Produced by Keith M. Eckrich and PG Distributed Proofreaders
1903
I confess to a great liking for the Indian fashion of name-giving: everyman known by that phrase which best expresses him to whoso names him.Thus he may be Mighty-Hunter, or Man-Afraid-of-a-Bear, according as heis called by friend or enemy, and Scar-Face to those who knew him by theeye's grasp only. No other fashion, I think, sets so well with thevarious natures that inhabit in us, and if you agree with me you willunderstand why so few names are written here as they appear in thegeography. For if I love a lake known by the name of the man whodiscovered it, which endears itself by reason of the close-locked pinesit nourishes about its borders, you may look in my account to find it sodescribed. But if the Indians have been there before me, you shall havetheir name, which is always beautifully fit and does not originate inthe poor human desire for perpetuity.
Nevertheless there are certain peaks, cañons, and clear meadow spaceswhich are above all compassing of words, and have a certain fame as ofthe nobly great to whom we give no familiar names. Guided by these youmay reach my country and find or not find, according as it lieth in you,much that is set down here. And more. The earth is no wanton to give upall her best to every comer, but keeps a sweet, separate intimacy foreach. But if you do not find it all as I write, think me not lessdependable nor yourself less clever. There is a sort of pretense allowedin matters of the heart, as one should say by way of illustration, "Iknow a man who…," and so give up his dearest experience withoutbetrayal. And I am in no mind to direct you to delectable places towardwhich you will hold yourself less tenderly than I. So by this fashion ofnaming I keep faith with the land and annex to my own estate a verygreat territory to which none has a surer title.
The country where you may have sight and touch of that which is writtenlies between the high Sierras south from Yosemite—east and south over avery great assemblage of broken ranges beyond Death Valley, and onillimitably into the Mojave Desert. You may come into the borders of itfrom the south by a stage journey that has the effect of involving agreat lapse of time, or from the north by rail, dropping out of theoverland route at Reno. The best of all ways is over the Sierra passesby pack and trail, seeing and believing. But the real heart and core ofthe country are not to be come at in a month's vacation. One must summerand winter with the land and wait its occasions. Pine woods that taketwo and three seasons to the ripening of cones, roots that lie by in thesand seven years awaiting a growing rain, firs that grow fifty yearsbefore flowering,—these do not scrape acquaintance. But if ever youcome beyond the borders as far as the town that lies in a hill dimple atthe foot of Kearsarge, never leave it until you have knocked at the doorof the brown house under the willow-tree at the end of the villagestreet, and there you shall have such news of the land, of its trailsand what is astir in them, as one lover of it can give to another.
The Publishers feel that they have been peculiarly fortunate in securingMr. E. Boyd Smith as the illustrator and interpreter of Mrs. Austin'scharming sketches of the "Land of Little Rain." His familiarity with theregion and his rare artistic skill have enabled him to give the veryatmosp