The mystic mid-region, the deserts of the Southwest . ce at theoases of the desolate region. Here, after acertain manner, they lived and accumulatedmore or less of the things which represented,to the savage mind, wealth. But even herethey were not yet free from their oppressors,who occasionally bore down upon them to givethem battle. In the very heart of the desert, far fromfood or water, these persecuted Indians finallyfound refuge. They learned that their ene-mies dared not brave the perils of the desertwastes, therefore, in times of peace, they car-ried deep into the desert supplies of food
The mystic mid-region, the deserts of the Southwest . ce at theoases of the desolate region. Here, after acertain manner, they lived and accumulatedmore or less of the things which represented,to the savage mind, wealth. But even herethey were not yet free from their oppressors,who occasionally bore down upon them to givethem battle. In the very heart of the desert, far fromfood or water, these persecuted Indians finallyfound refuge. They learned that their ene-mies dared not brave the perils of the desertwastes, therefore, in times of peace, they car-ried deep into the desert supplies of food andwater, the latter in the laree earthen ollas, andcached them in the sands. Each warrior at-tended to the supply for himself and did not store the supplies of the tribetogether, but purposely scattered them. When an attack was made upon them, eachman sought his own cache, and there he stayedtill food and water were exhausted. By thattime the zeal of the foe would have cooled off,no doubt, and they could return in safety totheir Desert Miscellany 199 The Indians thus persecuted ha\e lon^^ sincepassed away, but the story of their tribulationsis brought down to us in those ollas scatt(;r(;dover the burninj^ plain. Before irrigation made habitable a portionof the Colorado Desert, persons who visitedthe dread region came back to civihzationwith strange tales of a phantom ship whichwas seen to sail upon a spectral sea. Some-times this ship took the form of a full-riggedthree-master ; again it was a monster war-ship,with conning-towers and turrets, and greatguns projecting fore and aft. The phantomvessel always appears in a certain portion ofthe desert and, instead of sailing slowly intosight and passing steadily on out of range ofvision, as a well-regulated ship should do, ithas the remarkable faculty of rising suddenlyfrom the mystic sea and as suddenly sinkingout of sight again. When the Imperial settlements were estab-lished in the land of mirages the myster
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectdeserts, bookyear1904
