whole desert, thanks to light rains in summer as well as winter,
appears extraordinarily green and prosperous. Its fair appearance
has deceived many a poor settler who has vainly tried to
cultivate it.

Farther south the deserts of America are largely confined to
plateaus like those of Mexico and Peru or to basins sheltered on
all sides from rain-bearing winds. In such basins the suddenness
of the transition from one type of vegetation to another is
astonishing. In Guatemala, for instance, the coast is bordered by
thick jungle which quickly gives place to magnificent rain forest
a few miles inland. This continues two or three score miles from
the coast until a point is reached where mountains begin to
obstruct the rain-bearing trade-winds. At once the rain forest
gives place to jungle; in a few miles jungle in its turn is
replaced by scrub; and shortly the scrub degenerates to mere
desert bush. Then in another fifty miles one rises to the main
plateau passing once more through scrub. This time the scrub
gives place to grass-lands diversified by deciduous trees and
pines which give the country a distinctly temperate aspect. On
such plateaus the chief civilization of the tropical
Latin-American countries now centers. In the past, however, the
plateaus were far surpassed by the Maya lowlands of Yucatan and
Guatemala.

We are wont to think of deserts as places where the plants are of
few kinds and not much crowded. As a matter of fact, an ordinary
desert supports a much greater variety of plants than does either
a forest or a prairie. The reason is simple. Every desert
contains wet spots near springs or in swamps. Such places abound