The Desert Home: The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The Desert Home, by Captain Mayne Reid.
________________________________________________________________________This was one of the first books that Mayne Reid wrote. Its action takesplace in a central part of North America, designated a Desert. Somepeople set out to travel in this central desert, when they somewhat losetheir way. Luckily they eventually spot the light of a farm-house,where they knock and receive hospitality.
Their kind host and his family then explain to them how they came tolive where they do, and what a lovely place it is. Reid is veryknowledgeable about animals and also plants. Much of the rest of thebook is taken up with tales of encounters with various animals, and withstories of the uses of many trees and shrubs.
It is written in an unusual style, but in fact, because of the shortnessof the chapters, it can hold the reader's attention very well.
As with several other books by this author it had been very badlytypeset, apparently using old and damaged type. This made the OCRedversion of the text come out very full of misreads, but it was funtidying this up. Apologies if any more misreads come to light.
________________________________________________________________________THE DESERT HOME, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.
There is a great desert in the interior of North America. It is almostas large as the famous Saara of Africa. It is fifteen hundred mileslong, and a thousand wide. Now, if it were of a regular shape--that isto say, a parallelogram--you could at once compute its area, bymultiplying the length upon the breadth; and you would obtain onemillion and a half for the result--one million and a half of squaremiles. But its outlines are as yet very imperfectly known; and althoughit is fully fifteen hundred miles long, and in some places a thousand inbreadth, its surface-extent is probably not over one million of squaremiles, or twenty-five times the size of England. Fancy a deserttwenty-five times as big as all England! Do you not think that it hasreceived a most appropriate name when it is called the _Great AmericanDesert_?
Now, my young friend, what do you understand by a desert? I think I canguess. When you read or hear of a desert, you think of a vast levelplain, covered with sand, and without trees, or grass, or _any_ kind ofvegetation. You think, also, of this sand being blown about in thickyellow clouds, and no water to be met with in any direction. This isyour idea of a desert, is it not? Well, it is not altogether thecorrect one. It is true that in almost every desert there are thesesandy plains, yet are there other parts of its surface of a fardifferent character, equally deserving the name of _desert_. Althoughthe interior of the great Saara has not been fully explored, enough isknown of it to prove that it contains large tracts of mountainous andhilly country, with rocks and valleys, lakes, rivers, and springs.There are, also, fertile spots, at wide distances from each other,covered with trees, and shrubs, and beautiful vegetation. Some of thesespots are small, while others are of large extent, and inhabited byindependent tribes, and even whole kingdoms of people. A fertile tractof this kind is called an oasis; and, by looking at your map, you willperceive that there are many oases in the Saara of Africa.
Of a similar character is the Great American Desert; but its surface isstill more varied with what may be termed "geographical features."There are plains--some of them more than a hundred miles wide--where youcan see nothing but white sand, often drifting about on the wind, andhere and there thrown into long ridges such as those made by asnowstorm. There are other plains, equally large, where no sandappears, but brown barren earth utterly destitute of vegetation. Thereare others, again, on which grows a stunted shrub with leaves of a palesilvery colour. In some places it grows so thickly, interlocking itstwisted and knotty branches, that a horseman can hardly ride throughamong them. This shrub is the _artemisia_--a species of wild sage orwormwood,--and the plains upon which it grows are called by the hunters,who cross them, the _sage prairies_. Other plains are met with thatpresent a black aspect to the traveller. These are covered with lava,that at some distant period of time has been vomited forth from volcanicmountains, and now lies frozen up, and broken into small fragments likethe stones upon a new-made road. Still other plains present themselvesin the American Desert. Some are white, as if snow had fallen freshlyupon them, and yet it is not snow, but salt! Yes; pure white salt--covering the ground six inches deep, and for fifty miles in everydirection! Others, again, have a similar appearance; but instead ofsalt, you find the substance which covers them to be soda--a beautifulefflorescence of soda!
There are mountains, too--indeed, one-half of this Desert is verymountainous; and the great chain of the Rocky Mountains--of which youhave no doubt heard--runs sheer through it from north to south, anddivides it into two nearly equal parts. But there are other mountainsbesides these; mountains of every height, and sometimes in their shapeand colour presenting very striking and singular appearance. Some ofthem run for miles in horizontal ridges like the roofs of houses, andseemingly so narrow at their tops that one might sit astride of them.Others, again, of a conical form, stand out in the plain apart from therest, and look like teacups turned upside down in the middle of a table.Then there are sharp peaks that shoot upward like needles, and othersshaped like the dome of some great cathedral--like the dome of SaintPaul's. These mountains are of many colours. Some are dark, ordark-green, or blue when seen from a distance. They are of this colourwhen covered by forests of pine or cedar, both of which trees are foundin great plenty among the mountains of the Desert.
There are many mountains, where no trees are seen, nor any signs ofvegetation along their sides. Huge naked rocks of granite appear piledupon each other, or jutting out over dark and frowning chasms. Thereare peaks perfectly white, because they are covered with a thick mantleof snow. These can always be seen from the greatest distance, as thesnow lying upon them all the year without melting proves them to be ofvast elevation above the level of the sea. There are other peaks almostas white, and yet it is not with snow. They are of a milky hue, andstunted cedar-trees may be seen clinging in seams and crevices alongtheir sides. These are mountains of pure limestone, or the white quartzrock. There are mountains, again, upon which neither tree nor leaf isto be; seen; but, in their stead, the most vivid colours of red andgreen and yellow and white, appearing in stripes along their sides, asthough they had been freshly painted. These stripes mark the strata ofdifferent coloured rocks, of which the mountains are composed. Andthere are still other mountains in the Great American Desert, to startlethe traveller with their strange appearance. They are those thatglitter with the mica and selenite. These, when seen from a distanceflashing under the sun, look as though they were mountains of silver andgold!
The rivers, too. Strange rivers are they. Some run over broad shallowbeds of bright sand. Large rivers--hundreds of yards in width, withsparkling waters. Follow them down their course. What do you find?Instead of growing larger, like the rivers of your own land, they becomeless and less, until at length their waters sink into the sands, and yousee nothing but the dry channel for miles after miles! Go still fartherdown, and again the water appears, and increases in volume, until--thousands of miles from the sea--large ships can float upon their bosom.Such are the Arkansas and the Platte.
There are other rivers that run between bleak, rocky banks--banks athousand feet high, whose bald, naked "bluffs" frown at each otheracross the deep chasm, in the bottom of which roars the troubled water.Often these banks extend for hundreds of miles, so steep at all pointsthat
one cannot go down to the bed of their stream; and often--often--the traveller has perished with thirst, while the roar of their waterwas sounding in his ears! Such are the Colorado and the Snake.
Still others go sweeping through the broad plains, tearing up the claywith their mighty floods, and year after year changing their channels,until they are sometimes an hundred miles from their ancient beds. Herethey are found gurgling for many leagues under ground--under vast raftsformed by the trees which they have borne downward in their current.There you find them winding by a thousand loops like the sinuosities ofa great serpent, rolling sluggishly along, with waters red and turbid asthough they were rivers of blood! Such are the Brazos and the RedRiver.
Strange rivers are they that struggle through the mountains, andvalleys, and plateau-lands of the Great American Desert.
Not less strange are its lakes. Some lie in the deep recesses of hillsthat dip down so steeply you cannot reach their shores; while themountains around them are so bleak and naked, that not even a bird everwings its flight across their silent waters. Other lakes are seen inbroad, barren plains; and yet, a few years after, the traveller findsthem not--they have dried up and disappeared. Some are fresh, withwaters like crystal--others brackish and muddy--while many of them aremore salt than the ocean itself.
In this Desert there are springs--springs of soda and sulphur, and saltwaters; and others so hot that they boil up as in a great caldron, andyou could not dip your finger into them without scalding it.
There are vast caves piercing the sides of the mountains, and deepchasms opening into the plains--some of them so deep, that you mightfancy mountains had been scooped out to form them. They are called"barrancas." There are precipices rising straight up from the plains--thousands of feet in height--and steep as a wall; and through themountains themselves you may see great clefts cut by the rivers, asthough they had been tunnelled and their tops had fallen in. They arecalled "canons." All these singular formations mark the wild region ofthe Great American Desert.
It has its denizens. There are oases in it; some of them large, andsettled by civilised men. One of these is the country of New Mexico,containing many towns, and 100,000 inhabitants. These are of theSpanish and mixed Indian races. Another oasis is the country around theGreat Salt and Utah Lakes. Here is also a settlement, established in1846. Its people are Americans and Englishmen. They are the Mormons;and, although they dwell hundreds of miles from any sea, they seemlikely to become a large and powerful nation of themselves.
Besides these two great oases, there are thousands of others, of allsizes--from fifty miles in breadth, to the little spot of a _few_ acres,formed by the fertilising waters of some gurgling spring. Many of theseare without inhabitants. In others, again, dwell tribes of Indians--some of them numerous and powerful, possessing horses and cattle; whileothers are found in small groups of three or four families each,subsisting miserably upon roots, seeds, grass, reptiles, and insects.In addition to the two great settlements we have mentioned, and theIndians, there is another class of men scattered over this region.These are white men--hunters and trappers. They subsist by trapping thebeaver, and hunting the buffalo and other animals. Their life is onecontinued scene of peril, both from the wild animals which theyencounter in their lonely excursions, and the hostile Indians with whomthey come in contact. These men procure the furs of the beaver, theotter, the musk-rat, the marten, the ermine, the lynx, the fox, and theskins of many other animals. This is their business, and by this theylive. There are forts, or trading posts--established by adventurousmerchants--at long distances from each other; and at these forts thetrappers exchange their furs for food, clothing, and for the necessaryimplements of their perilous calling.
There is another class of men who traverse the Great Desert. For manyyears there has been a commerce carried on between the oasis of NewMexico and the United States. This commerce employs a considerableamount of capital, and a great number of men--principally Americans.The goods transported in large wagons drawn by mules or oxen; and atrain of these wagons is called a "caravan." Other caravans--Spanishones--cross the western wing of the Desert, from Sonora to California,and thence to New Mexico. Thus, you see, the American Desert has itscaravans as well as the Saara of Africa.
These caravans travel for hundreds of miles through countries in whichthere are no inhabitants, except the scattered and roving bands ofIndians; and there are many parts on their routes so sterile, that noteven Indians can exist there.
The caravans, however, usually follow a track which is known, and wheregrass and water may be found at certain seasons of the year. There areseveral of these tracks, or, as they are called, "trails," that crossfrom the frontier settlements of the United States to those of NewMexico. Between one and another of these trails, however, stretch vastregions of desert country--entirely unexplored and unknown--and manyfertile spots exist, that have never been trodden by the foot of man.
Such, then, my young friend, is a rough sketch of some of the moreprominent features of the Great American Desert.
Let me conduct you into it, and show you--from a nearer view--some ofits wild but interesting aspects. I shall not show you the wildest ofthem, lest they might terrify you. Fear not--I shall not lead you intodanger. Follow me.