Note 83 — XXIII THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T KEEP SUNDAY

Here, as in several other stories in this volume, is a touch of the arid character of the Southwest. The country is always so dry that irrigation is necessary in farming, and in very bad years the streams have not water even for that. The Rio Grande itself frequently disappears in September between certain points in its course in sandy New Mexico; and within ten miles below Isleta I have seen its bed bone-dry. Ignorance of this fact has caused serious blunders on the part of historians unfamiliar with the country of which they wrote.