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Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 83 ways, never dies of thirst. An Indian will enter a desert stretching away for two hundred miles, carrying with him neither food nor water, and yet it is a thing unheard of for an Indian to go mad on the sandy waste, or die of hunger or thirst. God in His kindness and providence has made provision for man and animal, even in the great deserts. There is no desolation of sand so utterly bare and barren that here and there upon its forbidden surface there may not be found patches of the grease-wood, the mesquite and the cactus. Now the cholla, and tuna, and the most of the cacti, bear fruit in season, and from these fruits the Indians make a score of dainty dishes. Even when not bearing, their barks and roots, when properly prepared, will support life. Nor need any-man die of thirst, for the pitahaya and suaharo cacti are reservoirs of water, cool, fresh and plentiful. But then, one must know how to tap the stream. By plunging a knife into the heart, the water begins to ooze out slowly and unsatisfactorily, but still enough comes to save a man's life. Of course, you know that the man familiar with the moods of the desert never travels without a can, matches and a hatchet. When he is running short of water he makes for the nearest bunch of columnar cacti, as the pitahaya and suaharo are called by us. He selects his tree and cuts it down, having already made two fires eiglft or ten feet apart. Then he makes a large incision in the middle of the tree, cuts off the butt and the end, and places the log between the fires, ends to fires. The heat of the fires drives the water in the log to its center, when it begins to flow from the cut already made into his can. It is by this method the Indian and the expert desert traveler renew their supply of water." Communing with myself, on the way to my hotel, I |