In the Mohave Desert.
Cactus Trees near San Bernardino, California.
He who all his life has associated the dawn with the soft greetings of birds and the mellow noises of awakening nature, is struck at once with the vast difference of desert countries. I have read that in unexplored Africa and South America, the dawn is heralded by a mighty tumult of millions of voices, a great chorus of every soul in the great populace that lives in forest and jungle. In the Mohave Desert the majesty of the dawn unfolds itself in deathly silence. The entire absence of sound of any kind is awe-inspiring, almost weird, and the observer can but watch and wonder at it as he sees the whole firmament set ablaze with colours and shades that he never imagined existed, and gradually the silent grandeur of the spectacle is revealed.
It was with just such feelings that from my bed I watched the unfolding of another day from the depths of the great silent plain which lay beyond that thread of silver in the distance.
And then, on again. There was a low range of mountains ahead to be crossed. It was slow work and very tiring. The constant looseness of the surface, the need for everlastingly keeping one's eyes glued to the trail, and the terrible monotony of it all for mile after mile, made me long all the more for a sight of the orange groves and the blue sea beyond that to-morrow I might, if nothing unforeseen happened, enjoy. Thus went fifteen, twenty, thirty miles. The first halt was reached. It was only a railway station, a "hotel," a garage and two or three houses, but it meant breakfast, and a good one at that, for the journey that was ahead. Feeding over, out we went once more to brave the ruts and the rocks and the sand, for miles and miles unending. The morning sun grows slowly into a midday sun.
We have been climbing a little. Low-lying ranges of absolutely bare, purple-brown jagged hills seem to hem us in. Soon we shall be across them. Beyond there will be—what? More, perhaps. The road here has been "oiled," that is, the sand has been levelled and then crude mineral oil poured on. This hardens the crust and prevents the road from blowing away, giving to the uninitiated the impression of well-laid macadam. It is a relief after the loose sand, and it looks so strange for a black, broad highway to be going across a desert! It does not last long, but comes and goes in patches. Where it does appear it is often lumpy and cut into grooves and slices. Nevertheless it is welcome.... The road turns when it reaches the crest, continues for a few yards, and then....