Drink, and the rattlesnakes come here to
catch them." I then began to cast my eye along the channel, perhaps
instinctively feeling a snaky atmosphere, and finally discovered one
rattler between my feet. But there was a bashful look in his eye, and
a withdrawing, deprecating kink in his neck that showed plainly as
words could tell that he would not strike, and only wished to be let
alone. I therefore passed on, lifting my foot a little higher than
usual, and left him to enjoy his life in this his own home.
My next camp was near the heart of the basin, at the head of a grand
system of cascades from ten to two hundred feet high, one following
the other in close succession and making a total descent of nearly
seventeen hundred feet. The rocks above me leaned over in a
threatening way and were full of seams, making the camp a very unsafe
one during an earthquake.
Next day the chaparral, in ascending the eastern rim of the basin,
was, if possible, denser and more stubbornly bayoneted than ever. I
followed bear trails, where in some places I found tufts of their hair
that had been pulled out in squeezing a way through; but there was
much of a very interesting character that far overpaid all my pains.
Most of the plants are identical with those of the Sierra, but there
are quite a number of Mexican species. One coniferous tree was all I
found. This is a spruce of a species new to me, Douglasii
macrocarpa.[14]
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.
