A marvellous sight has suddenly appeared, viewed from the meagre height at which we stand. A great plain lies beneath and before us, greater and flatter and more desolate than my imagination could ever have conceived. All around it are mighty saw-toothed ranges of mountains pressing close upon the horizon and fading away into nothingness. In it is nothing, not a prominence of any kind, save the omnipresent sage-brush that seems to stretch in streaky uniformity like a great purple-brown veil above the cream-white sand. It is impossible to go on—to do anything but stop and wonder that over so great an area nature can be so desolate. It is wonderful, mystifying in its intensity.
Did I say there was no prominence? What are those two minute specks away over there in the heart of the plain? They must be a tremendous distance away, but in their very minuteness they are conspicuous. It is obvious that they are not there by the design of Nature.... As I look, a tiny white speck appears further still to the left, as though it emerged from behind the range of mountains that I have just crossed. Look! There is a short black tail behind it. It is a train!
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it moves across the great wilderness. The black specks then are stations, small man-made oases where water has been brought to the surface. Yes, it is true. Ten minutes elapse, and the little white speck merges into the little black speck. Thus are sizes and speeds dwarfed into insignificance when Nature has the mood to show her magnitude!
On again we go, spinning smoothly awhile over the smooth, oiled road. It stops in a mile or two and leaves nothing but the old heart-rending, twisting, wayward ruts and sand to guide us. Hours go by. They are hours of wild effort, maddening heat, and interminable boredom. Generally, every fifteen or twenty miles, there was a railway station and a restaurant where one could stop for drinks, ices, and petrol.
Four o'clock saw me in Ludlow, a small town, larger than the other stops. I was dead tired. Come what may, I was not going to work myself to death. I had done 200 miles since daybreak. That was enough for anyone in a country like this.
At eight o'clock I set out with Lizzie in the deepening twilight to find a resting-place for the night. The road was oiled, but in most places the sand of the desert had blown over it, covering it for several inches in depth, and sometimes obliterating it from view for many hundred yards.
"I will sleep at the foot of yonder hill," quoth I, and saw visions of concrete roads and orange groves beyond the horizon.