Here and there, too, were little heaps of bones, bleached white as snow—the remains of a horse or a cow that had strayed. To lose oneself, be it man or animal, is sure death in the Mohave Desert.
It is just midday. The sun is vertically above. It beats down on my shoulders and dries up the skin of my hands. My hair, over which I had never worn a hat since I left New York, is bleached to a light yellow colour and stands erect, stiff and brittle. The alkali sand and dust have absorbed all the moisture from my fingers and gradually cracks and cuts are developing in my finger tips and at the joints. I find it easier to grasp the handlebars with the palms of my hands alone. My clothes are saturated with dust and my trench boots are cut and scratched, with the seams broken away; the right sole has pulled away and threatens to come off altogether unless carefully used. I feel that the sooner I get out of the Mohave Desert the better it will be for me.
But the heat! It seems to know no shame, no pity. It is terrific. Every five miles I stop and drink from the water bag. There is just enough to carry me to the next stop. For the first time I begin to long for shelter from the burning rays. There is none around anywhere—not as far as the horizon. I must push on quickly.... The rut suddenly breaks and swerves away.... Crash!... Up again, lose no time. On once more; what matter if the footbrake doesn't work? A motor-cycle is made to go, not to stop!
In front, to the left, rise pinnacles of purple granite. They stick up sharply into the sky like the teeth of a great monster grinning over its prey. They are the "Needles," and they fringe the Colorado River. What a glorious sight it will be to see a river again, with water flowing in it.
Now on the horizon appears a blotch of green. Its beauty in that yellow wilderness is beyond description. It is the green of the stately poplar trees that surround the railway station of Topock. That is where the road and the railway and the river all meet, and where we leave Arizona and enter the State of California. Thank Heaven it is not far away. The pinnacles rise higher and higher, the little oasis grows bigger and bigger, and the trees greener and taller.
At last! Lizzie's rattle is silent. We come to rest under a great shelter thatched with straw that has been erected by the roadside opposite the restaurant—the only building in the town beside the railway station. A few yards further on was a massive steel bridge 400 yards long that spanned the Colorado. Beyond lay California, but I was satisfied with Arizona and the straw-thatched shelter for an hour or two.
At two we crossed the great bridge. What good fortune would California bring, I wondered. It brought even worse roads than I had seen in Arizona. There still remained over 200 miles of desert to be crossed. The trail was very rough, like a mountain track at the start, full of ups and downs and swerves and washes. Twelve miles further on I arrived at the town of Needles, so tired and hot that I decided to abandon travel until the evening. Then I would ride out into the desert and make my bed under the steel-blue sky. I was too enamoured of the wonderful sunsets and the glorious sunrises of the open plain to allow them to pass unseen in a musty, stuffy hotel bedroom.
Needles, I was surprised to find, was very much bigger than I had expected. It is now a good-sized town and its main street a bustle of activity. After disposing of a steak at a Chinese restaurant, I bought a book and retired to the square. There I took off my tunic, rolled up my shirt sleeves and lay on the grass beneath the tall, thick palm trees and whiled away the hot afternoon hours.
At evening as the setting sun was drawing a magic cloak over the tropical sky, I stole out of Needles along the lonesome trail that I had learnt to love. Except for low-lying mountains all around, there was nothing but the everlasting sand and sage-brush. Behind lay the gigantic plain and across it, like a silver snake, crept the great silent river. It was the most impressive scene that I have ever beheld from my bedroom window. My mattress was the sand with a waterproof sheet laid upon it. Never did Monte Cristo with all his wealth sleep in such luxury as that.