There their eyes had ached with the heat and glare.

They had longed for shade as men had longed of old for the shadow of a rock in a weary land.

In truth they found little shade in the cactus forest, but the green produced the illusion of it.

They expected to find flowing or standing water, but they went on for many miles and the soil remained hard and baked, as it can bake only in the rainless regions of high plateaus.
They found the forest to be fully thirty miles in length and several miles in width.

Everywhere the giant cactus predominated, and on its eastern border they found two Indian men and several women and children gathering the fruit, from which they made an excellent preserve.