him with but one. And yet it is a land in which polygamy is expressly forbidden by United States law, and where numbers of arrests have been made for violation of that law.

Where religious rites are performed, so mystic and ancient that their meaning is unknown even to the most learned of those who partake in them.

Indeed, the Painted Desert Region, though a part of the United States of America, is a land of peoples strange, unique, complex, diverse, and singular as can be found in any similar area on the earth, and the physical contour of the country is as strange and diverse as are the peoples who inhabit it.

It is a land of gloriously impressive mountains, crowned with the snows of blessing and bathed in a wealth of glowing colors, changing hues, and tender tints that few other countries on earth can boast.

On its eastern outskirt is a portion of one of the largest cretaceous monoclines in the world, and near by is a natural inkstand, half a mile in circumference, from which, centuries ago, flowed fiery, inky lava which has now solidified in intensest blackness over hundreds of miles of surrounding country.

It is a land of mountain-high plateaus, edged with bluffs, cliffs, and escarpments that delight the distant beholder with their richness of coloring and wondrous variety of outline, and thrill with horror those who unexpectedly stand on their brinks.

It is a land of laziness and indifferent content, where everything is done "poco tiempo"—"in a little while"—and where "to-morrow" is early enough for all laborious tasks, and yet a land of such tireless energy, never-ceasing work, and arduous labor as few countries else have ever known.

A land where people live in refinement, education, and all the luxuries of twentieth-century civilization side by side with peoples whose dress, modes of living, habits of eating and sleeping, styles of food and cookery are similar to those of the subjects of Boadicea and Caractacus.

In the Painted Desert Region the root of one dangerous-looking prickly cactus is used for soap, and the fruit of another for food.

Here horses dig for water, and mules are stimulated by whiskey to draw their weighty loads over torrid deserts and up mountain steeps.

It is a land of ruins, desolate and forlorn, buried and forgotten, with histories tragic, bloody, romantic; ruins where charred timbers, ghastly bones, and demolished walls speak of midnight attacks, treacherous surprises, and cruel slaughters; where whole cities have been exterminated and destroyed as if under the ancient commands to the Hebrews: "Destroy, slay, kill, and spare not."

A desert country, and yet, in spots, marvellously fertile. Barren, wild, desolate, forsaken it is, and yet, here and there, fertile valleys, wooded slopes, and garden patches may be found as rich as any on earth.

Where atmospheric colorings are so perfect and so divinely artistic in their applications that weary and desolate deserts are made dreams of glory and supremest beauty, and harsh rugged mountains are sublimated into transcendent pictures of tender tints and ever-changing but always harmonious combinations of color.

A land where rain may be seen falling in fifty showers all around, and yet not a drop fall, for a year or more, on the spot where the observer stands.

A land of sculptured images and fantastic carvings. Where water, wind, storm, sand, frost, heat, atmosphere, and other agencies, unguided and uncontrolled by man, have combined to make figures more striking, more real, more picturesque, more ugly, more beautiful, and more fantastic than those of the angels, devils, saints, and sinners that crown and adorn the ancient Pagan shrines of the Orient and the more modern Christian shrines of the Occident;—a veritable Toom-pin-nu-wear-tu-weep—Land of the Standing Rocks—more gigantic, wonderful, and attractive than can be found elsewhere in the world.

Where sand mountains, yielding alike to the fierce winds of winter and the gentle breezes of summer, slowly travel from place to place, irresistibly controlling fresh sites and burying all that obstructs their path.

A land where, in summer, railway trains are often stopped by drifting sands blown by scorching winds over almost trackless Saharas, and where, in winter, the same trains are stopped by drifting snows blown over the same Saharas now made Arctic in their frozen solitude.

A land where once were vast lakes in which disported ugly monsters, and on the surface of which swam mighty fish-birds who gazed with curious wonder upon the enormous reptiles, birds, and animals which came to lave themselves in the cooling waves or drink of their refreshing waters.

But now lakes, fishes, reptiles, and animals have entirely disappeared. Where placid lakes once were lashed into fury by angry winds are now only sand wastes and water-worn rocks where the winds howl and shriek and rave, and mourn the loss of the waters with which they used to sport; and the only remnants of prehistoric fishes, reptiles, and animals are found in decaying bones or fossilized remains deep imbedded in the strata of the unnumbered ages.