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A Study in Scarlet - part 2, The Country of the Saints

Chapter 1. On the Great Alkali Plain
In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier against the advance of civilisation. Voice Reading
From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Voice Reading
Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. Voice Reading
It comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys. Voice Reading
There are swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged canons; and there are enormous plains, which in winter are white with snow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali dust. Voice Reading
They all preserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery. Voice Reading
There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. Voice Reading
A band of Pawnees or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their prairies. Voice Reading
The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. Voice Reading
These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness. Voice Reading
In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. Voice Reading
As far as the eye can reach stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. Voice Reading
On the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks, with their rugged summits flecked with snow. Voice Reading
In this great stretch of country there is no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to life. Voice Reading
There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull, grey earth - above all, there is absolute silence. Voice Reading
Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but silence - complete and heart-subduing silence. Voice Reading
It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad plain. Voice Reading
That is hardly true. Voice Reading
Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is lost in the extreme distance. Voice Reading
It is rutted with wheels and trodden down by the feet of many adventurers. Voice Reading
Here and there there are scattered white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull deposit of alkali. Voice Reading
Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. Voice Reading
The former have belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. Voice Reading
For fifteen hundred miles one may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside. Voice Reading

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