OF WASHINGTON. 375 



inquire the meaning of this apparition in the midst of the burning 

 desert sands, but plunged onward and downward into the frying 

 pan of the continent, 263 feet beneath the ocean level. 



Away to the south, a glimmering line of water begins to^ ap 

 pear, which keeps even pace with us, mile on mile, but grows 

 ever broader and more distinct, until, finally, there stand out, upon 

 its surface, rocky islets and promontories, and the white sandbanks 

 of the distant shore are reflected from it as in a mirror. At Vol 

 cano Springs, a railroad section station, with two or three ram 

 bling buildings, built mostly of railroad ties, the plain slopes away 

 to the south, a bald sheet of dead clay, like the dried-up bottom 

 of a horsepond in midsummer. Its surface is seamed and streaked 

 with trickling channels of some long forgotten flood, all winding 

 down to meet the line of glistening water. 



It was here the passengers, crowding out onto the platform of 

 the cars, inquired of one of the inhabitants the name of this long 

 and narrow lake which had accompanied us so many miles, and 

 were told, although not one of us believed the tale, there was no 

 water there, but only a mirage of the trembling air on the sun- 

 dried mud. It could not be credited, for looking backward with 

 our own eyes we saw the rippling waves break upon the shores, 

 and the shallow waters growing ever broader as they receded, 

 opening at last between bold rocky headlands into an estuary of a 

 limitless sea, blue as the bay of Naples. But whether a phantom 

 sea or lake of brine, we rolled along its shores some miles further, 

 getting deeper into summer and longing for panama hats, and the 

 brown mud becoming at first heavy and then white as snow, until, 

 at Salton, everything seemed floating in the air, and huge build 

 ings, emitting puffs of steam from every pore, stood resting lightly 

 on the surface of the water, and locomotives with trains of loaded 

 cars came floating inwards bringing salt to add to the snowy piles 

 that lined our track. 



On getting underway again we soon crossed over the valley, 

 heading the lake or mirage, whichever it may be, and sped along 

 over plains white with salt and under the shadow of lofty moun 

 tains crowned with black storm clouds and dusted with snow. 

 Soon we rolled into the cool shade of the palms that cluster about 

 the hotel at Indio, where water, brought down in pipes from the 

 San Bernardino Mountains, makes a green oasis of grass and ver 

 dure. Here we had a dinner long to be remembered. After 

 wards we began the long climb up the slope of the sierra. Sand 

 dunes, with half-buried thickets of desert vegetation, gradually 

 gave way to rocks and cacti with clumps of Yuccas. At last a 

 little station, marked Palm Springs upon its front, was reached, and 

 here a narrow iron track led northwards into some hollow of the 

 mountain, where they say lies hidden an oasis of hotels and palm 

 trees. Soon after leaving this point, the storm in the mountains 



