Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
My notes of our ride mention a great water-wheel: sections of porphyritic rocks, with enormous masses of alluvial soil lying upon them: steep ravines: arroyos, cut by mountain-streams, and forests of pine-trees a thoroughly Alpine district altogether. At Regla it became evident that our letter of introduction was not a mere complimentary affair.
Over knolls and washes, across arroyos and gullies they flew, sure-footed and eager, neck and neck, while behind them, drawing nearer and nearer, came the black, with body low, head outstretched and limbs that moved apparently with the timed regularity and driving power of a locomotive's piston rod.
In traveling the first twenty-five miles we crossed the bed of the river twenty-one times; and besides the river there were a great number of creeks and dry arroyos putting in from the surrounding hills, so that we were constantly crossing rough ground.
In such a country every gulch becomes a watercourse almost before the dust is laid, the arroyos turn to rivers and the rivers to broad floods, drifting with trees and wreckage. But the cattlemen and sheepmen who happened to be in Bender, either to take on hands for the spring round-up or to ship supplies to their shearing camps out on the desert, were not worrying about the railroad.
Up and down, over armored ridges and into sandy arroyos, along leaning hillsides and across 'dobe flats, baked brick hard by the sun, the current of travel roared and pounded with reckless disregard of tire and bolt and axle. In the main, it was a motor-driven procession.
We were told that there were in all fifteen of these obstructions to navigate, between Arroyos and the mouth of the Araguaya. The worst was the Inferno, the Guaribas standing second to it in evil reputation.
"Your idea to run 'em aground in their own State?" "Not necessary to go so far. Run them across this State line then catch them off guard in some of these canyons or arroyos. Turn them over to a sheriff who doesn't owe his bread and butter to Moyese. He'll have to hold them till Williams and MacDonald come down to testify.
The country was a frankly monotonous conformation of alternating hills and valleys, "divides" and "draws," with wide flats near the creeks. Gulches, more or less deep, down the valley-lines of the draws, and traversing the flats to the creeks, the so-called arroyos, were a common physical feature.
On one side of the narrow road billows of monstrous grain undulated to the crest of the low hills, that looked like larger undulations of the soil, furrowed by bosky canadas or shining arroyos. Banks was startled into a burst of professional admiration.
Hummocks would be leveled, washes and arroyos filled, ditches would be made to the company canals, and in place of the thin growth of gray-green desert vegetation with the ragged patches of dun earth would come great fields of luxuriant alfalfa, billowing acres of grain, with miles upon miles of orchards, vineyards and groves.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking