[Illustration: TEAMING IN DEATH VALLEY
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.]
The
Mystic Mid-Region
The Deserts of the Southwest
By
Arthur J. Burdick
With 54 Illustrations
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY
ARTHUR J. BURDICK
Published, April, 1904
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
Kingdom of solitude, thou desert vast,
The keeper thou of secrets of the past,
For what, O Desert, was thy land accurs'd?
Thy rivers dried, thy fields consumed by thirst?
Thy plains in mute appeal unfruitful lie
Beneath a burning, stern, relentless sky
That brings its showers of life-renewing rain
Unto the mount, but ne'er unto the plain.
What secret guardest thou, O Desert dread?
What mystery hidest of the ages dead?
Doth some strange treasure lie within thy breast
That thou wouldst guard from man's most eager quest?
Or doth there in thy solitude abide
Some mystery that Nature fain would hide?
Some secret of the great creative plan
Too deep, too awful for the mind of man?
O Desert, with thy hot, consuming breath,
Whose glance is torture and whose smile is death,
Realm of the dewless night and cloudless sun,
Burn on until thine awful watch be done.
Then may the shifting winds their off'rings bring--
The yielding clouds their life-fraught dews to fling
Upon thy yearning, panting, scorching breast,
That with abundance thou at last be bless'd.
So, where thy wasted sands now barren lie,
Green fields may some day meet a smiling sky.
Where now but lurks grim, ghastly, burning death,
The violet may shed its fragrant breath.
It hath been said--a sure, divine decree--
That in the solitude shall gladness be;
And, by that One from whom all goodness flows,
That thou shalt bloom, O Desert, as the rose.
A. J. B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE DESERT 1
II.--THE LAND OF THIRST 17
III.--CURIOUS PLANTS WHICH LIVE IN THE DESERT 38
IV.--STRANGE DWELLERS OF THE DESERT 60
V.--HUMANITY IN THE DESERT 68
VI.--A FUNERAL IN THE REGION OF DEATH 80
VII.--DESERT BASKET-MAKERS 92
VIII.--SHIPS OF THE DESERT 107
IX.--THE STORY OF A STREAK OF YELLOW 124
X.--DESERT BORAX MINES 142
XI.--OTHER MINERALS FOUND IN THE DESERT 154
XII.--A REMARKABLE HARVEST-FIELD 162
XIII.--DEATH VALLEY 172
XIV.--THE MOUTH OF HADES 184
XV.--DESERT MISCELLANY--UNUSUAL AND PECULIAR FEATURES 189
XVI.--JOURNALISM BELOW SEA-LEVEL 209
XVII.--THE END OF THE DESERT 218
INDEX 235
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
*TEAMING IN DEATH VALLEY _Frontispiece_
*THE DESERT 3
* MOUNT SAN JACINTO FROM THE DESERT 7
*ANCIENT SEA BEACH, COLORADO DESERT NEAR COACHELLA 11
*WHEN CALIFORNIA WAS AN ISLAND 15
From an old Spanish map.
*AN INDIAN WELL IN THE DESERT 19
*AN OASIS IN THE COLORADO DESERT 23
*SENTINEL PALM 27
A welcome sight to the desert traveler, for
it marks an oasis hidden in the cañon.
*AN OASIS DWELLING THATCHED WITH PALM-LEAVES IN COLORADO DESERT 31
This might pass for a cannibal's hut in the
South Sea Islands.
*A DESERT BEDROOM 35
*SAHUARO, OR GIANT CACTUS 39
*SPANISH BAYONET 43
*A DESERT CACTUS IN BLOSSOM--ONE OF MANY VARIETIES 47
*"THE WELL OF THE DESERT" 51
*ONE OF THE DESERT BLOOMERS 55
*A YELLOW DIAMOND-BACK RATTLER 58
DESERT LIZARD, CHUCAWALLA, CLOSELY AKIN TO THE GILA MONSTER 61
HORNED TOAD 62
TARANTULA 64
CENTIPEDE 65
SCORPION 66
*A CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN AND COYOTE 69
*A CHEMEHUEVI DWELLING 73
*A CHEMEHUEVI SQUAW AND CHILD 77
*A DESERT DWELLING ON THE COLORADO RIVER 81
*THE DESERT "WHITE HOUSE" 85
*THE FUNERAL PYRE 89
*A MOJAVE INDIAN POUNDING MESQUITE BEANS IN WOODEN MORTAR 93
*RARE TULARE AND POMO BASKETS 97
*A YUMA WOMAN WEAVING COARSE BASKETS 101
*MOJAVE BASKET-MAKER 105
*THE ADVANCE AGENT OF PROGRESS 109
*SHIPS OF THE DESERT 113
*BEARING THE RED MAN'S BURDEN 117
*TAKING ON THE CARGO 121
*THE PROSPECTOR SETS FORTH 125
*AN AGED PROSPECTOR AT MOUTH OF HIS MINE 129
*AN ANXIOUS MOMENT--LOOKING FOR THE YELLOW STREAK 133
*AN AËRIAL FERRY--PROSPECTORS CROSSING COLORADO RIVER 137
*A TRACTION ENGINE HAULING BORAX FROM DEATH VALLEY 143
*THE PAINTED DESERT 147
*A MONUMENT IN THE LAND OF THIRST 151
*A TYPICAL DESERT MINING TOWN 155
PLOWING SALT IN COLORADO DESERT 163
*TEAMING IN DEATH VALLEY 173
INDIAN CHIEF LYING IN STATE 179
A DESERT POTTERY FACTORY 191
BLACK BUTTES--PHANTOM SHIP OF THE DESERT 197
DIGGING THE IMPERIAL CANAL 203
IMPERIAL CHURCH--FIRST WOODEN BUILDING IN LOWER COLORADO DESERT 207
YEAR-OLD WILLOW TREES AT INTERNATIONAL LINE 211
IRRIGATING DESERT LAND 219
DESERT SORGHUM 223
MILO MAIZE ON RECLAIMED DESERT LAND NEAR HEBER 227
ADOBE HOTEL, CALEXICO, WHICH HAS THE ONLY SHOWER BATH
IN THE DESERT 231
* From photographs reproduced by permission of C. C. Pierce & Co.
THE MYSTIC MID-REGION
CHAPTER I
THE DESERT
Between the lofty ranges of mountains which mark the western boundary
of the great Mississippi Valley and the chain of peaks known as the
Coast Range, whose western sunny slopes look out over the waters of the
placid Pacific, lies a vast stretch of country once known as the "Great
American Desert."
A few years ago, before the railroad had pierced the fastness of the
great West, explorers told of a vast waste of country devoid of water
and useful vegetation, the depository of fields of alkali, beds of
niter, mountains of borax, and plains of poison-impregnated sands. The
bitter sage, the thorny cacti, and the gnarled mesquite were the
tantalizing species of herbs said to abound in the region, and the
centipede, the rattlesnake, tarantula, and Gila monster represented
the life of this desolate territory.
More recently, as the railroads have spanned the continent at different
points, we have knowledge of several deserts. There are the "Nevada
Desert," the "Black Rock Desert," the "Smoke Creek Desert," the
"Painted Desert," the "Mojave Desert," the "Colorado Desert," etc.; the
"Great American Desert" being the name now applied to that alkali waste
west of Salt Lake in Utah. As a matter of fact, however, these are but
local names for a great section of arid country in the United States
from two hundred to five hundred miles wide, and seven hundred to eight
hundred miles long, and extending far down into Mexico, unbroken save
for an occasional oasis furnished by nature, or small areas made
habitable by irrigation.
Where the old Union Pacific drew its sinuous line across the northern
section of the desert, a trail of green spots was left to mark the
various watering-stations for the engines. The Southern Pacific
railroad left a similar line of oases down through the Colorado Desert,
and the Santa Fé, in like manner, dotted with green spots the Great
Mojave Desert. The water at these stations is obtained in some
instances by drilling wells, and where it can not be obtained in this
manner it is hauled in tank cars from other points.
[Illustration: THE DESERT
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.]
A portion of the desert lies below the level of the sea. Death Valley,
in the Great Mojave Desert, has a depression of one hundred and ten
feet below sea-level, while portions of the Colorado Desert lie from a
few feet to four hundred feet below ocean-level. In the latter desert
there are 3900 square miles below sea-level, and there are several
villages in this desert which would be many feet submerged were the
mountain wall between sea and desert rent asunder.
There is a mystery about the desert which is both fascinating and
repellent. Its heat, its dearth of water and lack of vegetation, its
seemingly endless waste of shifting sands, the air of desolation and
death which hovers over it,--all these tend to warn one away, while the
very mystery of the region, the uncertainty of what lies beyond the
border of fertility, tempts one to risk its terrors for the sake of
exploring its weird mysteries.
Strange tales come out of the desert. Every one who has ventured into
its vastness, and who has lived to return, has brought reports of
experiences and observations fraught with the deepest interest, which
tend to awaken the spirit of adventure in the listener. The most famous
of the American deserts are the Great Mojave and the Colorado, the
latter lying partly in the United States and partly in Mexico. As
trackless as the Sahara, as hot and sandy as the Great Arabian, they
contain mysteries which those deserts cannot boast. Within their
borders are the great salt fields of Salton and of Death Valley, which
have no counterpart in the world; the "Volcanoes," a region abounding
in cone-shaped mounds which vomit forth poisonous gases, hot mud, and
volcanic matter, and over which region ever hang dense clouds of steam;
the great niter fields and borax plains of the Mojave, and other
equally strange exhibitions of nature.
There are other mysteries in the desert. Amid its sands are gold and
gems for the fortunate finder, and many are they who have lost their
lives in search of these treasures. Hovering over the desert, too, is
that phantom, that desert apparition, the mirage, a never-ceasing
wonder to the fortunate traveler who wants not for water and who is in
no doubt as to his way across the dreary waste, and a never-ceasing
torment and menace to the thirst-tortured wayfarer lost in the dread
solitude. Imagine the mockery to the thirsty traveler of a rippling
sheet of water, its blue waves rolling ever in view but receding as he
advances, leaving only the burning sands to the perishing one! Is it
any wonder that men go mad in the desert? And yet, locked in the breast
of this waste is more fertility than is necessary to supply the
continent with sustenance.
[Illustration: MOUNT SAN JACINTO FROM THE DESERT
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.]
The Colorado Desert is thus called because the great river of that name
carved it out of the sea. It is also destined to lose the name of
desert because of that same river.
At one time the Gulf of California extended nearly up to Banning, where
rise those two sentinels of the plain, Mt. San Jacinto and Mt.
Grayback, each towering nearly two miles above the surrounding country.
This was before the Colorado River had cut its way through the
mountains to the sea, forming that magnificent chasm known as the Grand
Cañon. For endless centuries the great river has been eating out the
heart of the continent, pulverizing the rock and earth, and bearing it
in its turbid tide down from the mountains and tablelands to the lower
plains and to the sea.
A part of its burden of silt was laid down over the northern portion of
the gulf, and a part of it was carried by the force of the current far
down into the great body of water and was piled up ninety miles below
the present boundary line between Mexico and the United States. This
bank was about sixty miles long, extending in an easterly and westerly
direction. Along the right side of the current was formed a lateral
embankment, which eventually shut off the river from its former inlet
into the gulf and directed it to its present mouth, some two hundred
miles lower. This, joining with the sixty-mile embankment, severed one
portion of the gulf from the main body and left an inland sea where now
is the desert. Then the thirsty sun drank up the waters of this sea and
left the land of desolation. How long ago all this happened is a matter
of conjecture.
There are many places on the boundaries of the desert where the ancient
beach-line may be traced long distances. Here are found numerous shells
and corals. Many of the shells are unbroken, and one might almost
believe, to look upon them, that they were tossed there by the restless
waves no longer ago than yesterday. The varieties of shells and of sea
relics correspond very closely with those now abounding in the sea.
[Illustration: ANCIENT SEA BEACH, COLORADO DESERT, NEAR COACHELLA
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.]
There are evidences that the desert has been dry land many centuries.
Upon its breast are found Indian pottery and implements of a style and
pattern antedating those in use at the time the white man reached this
country. Then, too, as far back as the sixteenth century, when the
earliest exploration of that region was made, the desert-dwelling
tribes seem to have been thoroughly established in the territory once
occupied by the gulf. It doubtless required centuries, after the waters
were cut off from the region, to dry up the inland sea and make it
possible for man to enter in and occupy the territory.
It is the belief of some scholars that the land was submerged when the
first Spanish explorers reached the coast. In support of this theory
they point to certain maps which show the gulf as covering that region.
A map of the early navigators recently in the possession of General
Stoneman of the United States Army, which was obtained by him in the
City of Mexico, shows the Gila River as entering the gulf, whereas the
Gila River now enters the Colorado River ninety miles north of the
present mouth of the Colorado.
A map of California, published in 1626 by N. Sanson d'Abbeville,
geographer to the King of France, pictures the Gulf of California as
extending along the entire eastern boundary of the State, and
connecting with the Pacific Ocean on the north. This map was made from
sundry drawings and accounts furnished by the early navigators, and is
glaringly incorrect. It is certain that the gulf did not then, or at
any time, extend to the Pacific. The early explorers and map-makers
conveniently guessed at matters upon which they could get no
information.
[Illustration: WHEN CALIFORNIA WAS AN ISLAND
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co. From an old Spanish map.]