All the wild and lonely places

the long version

""A Land of dreams and nightmares, where the waking world meets the fantastic shapes and bent forms of imagination," describes the remote and harsh landscape of the Anza-Borrego Desert on California's southern border. In a country so sere and rugged, it's easy to imagine that no one has ever set foot there - a wilderness waiting to be explored. Yet for thousands of years the land was home to the Cahuilla and Kumeyaay Indians, who, far from being the "noble savages" of European imagination, served as active caretakers of the land that sustained them, changing it in countless ways and adapting it to their own needs as they adapted to it." "In All the Wild and Lonely Places, author Lawrence Hogue offers a portrait of Anza-Borrego and of the people who have lived there, both original inhabitants and Spanish and American newcomers - soldiers, Forty-Niners, cowboys, canal-builders, naturalists, recreationists, and restorationists."--Jacket.