. Officers wives say II 10
simply awful What the enlisted men
call 1t would never do to print, even In
quotation marks. Fort Yuma is hot.
That is the whole case against Fort
Yuma. Some people claim it is the hot
test place on earth. Others say that
parts of the Sahara are hotter.
Once upon time a man with passion
for investigation set out to compare Fort
Yuma and the Sahara. He came to the
Fort, but he never went TO Africa he
said that the Sahara might be hotter. but
Fort Yuma was quite hot enough for him.
Such temperature excuses a great
many things. You should remember this
fact wllea you sit stewing on one OF the
wide adobe verandas and the garrison
tells you tales about the heat. They VIII
tell you about the dog that started OUT
to cross the parade ground at noon ana
had TO lie down in the middle and hoio
his paws in the air TO cool
Also, there is the sad fate of rash
cook who was stricken with sunstroks
when he tried to fry eggs by breaking
them in the sun. If. for no other reason.
Fort Yuma will live in history as the
birthplace of the immortal story about
the sergeant who went to the Internal
regions for we'll merited punishment and
telegraphed back for his blankets.
Fort Yuma stands on low BLUM above
the Colorado river, just where that er-
ratio stream turns westward. and leaving
Arizona runs between Mexico and Cali
fornia. From the gray blum you can look
into both states as well as the southern
republic, but with all due respect to our
great southwestern commemorative and
the Mexican government. not one OF the
three territorial divisions is much to look
at. All about is gray plain. fringed with
stern gray hills. The only welcome
patch of living green is the thicket Of
cottonwood and mesquite in the gorge OF
the Colorado. Yet there is certain for
bidding beauty in the scene; the barren
land auivering under fierce sun has
lure and a charm of its own.
Fujiyama.
If some power were to transport you
suddenly and without warning across
half a world and drop you at the foot
of Fujiyama, you would know at once
that you were in Japan. Fujiyama is
above all things Japanese. The neatly
chiseled outline of the twelve thou
sand foot cone, the cloudlike Life of It's
rearing crest. the delicate colorfng on
crest and tanks. the artihcially pic
turesque cloud effects draping its
shoulders could hardly exist outside of
Japan.
Make pilgrimage with some little
group of the devout hundreds who
daily seek Fujiyama, and IL the time
is spring you see all that is best in the
island empire. The road leaves Yunno-
to to run through hills and valleys
with the perspective, the coloring and
the queer unreal charm of sketch on
a Japanese fan. Here IL clings to a
clffside with a sheer drop to valley
below, where faraway little river
winds like shred of foamy lace. Here
it crosses a dainty bridge, hard by
some frail shrine as delicately colored
as the flowers at its door.
All sorts of travellers are seen along
the way-pilgrims on foot, tourists In
rickshaws, countrymen in little one
horse carts. Anxious glances are cast
at the sky, for sometimes Fujiyama
draws a cloudveil over his august yis-
age and refuses a glimpse of his SPLEEN
doris to the valley below. Clouds or no
Clouds there is compensation enough
in the mountain sides choked with
white lilies, the riot of cherry blos-
SONS. the dashing streams and shaded
W oodland.
On clear days you can even see Full
from Toxic, seventy miles away, where
it's perfect peak seems to hang in the
heavens like a ghost mountain. 1t Is
visible. too. from Yokohama bay. where
the pushing sampan men look up to
make obeisance to Fuji-san.
A city can sum up a continent, q
mountain may stand for a nation. Fu-
jiyama, rising in one perfect sweep
from the sea to the SHOWS, tremendous
vet graceful. colossus with the line
and the coloring of eggshell china. is
he epitome of Nippon. And now and
again about the mountains TANKS
hang little clouds of steam. Fujiyama
s also a quiescent volcano.