as an escarpment or cliff, and this in turn stretches out flat and
uninteresting to the horizon. To the eye it appears an ideal country for
traveling, but only a very slight experience is necessary to reveal its
deceptiveness. Everywhere the flat mesas are cut and seamed by gorges
and narrow canyons, sometimes impassable even to a horse. Except along a
few routes which have been established here and there, wagon travel is
extremely difficult and often impossible. It is not unusual for a wagon
to travel 50 or 60 miles between two points not 20 miles distant from
each other.

The high mountain districts are characterized by a heavy growth of giant
pines, with firs and spruce in the highest parts, and many groves of
scrub oak. The pines are abundant and make excellent lumber. Going
downward they merge into piñons, useful for firewood but valueless as
timber, and these in turn give place to junipers and cedars, which are
found everywhere throughout the foothills and on the high mesa lands.
The valleys proper, and the low mesas which bound them, are generally
destitute of trees; their vegetation consists only of sagebrush and
greasewood, with a scanty growth of grass in favorable spots.

To the traveler in the valley the country appears to consist of sandy
plains bounded in the distance by rocky cliffs. When he ascends to the
higher plateaus he views a wide landscape of undulating plain studded
with wooded hills, while from the mountain summits he looks down upon
a land which appears to be everywhere cut into a network of jagged
canyons--a confused tangle of cliffs and gorges without system.

For a few weeks in early summer the table-lands are seen in their most
attractive guise. The open stretches of the mesas are carpeted with
verdure almost hidden under a profusion of flowers. The gray and dusty