vanish, obliterated by the encroaching vegetation.

Back of the eminence from which this extended view is had, the mountains
come close, not as high as those toward the south, but still respectable
heights, snow-covered in winter. They array themselves in fantastic
shapes, with colors changing from hour to hour. One thinks of the desert
as a barren sandy waste, minus water, trees and other vegetation,
clouds, and all the color and beauty of nature of more favored
districts. Not so. Water is scarce, it is true, and springs few and far
between, and the vegetation is in proportion; for what little there is
is mostly dependent on the annual rainfall, never excessive, at the
best, yet always sufficient for the brush covering the ground, and the
yuccas towering up many feet here and there. But color, beautiful,
brilliant, magnificent color, is here any and every day of the year, and
from earliest dawn until the last traces of the evening sun have faded
away, only to give place to moonlight unsurpassed anywhere in the world.
Truly, the desert is far from being the dry, desolate, uninteresting
region it is commonly pictured.

More than a century and a quarter ago, there stood on the side of this
hill, and not far from its top, an Indian hut, or wickiup. It was built
after the manner of the Indian tribes of Southern California - a
circular space of about fifteen feet in diameter enclosed by brush-work,
and roofed by a low dome of the same material. At the side was an
opening, too small to permit one to enter without stooping low. This
doorway, if it may be so called, being window and chimney as well,
fronted toward the south, facing the dry lakes and the mountains beyond.
Close by, at the left, was a heap of bones, which, on a nearer view,
disclosed themselves to be those of rabbits, coyotes and quail, while
three or four larger bones in the pile might inform the zoologist that