My last camp was down at the narrow, notched bottom of a dry channel,
the only open way for the life in the neighborhood. I therefore lay
between two fires, built to fence out snakes and wolves.

From the summit of the eastern rim I had a glorious view of the valley
out to the ocean, which would require a whole book for its
description. My bread gave out a day before reaching the settlements,
but I felt all the fresher and clearer for the fast.



XII

Nevada Farms[15]


To the farmer who comes to this thirsty land from beneath rainy skies,
Nevada seems one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly
irredeemable now and forever. And this, under present conditions, is
severely true. For notwithstanding it has gardens, grainfields, and
hayfields generously productive, these compared with the arid
stretches of valley and plain, as beheld in general views from the
mountain tops, are mere specks lying inconspicuously here and there,
in out-of-the-way places, often thirty or forty miles apart.

In leafy regions, blessed with copious rains, we learn to measure the
productive capacity of the soil by its natural vegetation. But this
rule is almost wholly inapplicable here, for, notwithstanding its
savage nakedness, scarce at all veiled by a sparse growth of sage and