Little Golden America by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 1928-05-13T23:00:00+00:00

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25 The Desert

AMERICA WAS preparing for Christmas. Before the stores of the small towns electric lamps of various colours were already lighted on the cardboard Christmas trees that decorated all the street lamps. The traditional Santa Claus, the kindly Christmas grandfather with a long white beard, was driving through the streets in his gilded chariot. Electric fans scattered artificial snow from the chariot. Choruses of radio angels chanted old English carols. Santa Claus held in both his hands a department store sign which proclaimed: "Christmas Presents on Credit." Newspapers wrote that the holiday trade was better this year than the year before.

The closer we moved in the direction of California, the warmer the sun became, while the sky turned purer and bluer, the more there was of artificial snow, of cardboard fir trees and grey beards, and the more liberal became the credit for Christmas presents.

We crossed the border into Arizona. The keen, strong light of the desert lay on the excellent highway that led to Flagstaff. The obtrusive bill-boards almost disappeared, and only occasionally from behind a cactus or a yellowed tumbleweed emerged an impudent little Coca-Cola placard on a stick. The petrol stations became less and less frequent. But to make up for that, the hats of the rare residents here became broader and broader. Never before had we seen, and probably never again shall we see, such large hats as in Arizona, the land of deserts and canyons.

One can scarcely find anything more grandiose and more beautiful in the world than an American desert. We drove over it for an entire week and never tired of admiring it. We were fortunate. Winter in the desert is like a bright and clean summer, only without the oppressive heat and the dust.

The region into which we drove was utterly wild and desolate. Yet we did not feel that we were cut off from the world. The road and the automobile have brought the desert nearer, have torn off its shroud of mystery, without making it any less attractive. On the contrary, the beauty created by nature was supplemented by the beauty created by the

deft hands of men. Admiring the pure colours of the desert, its complex and mighty architecture, we never ceased to admire the broad even highway with its silvery bridges, its neatly placed water-mains, its mounds and dips. Even the petrol stations which had become boresome in the East and in the Middle West, here in the desert looked like proud monuments to man's might. And the automobile in the desert seemed twice as beautiful as in the city. Its fluent, polished surface reflected the sun; and its shadow, deep and sharply lined, fell proudly on the virgin sands.

Desert roads are indubitably one of the most remarkable achievements of American technique. They are as good as in populated places. The feme neat and clear black and yellow signs reminding you of curves, of narrow places, and of zigzags. The same white signs in a black

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