Page:Condor13(2).djvu/5

 Volume XIII l[arcl-April, 1911 Number THE OASIS OF THE LLANO By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY WITH ONE PHOTO UR first camp at the foot of the Llano Estacado after a long cold day's drive over the treeless plains was in a warm, sheltered, well-wooded amphitheater at the foot of one of the northward prajections of the Llano wall known as Mesa Pajarito, whose bluff rose four hundred feet above the plain. The mesa was appropriately named as far as its amphitheater went, for, protected from the wind and warmed by the afternoon sunshine, it was ringing with the songs of "pq/aritos", little birds--Mockingbirds and a large supporting chorus. The trees of the amphitheater, dark solid junipers lightened by delicate green feathery mesquites, were spaced with yucca and tree cactus, one grove of which reached above our heads, and which gave the characteristic arid land touch. We looked at the rich vegetation about us with keen interest, for, lying between the bare plains over which we had come and the bare Staked Plains above us, it seemed a veritable oasis. In matter of fact it was a section of a band of vegetation that en- circles part of the Llano separating the two sets of plains, a band of vegetation which owes its existence to the Llano wall. As Dr. Bigelow in his Pacific Railroad report on the botany of the region wrote---"It is to be remarked that the wind blows with tremendous force over these immense denuded plains, and this, we have reason to believe, is one great cause of the destitution of timber in this region. In confirmation of this opinion is the fact that wherever the least shelter by a bluff or rock is afforded, the modest cedar will rear its head, thankful as it were for this partial protection." The Llano wall besides cutting off the wind that has made fires sweep over the plains affords partial shade, broken soil, and more moisture from both snowy and rain, thus enabling .the ground at its foot to support heavier vegetation and consequently more animal life than the plains. In the same way a canyon cutting through an arid cactus desert may have its