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Show CALIFORNIA DESERTS Vast and Awful Solitudes of Mexican Pen- ) , insula Spaniards Martyred Land ' of Horrors No Vegetation Isaiah's j ' i ' Prophecy Verified Desert Described j Poisoned Streams The Awesome Furnace, Where Man Enters at His Peril, to Find Only Horned Rattlesnakes . and White Scorpions Gruesome Fate Awaiting the Daring Traveler Shall j the Dead Arise? Reason Despoiled. . . , U ("Special Cor. Tntermtfuntain Catliolic.) v (Copyrighted.) Reaching out one thousand miles into the Pa cific ocean, elongating itself like a monstrous thing, alive, in futile attempt to separate itself from its parent continent, there is a lonely land as unknown to the world as the vast barbaric interior of Central Cen-tral Africa or the bleak coasts of Patagonia. Upon its unhospitable shores on the wesi.. the sea in anger resenting its intrusive presence, has been waring "i for untold ages, hurlinc mountainous waves ot" ' immeasurable strength on its sandy beach or against its granite fortifications. At times the , j waters of the Gulf of Cortez. rising in their ' wrath, rush with fierce violence on its eastern flank I and the sound of the impact is the roaring of th sea heard far inland. In this war of the elements : great wounds have been opened where the land was vulnerable, and indertatiours, inlets and deep bays remain to record the desperate nature of the un- , ending battles of the primordial forces. This aw- -ful and vast solitude of riven mountains and - I parched - deserts retains the name it received nr0 years ago, when baptized in the blood of thirteen v : Spaniards slaughtered by the savages of this yet M savage wilderness. This is Baija, Cal. Lower Cal- x. ifomia a wild and dreary region torn b torrents. J barrancas and ravines, and in places, disfigured by I ghastly wounds inflicted by volcanic fire or eaFth- quake. A LAND OF HORRORS. The exterior world furnishes nothing to com- j pare with it. Here are mountains devoid of vege- -. f tat ion, extraordinary plateaus, bewildering lines of. J fragmentary cliffs, a land where there are no flow- ing rivers, where no rain falls in places for years. ! volcanoes that geologically died but yesterday and whose configurations and weird outlines are impossible impos-sible of description. Its rugged shores are in- . dented and toothed like a crosscut saw. Tt is a land of sorrow almost, deserted of man and shrouded in an isolation startling in its pitiful silence. Save ; ' the unprofitable cactus and the somber sagebrush, . friends of the desert reptiles, there is no-vegetation : j in regions of startling sterility. If there be unon the earth a country lying under ' j the pall of the Isaialm malediction it 13 here, for! . i here is the realization and accomplishment of the j , dread prophecy portending the blight of vegetable j i life. "I will lay it waste, and it shall not bo pruned or digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouda that they rain no rain upon it." S Here in the vast interior lonelines3 of this forbidding for-bidding land are horrent deserts where the traveler. ! may ride hundreds of miles and find no water or j look upon other vegetation than thorny cacti or j scattered bushes of the warning greese-wood, tell- : ing him that here is death. The lonely mountains j j bordering these deserts are striking in their visible sterility. Torrential rains in seasons overwhelm. : j the struggling vegetation that in the Intervening : I months of repose, invade the few inviting patches, ? and rushing madly to the foothills sweep all veg- etable life before them. , J Then when the storm retires and the blazing I j sun burns the very air, the porphyritic rocks be- - V ( come an ashen white, and, reflecting the sun's ray?, V f I throw off rolling billows of unendurable heat. Most,. ' if of these repellant ranges are granite, but in many ' " places there are found outcroppings of gneiss, 1 mica, talc and clay slates. They underlie the , f quaternary at the base of the granite hills, j In I some sections the levels art? overlaid with theldc- tritus from these rocks. Toward the Gulf of Cjali- f j fornia the slates are accompanied by metamorphic t limestones and often appear forming independent : I ridges or inclining toward the high granite mills. I Near the Pacific coast the land is sown witH vol- canic cones, broken by benches of land formed mesas, dotted with small groups of hills kno wn as t lomas and by long faces of rock called escarpnaents. . , j Immense streams of lava at one time enter Jed tha t deserts and now cover, as with a metallic tehroud", : many of the sandstone mounds. The retrified , f , .J waves and eddies of the river of mineral an id other (Continued on Page 5.) j 1 r '. ; ' ' '.' .1 ,,. ,,, 1 .. .-i-j CALIFORNIA DESERTS. (Continued from Page 1.) organic matter, called magma, zig-zag here and there in the foothills, resembling streams of ink solidified. Here are rocks, aques and igneous, rocks splintered and twisted, and showings of grit stones, conglomerates, shales, salts and syenite basalt. ba-salt. STREAMS ARE POISONED. Here, too, are streams poisoned with wearings of copper, with salts, arsenic and borax, and vast beds of sand and gypsum covered with an alkaline crust, and dry lakes, white as snow, on whose lonely breasts the sand lies fine as dust. The Aveird solitude, soli-tude, the great silence, the grim desolation, the waste places and barren deserts accursed and forsaken for-saken of man, abandoned to the horned toad, the tarantula and the snake, terrify the soul and raise a barrier to exploration. The only drinking water to be found over an area of hundreds of miles is in rock depressions and in holes here and there in the mountains where the rain has collected in natural nat-ural tanks hidden from solar rays and partially protected from evaporation. But there are seasons sea-sons when, for years, no rain falls, and then in this awesome peninsular furnace, the air is burning, the sand as hot as volcanic ash and the silence like unto un-to that which was when God said "Let there be light." The deserts of this mysterious land are regions of sand where earth and sky form a circle as distinct as that traced by a sweep of the compass. com-pass. WHERE MAN ENTERS AT HIS PERIL. Into this desolation of sterility and solitude man enters at his peril, for here the deadly horned rattlesnake, rat-tlesnake, the white scorpion, thirst and sweatless heat invite him to his ruin and offer a constant menace me-nace to life. If with determined purpose he dares his fate and attempts the crossing of the parched and desolate land the white glare reflected from the treacherous sand threatens him with blindness. At times he encounters the deadly sandstorms of this awful wilderness of aridity, the driving and whirling sands blister his face and carry oppression oppres-sion to his breathing. If the water he carries fail him, he may find a depression half full of mockery and disappointment, for its waters hold in solution solu-tion alkali, alum or arsenic and bear madness or death in- their alluring appearance. If night overtake him and sleep oppress him he must be careful where he takes his rest lest a storm break upon him and bury him under its ever shifting shift-ing sands, and if he sleeps well he may never awake. And these storms are capricious, for after welcoming welcom-ing the unhappy man to a hospitable grave in the desert and covering him with a mound many feet high and of liberal circumference, they are not satisfied sat-isfied to let him rest in peace, for months later, it may be years, they scatter the dune and expose the mummified body. There are here no vultures to clean the bones, for the vulture is the hyena of the air and lives on putrefaction, and there is here no decomposing flesh. The carcass of man or beast is dried by solar suction, the skin is parched and blackened and tightens on the bones; the teeth show white, for the lips are gone with contraction, the eye3 are burned out and the sockets filled with sand, and the hair is matted, dry and sand-sprinkled. If the lonely man be so unfortunate as to escape es-cape death by suffocation he awakes with the dawn. Dawn on the desert while the stars still glow in cerulean blue. It is a vision of transcendent beauty for toward the east the sky is bathed in a sea of amber, light blue and roseate. The stillness is intense, in-tense, illimitable, it is the preternatural. SHALL THE DEAD RISE AGAIN? The man has lost all appreciation of the beautiful, beauti-ful, the divine silence has no charm for him, it suggests the grave. Twilight expands into day, the instinct of life, of self-preservation dominates him, he rises and answers the call of the mountains which allure him by their apparent nearness. The remorseless sun times his pace with his, if he stands still the sun stands still, if he moves forward the sun moves with him, if he runs the sun pursues, and to the lost man staggering in the .desert it is as if the air was afire and his brain ablaze. The pallor of mental anguish and physical pain are ashening his skin; his eyes are wild and shot with blood; his features are drawn and his face is neighbor neigh-bor to death. And now he searches for his knife and cuts away his boots, for his feet are swollen shockingly, his hair is beginning to bleach. hi3 gait is shambling and the strong man of yesterday is aging rapidlv. Reason, for some time, has been bidding him good-bye, it is gone, and only the primal instinct of self-preservation remains with him in his horrible isolation from human aid. In this lonely wilderness the cruel sun pours down his intolerable rays till the very air vibrates with waves of heat. Nothing moves, nothing agitates the aw-some aw-some silence, there is no motion in the heavens, in (he dumb dead air or on the ero'h. The madman tries to shout but his throat an only return a hoarse guttural and his blackened tongue hangs ont as he gasps for breath. Hunger is gnawing him, thirst is devouring him and he does not know it. The cells of his brain are filled with fire, his body is burning; piece by piece he has torn away his clothes and now, from throat to waist, he rips open his flannel shirt and flings it from him. His i sight has left him. his paralyzed limbs can no longer long-er support his fle&hless body, and blind, naked, demented, de-mented, he falls upon the desert and is dead. Vh was he A prospector. Where was he going i To the mountains. For what ? For gold. He follow? it as did the wise men the star of Bethlehem. It lures the feet of men and often woos the ra:-h and the brave to death and madness. La Paz, Lower California. |