Evening star., 1941-03-19
By RANDOLPH LEIGH.

BY RANDOLPH LEIGH.
SAN ANTONIO, Lower California,
March l9.-That this seemingly bar
rem region should be thick with cat
tie, and that its drab hills should
be rich with gold hardly seems
strange when one remembers how
much of Lower California is un-
predictable.
San Antonio was the original cap
feal of Lower California and one of
the earliest centers of Spanish civili-
cation in the West. 1t still has a
number of quaint houses and an at
tractive church which is in remark
ably good condition in spite of its
280 years and its neglect.
The region around is unusually
interesting because it is in period
of transition from the desert to the
grazing stage. Nearly all its vege-
table life is of the desert type, or
shows strongly the influence of eX-
poSure to centuries of drought.
Nevertheless, 1t is definitely moving
toward a condition of greater sue
culence, apparently due to some
changes in the way the winds blow
the clouds in from the Pacific
1t is this condition of transforma-
ton which accounts for the large
number of cows and horses which it
manages to nurture. In some mi
raculous fashion it not only keeps
them alive, but gives them an ap-
pearance of being better fed than is
usual in range cattle. Thousands of
cattle live almost entirely upon cac-
tus and other desert or Semi-desert
plants.
Crude Mining Operations.
There are a number of gold-min-
ing operations under way in this
district and near El Triumfo. In
addition one sees along the roadside
men who are operating their own
little foot-driven mills or machines
for breaking the rock down and
getting the gold. Somehow they
manage to get good deal out of
1t, even in that crude fashion.
My short inland excursions, by
automobile and on horseback, have
convinced me that the only way to
see this region at all thoroughly is
by boat, stopping in from one little
port to another and then going in
land occasionally.
There is a road down the penins-
ula, but it is a very poor one most
of the way, though occasional
stretches are good. The road system
IS entirely of its own genre here.
They have four-lane highways, but
1t is hardly possible to move right
along on any of them.
First of all, there is the official
route, laid out on generous and
broad scale, with many beautiful
stone culverts and occasional
stretches of superb grading over
mountainous points. But the formal
road is surfaced with such jagged
small stones that it is punishment
to ride across them, even with heavy
tires.
Serpentine Auto Route.
Therefore, the automobilists work
out a serpentine secondary dust
track road of their own, lodging
telephone poles, trees and gulleys,
and winding back to the formal road
whenever there are stretches of it
which are better than the improvised
substitute. OF course, when the
heavy rains come, which happens
very rarely, the substitute road is
abandoned, and all traffic uses the
rough but well-bottomed regular
road.
In addition to the two lanes of the
main road and the single lane of the
improvised road, there is the pack
train road, which winds back and
forth across the other two. 1t is
much like a dollar sign, except that
nothing moves in precise curves, or
on really straight lines. 1t Is
dizzy dollar-like road, much in need
Of more dollars.
Traffic, legally, goes to the right in
Mexico. That means that every
driver holds the left of the road up
to the very last possible moment,
and occasionally beyond it.
For quickening the circulation I
strongly recommend ride on one
of these roads at busy time of day.
Trucks that are too heavy to tear
up and down the gulleys of the sub
stitute road will lumber behind
screen of dust along the bumpy main
road. Private cars, circling back and
forth across the main road on the
substitute route, will constantly dash
right across the path of trucks NOV
ing in their same general direction.
Escaping time and again, they keep
coming back for more as their little
road Is drawn back as If by a magnet
to the main route and chief source
of danger.
Meanwhile, the long donkey trains,