New Mexico comes next. We only traversed a corner of this; it was all desert, and from this point, all through Arizona and well into California, there was nothing else as far as the eye could reach on either side but sand, sand, desert sand, and not a drop of water. If I remember right, we were nearly two days and nights traversing it. I was astonished beyond measure; I had read much about the United States, and I knew that there was a desert around Salt Lake, the abode of the Mormons, but I had never heard of any other. When later, both from what I saw and what was told me, I found that a very considerable part of the States is desert, I wondered more that such a great and important fact is not at all known in England, and that none of the numerous writers on America have brought it forward.[5] In the following, I may in one or two cases be open to correction, but substantially I know I am right, for most cases are the result of my own experience. A great, if not the best part of Arizona, Nebraska, Nevada, and Utah are mostly desert. More or less of California and New Mexico are the same. A small part of Daho and Texas may, I believe, be included, but my information on these is from hearsay. There may be much more than the above. I cannot doubt, from what I have seen in the parts I traversed, that there is, but the above is enough to justify my assertion that "a very considerable part of the States is desert." I would I could give a map here of the States with all the deserts painted yellow. No map extant delineates these vast wastes. I am afraid to hazard a guess what proportion the said painted parts would bear to the whole, but enough, I am sure, to make the reader wonder as I did. How enormous these deserts are may be judged of by the fact that the four first states in the list above are together roughly about one third larger than France ... and that the far greater part of them, to say the least, are howling wastes! A great part of these vast tracts are as truly desert as those in Africa. Sand and nothing but sand; water would have no effect as regards fertilization, and, besides, there _is_ no water. But other parts are different. Not more tempting to the eye, what looks like sand has vitality in it. Water produces a wonderful transformation, and crops, trees--everything will grow with its aid. Thus, in this better class of desert and in the favoured spots where water is procurable, the said blank waste becomes a smiling spot. Such is the desert the Mormons have fertilized, such, as a rule, the deserts in California. Much of the splendid fruit that state produces has its birthplace in such localities.