SILVEE MINE. 253 



bring us to our next halting-place Rock Springs. Here we 

 find the only really good water on the entire route ; and it 

 is good water pure, limpid, and cool, and, above all, plenti- 

 ful. We find it in a succession of natural rock tanks, 

 running in a sharpish stream from one to the other of them, 

 but sinking into the sand, directly it is reached, on escaping 

 from the last tank. 



Near Rock Springs is a silver mine, which was found and 

 opened by some adventurous prospectors, and into which they 

 drove a tunnel forty-five feet. Then they were murdered 

 by the Pah-Utes. The charred and smoke-stained ruins of 

 their burned cabin, a heap of ore, and the tunnel, remain 

 mementoes of their hardy enterprise. 



The close of the next day brings us to the summit of 

 Pah-Ute' hill, which we attain without making any great 

 ascent, for it is the edge of the table-land, or mesa, on which 

 we have been travelling all the afternoon ; but had we been 

 coming the other way, we should have found it to be indeed 

 a hill, an acclivity of two thousand eight hundred feet, 

 most of the way so steep as to render it necessary to 

 " double team " to get the waggons up. We find an abun- 

 dance of good grass all round us, but no wood and no water. 

 The nearest water is some miles down-hill, and the mules 

 and horses are driven loose to it by the herders, and then 

 back to feed round our camp all night, under good and 

 sufficient guard. 



Our efficient train-master has taken care that liberal 

 rations for all of that necessary but not inspiring fluid, water, 

 has been hauled in the waggons from Rock Springs, and 

 " bois de vache " has been collected by the teamsters for fuel. 



