WHERE AND WHAT IS ARIZONA. 23 "No pen can describe the utter desolation of this region. The valley of the lower Jordan and the shores of the Dead Sea are not more barren. For many miles not a shrub or even a blade of grass is seen-only a howling wilderness of rock and drifting sand. As we approach Indian Wells the country improves slightly. We see in the distance, along the base of the foothills, clusters of palm trees; various forms of cacti, peculiar to this valley, appear; the mesquite tree relieves the eye with its tufts of green, and the sage brush ekes out a sickly existence. From the San Gorgonio we gradually descend until, two miles west of Indio, we reach the level of the sea. From this point, for a distance of sixty-one miles, we descend further and further into the depths of this extinct ocean bed, until, near Dos l'almos, we are two hundred and sixty-three feet below the sea level! The line of the road runs for a long distance over the bed of a dried lake. Its beach is well defined; the water marks are as distinct as if made but yesterday. Everything indicates that we are passing over a former ocean bed. We can almost fancy we hear the waves surging against the silent shores; can see noble ships sailing across this trackless waste. "One of the greatest difficulties in the construction and operation of the railroad has been the absence of water. The railroad company have spent a great deal of money in sinking artesian wells, but thus far with indifferent results. At Flowing Wells they struck a fine body of salt water at the depth of about 160 feet, and at Mammoth Tank they have bored 164 feet through the hardest kind of hard pan, but as yet have not found a drop of water. They propose to continue the work of boring at this point until the question of water or no water is definitely settled. At present over seventy miles of the line have to be supplied with water by water cars. Tanks have been built underground at the various stations along the waterless region. They are lined with brick and have a capacity of several thousand gallons. "There are immense salt deposits in the Colorado Desert, the largest having an area, I am told, of 100 square miles. Mud volcanos also abound. I saw one in full blast. The mud was spouting up through at least twenty holes, in some instances rising in a vertical column several feet high; in others, boiling up in a lazy sort of way, very much as I have seen mush boil in a kettle over a slow fire. Below the surface a rumbling sound was heard, while through crevices of the ground a noxious vapor arose. Near by was a second volcano, partially extinct, but here and there mud oozed out. On its 6 outer rim lay, side by side, two little birds dead. They had evidently been attracted by the moisture, had inhaled the fatal gas and been stricken down. There was something pathetic in the fate of the beautiful little creatures-evidently matescoming to this deadly spot to quench their thirst, and perishing thus miserably. These volcanoes' are cold. A few miles off are a number of spouting hot springs. A railroad employee, who visited them a short time ago, broke through the crust into a boiling lake of water and was terribly scalded. The whole region hereabout is so strongly suggestive of a certain unmentionable bad place, that I was glad to get away." There is one aspect of this region, undesirable as it is otherwise, which compensates for much. Reference is made to the deliciously clear and ozonized atmosphere. The air is free from all impurities; and crossing in the cars one realizes the climatic change, without feeling too many of the disagreeable characteristics of the region. At Dos Palmas is the terminus of the California and Arizona stage line, and the coaches of this company leave and arrive there daily for Ehrenberg, Wickenburg and Prescott. The nights are deliciously clear, soft and mild, no matter how hot the day may have been. One of the great difficulties both in construction and running encountered by the railroad, are the sand storms, which, like those of the Sahara Desert, are a feature of a region that strangely recalls that historic waste of sand and aridity. The engineers had to drive piles in many places, and sheds, like those on the Central Pacific, are proposed to protect this route against the drifting sands. Early morning brings one, forty-two hours after leaving Oakland, on the Bay of San Francisco, in sight of the verdure-fringed Colorado. The railroad front is now on the east bank of the river. It presents a busy scene, illustrative of the manner in which American towns grow into cities. The bridge is a substantial, five-span Howe truss, the draw of which is on the Arizona side. Yuma is not a specially inviting place; and yet, by contrast, after crossing the weird, wild and almost ghostly region known as the Colorado Desert, and whirling for several miles over its western rim, through the detrital margin of an ancient sea, the Colorado bottom-lands and the busy town beyond, with the green masses of cottonwood; the greasewood, a tree with dwarf, plumy, leafless branches; the mesquite, with its feathery-looking leaves and graceful branches; and the pretty clumps of arrow-reeds that everywhere greet the traveler's eye, with the growing evidences of human civilization and enterprise on the further bank, combine to make a WHERE AND WHAT IS ARIZONA. 25 pleasant picture in one's memory, and prove a not uninviting one in the active present. It would not be difficult to describe the outward aspect of the scene thus: Sandhills to right of them, Is what the people of Yuma might say, if inclined to phrase the musical numbers of Tennyson. The western bank paraof the Colorado is chiefly a long, low stretch of alluvial bottomland, overflowed by the great river and enriched by the detritus it has borne from the heart of the northern Cordilleras for centuries past. To the north and west is a group of adobe buildings, crowning a low, sandy height, which since 1852 has been the sign and symbol of our Uncle Samuel's presence in and ownership over these wilds. Fort Yuma is not a very imposing, though quite a noticeable affair. Old Glory flies there to gladden the wayfarer's eyes. At the east bank lie long freight scows, for they are little else, called by courtesy steamers, which navigate in part the Colorado River. The ropeguided ferry-boat swings busily to and fro, carrying a daily increasing traffic. There are a score or so of barelegged, breechclouted Yumas, (Indians) of sinewy frames, who hang about this vicinity; have no reservation, and who, giving no evidence of an inclination to cut the white man's throat, have no agent, blankets, grub or presents from this paternal Government of ours. These Indians work willingly if not continuously. Yuma itself is on a level, sandy plain of one prevailing gray ashen tone. The chief street is broad, and that's all. There are two or three side streets, ambitious in name if not in style. The sun is almost blinding, and the prevailing hue monotonous And yet there is a wonderful feeling in the dry, ozonized atmosphere, which makes you forget the heat and feel the value and pleasure of physical being. Oh, the color-tones of sky and distant mountain peaks! Such deep, translucent azures; such pearl-gray touches in the clear, arching heavens! Such wondrous purple tones in the distant hills! They would delight the eye of Virgil Williams; inspire the brush of Thomas Hill, and make even Bierstadt's melo-dramatic canvas and colors turn pale! The clear skies of the Sahara, the dry, wondrous atmosphere of the desert, are here; all strange aspects which the traveler recalls from the Nile and Syria, from Algeria and the southern shores of the Mediterranean, are again evoked at this point on the outskirts of civilization. It is the massive front of the race itself, and brings the ancient myths back to the imagination. Looking to the north and east, beyond and across a wide expanse of valley and mesa, is the remarkable range known as the Castle Dome, between which and another one to the west, which exquisitely formed is marked on the map as the "Purple Hills," the Colorado forces its turbulent and devious way. Turning towards California the eye rests upon bold peaks to the northwest, and on the " Cargo Muchacho to the south. Both these elevated ranges, islands rising out of the silent sea, (the wide waste of sand that glistens white in the burning sun, and marks where the waves once flowed) are full of the richest of gold-bearing quartz. In proof of it, nuggets of gold-the indestructible "what is it" of the geologist, chemist and assayist-are shown. The southern group lies close to the railroad. The geological formation hereabouts indicates comparative newness. The bluffs of unsolidified limestone, the rich, sandy alluvium, and the detrital mesa hills and buttes, all testify to this. So also do the granitic rocks of the "Cargo Muchacho." But the traveler fresh to the region will be at first concerned more with the picturesque rather than the utilitarian aspect of things; and the serrated purple hills, ranges and peaks, so constantly changing their aspect and outline in the rarefied at. mosphere and heat, form a mirage vail that plays magic tricks with the vision of man, and are a continued delight to the artistic sense and imaginative vision. |