THE YAMPARICOS, OR ROOT-DIGGERS.
It is now pretty generally known that there are many deserts in North America,—as wild, waste, and inhospitable as the famed Sahara of Africa. These deserts occupy a large portion of the central regions of that great continent—extending, north and south, from Mexico to the shores of the Arctic Sea; and east and west for several hundred miles, on each side of the great vertebral chain of the Rocky Mountains. It is true that in the vast territory thus indicated, the desert is not continuous; but it is equally true that the fertile stripes or valleys that intersect it, bear but a very small proportion to the whole surface. Many tracts are there, of larger area than all the British Islands, where the desert is scarce varied by an oasis, and where the very rivers pursue their course amidst rocks and barren sands, without a blade of vegetation on their banks. Usually, however, a narrow selvage of green—caused by the growth of cottonwoods, willows, and a few humbler plants—denotes the course of a stream,—a glad sight at all times to the weary and thirsting traveller.
These desert wastes are not all alike, but differ much in character. In one point only do they agree,—they are all deserts. Otherwise they exhibit many varieties,—both of aspect and nature. Some of them are level plains, with scarce a hill to break the monotony of the view: and of this character is the greater portion of the desert country extending eastward from the Rocky Mountains to about 100° of west longitude. At this point the soil gradually becomes more fertile,—assuming the character of timbered tracts, with prairie opening between,—at length terminating in the vast, unbroken forests of the Mississippi.
This eastern desert extends parallel with the Rocky Mountains,—throughout nearly the whole of their length,—from the Rio Grande in Mexico, northward to the Mackenzie River. One tract of it deserves particular mention. It is that known as the Llano estacado, or “staked plain.” It lies in Northwestern Texas, and consists of a barren plateau, of several thousand square miles in extent, the surface of which is raised nearly a thousand feet above the level of the surrounding plains. Geologists have endeavored to account for this singular formation, but in vain. The table-like elevation of the Llano estacado still remains a puzzle. Its name, however, is easier of explanation. In the days of Spanish supremacy over this part of Prairie-land, caravans frequently journeyed from Santa Fé in New Mexico, to San Antonio in Texas. The most direct route between these two provincial capitals lay across the Llano estacado; but as there were neither mountains nor other landmarks to guide the traveller, he often wandered from the right path,—a mistake that frequently ended in the most terrible suffering from thirst, and very often in the loss of life. To prevent such catastrophes, stakes were set up at such intervals as to be seen from one another, like so many “telegraph posts;” and although these have long since disappeared, the great plain still bears the name, given to it from this circumstance.
Besides the contour of surface, there are other respects in which the desert tracts of North America differ from one another. In their vegetation—if it deserves the name—they are unlike. Some have no vegetation whatever; but exhibit a surface of pure sand, or sand and pebbles; others are covered with a stratum of soda, of snow-white color, and still others with a layer of common salt, equally white and pure. Many of these salt and soda “prairies”—as the trappers term them—are hundreds of square miles in extent. Again, there are deserts of scoria, of lava, and pumice-stone,—the “cut-rock prairies” of the trappers,—a perfect contrast in color to the above mentioned. All these are absolutely without vegetation of any sort.
On some of the wastes—those of southern latitudes,—the cactus appears of several species, and also the wild agave, or “pita” plant; but these plants are in reality but emblems of the desert itself. So, also, is the yucca, which thinly stands over many of the great plains, in the southwestern part of the desert region,—its stiff, shaggy foliage in no way relieving the sterile landscape, but rather rendering its aspect more horrid and austere.
Again, there are the deserts known as “chapparals,”—extensive jungles of brush and low trees, all of a thorny character, among which the “mezquite” of several species (mimosas and acacias), the “stink-wood” or creosote plant (kœberlinia), the “grease-bush” (obiona canescens), several kinds of prosopis, and now and then, as if to gratify the eye of the tired traveller, the tall flowering spike of the scarlet fouquiera. Further to the north—especially throughout the upper section of the Great Salt Lake territory—are vast tracts, upon which scarce any vegetation appears, except the artemisia plant, and other kindred products of a sterile soil.