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Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 123 posed night and day without injury, showing the harm less character of the climate, in striking contrast with that of the Madeira and Canary Island where leather molds, salts deliquice, unprotected metal rusts, botani cal specimens spoil and musical instruments cannot be kepi in tune. Mulberry trees in Italy and Southern France require constant care and vigilance, but here, once planted, they demand no further attention. There are here stretches of land where in the dry, hot and rari-fied air meats, eggs, fish and fowl remain untainted for days. Back of the ancient and historic town of Loretto with which I will deal in another place there is a valley of contradiction, full of fascination to the eye to- day, and to- morrow a land of desolation and of horror. It is called " La Pradera Honda, " the deep meadow, from its marvelous wealth and coloring of vegetation at certain seasons and times. The Pradera reposes between two menacing ranges of barren mountains which yet retain the ancient marks left by the waters when the desert was an inland lake. When I saw " La Pradera " a few days ago it was under a shroud of sand, and of ashes that the angry volcanoes of the mountains had, long ago, vomited upon it. Turning to my Mexican companion and extending my hand toward the Prada, I asMd: " Is there any life there ?" " Si, senor," he answered, " there is life there, but it is life that is death to you and me. You see these intermittent and miniature forests of bisnoga and cienga cacti? They shade and protect from the fierce rays of a burning sun the deadly rattlesnake, the horned snake that strikes to kill, the kangaroo rat, the tarantula, the |
