s another class of men scattered over this region.
These are white men--hunters and trappers. They subsist by trapping the
beaver, and hunting the buffalo and other animals. Their life is one
continued scene of peril, both from the wild animals which they
encounter in their lonely excursions, and the hostile Indians with whom
they come in contact. These men procure the furs of the beaver, the
otter, the musk-rat, the marten, the ermine, the lynx, the fox, and the
skins of many other animals. This is their business, and by this they
live. There are forts, or trading posts--established by adventurous
merchants--at long distances from each other; and at these forts the
trappers exchange their furs for food, clothing, and for the necessary
implements of their perilous calling.

There is another class of men who traverse the Great Desert. For many
years there has been a commerce carried on between the oasis of New
Mexico and the United States. This commerce employs a considerable
amount of capital, and a great number of men--principally Americans.
The goods transported in large wagons drawn by mules or oxen; and a
train of these wagons is called a "caravan." Other caravans--Spanish
ones--cross the western wing of the Desert, from Sonora to California,
and thence to New Mexico. Thus, you see, the American Desert has its
caravans as well as the Saara of Africa.

These caravans travel for hundreds of miles through countries in which
there are no inhabitants, except the scattered and roving bands of
Indians; and there are many parts on their routes so sterile, that not
even Indians can exist there.

The caravans, however, usually follow a track which is known, and where
grass and water may be found at certain seasons of the year. There are
several of these tracks, or, as they are called, "trails," that cross
from the frontier settlements of the United States to those of New
Mexico. Between one and another of these trails, however, stretch vast
regions of desert country--entirely unexplored and unknown--and many
fertile spots exist, that have never been trodden by the foot of man.

Such, then, my young friend, is a rough sketch of some of the more
prominent features of the Great American Desert.

Let me conduct you into it, and show you--from a nearer view--some of
its wild but interesting aspects. I shall not show you the wildest of
them, lest they might terrify you. Fear not--I shall not lead you into
danger.