this.

By daybreak we were again on the march, and riding up the banks of the
San Carlos.

We had now entered the great desert which stretches northward from the
Gila away to the head waters of the Colorado. We entered it without a
guide, for not one of the band had ever traversed these unknown regions.
Even Rube knew nothing about this part of the country. We were without
compass, too, but this we heeded not. There were few in the band who
could not point to the north or the south within the variation of a
degree: few of them but could, night or day, tell by the heavens within
ten minutes of the true time. Give them but a clear sky, with the signs
of the trees and rocks, and they needed neither compass nor chronometer.
A life spent beneath the blue heavens of the prairie uplands and the
mountain parks, where a roof rarely obstructed their view of the azure
vaults, had made astronomers of these reckless rovers.

Of such accomplishments was their education, drawn from many a perilous
experience. To me their knowledge of such things seemed instinct.

But we had a guide as to our direction, unerring as the magnetic needle:
we were traversing the region of the "polar plant," the planes of whose
leaves, at almost every step, pointed out our meridian. It grew upon
our track, and was crushed under the hoofs of our horses as we rode
onward.

We travelled northward through a country of strange-looking mountains,
whose tops shot heavenward in fantastic forms and groupings. At one
time we saw semi-globular shapes like the domes of churches; at another,
Gothic turrets rose before us; and the next opening brought in view
sharp needle-pointed peaks, shooting upward into the blue sky. We saw
columnar forms supporting others that lay horizontally: vast boulders of
trap-rock, suggesting the idea of some antediluvian ruin, some temple of
gigantic Druids!

Along with singularity of formation was the most brilliant colouring.
There were stratified rocks, red, white, green, and yellow, as vivid in
their hues as if freshly touched from the palette of the painter.

No smoke had tarnished them since they had been flung up from their
subterranean beds. No cloud draped their naked outlines. It was not a
land of clouds, for as we journeyed amongst them we saw not a speck in
the heavens; nothing above us but the blue and limitless ether.

I remembered the remarks of Seguin.

There was something inspiriting in the sight of these