154 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



The most difficult ascent between the frontiers and the Pacific 

 is up these blufis. The wagon was drawn by two half-famished 

 Indian ponies, which seemed hardly able to draw themselves 

 up the steep, independent of their wagon, and we did not 

 expect to see them reach the summit. In the dim distance 

 the men looked like pigmies tugging and toiling at the 

 wheels, as they aided their equine comrades up the toilsome 

 ascent. Attaining the summit at last, they fired a volley of 

 shots and gave exultant shouts, to let us poor, belated fellows 

 know that they could go as well without us as in our com- 

 pany, little thinking how soon they would need our assistance. 



Having lost much precious time searching for the lost 

 horse, we finally concluded that the Indians had run it off 

 and eaten it, and resolved to push on. Our cavalcade was 

 two hours in ascending the bluffs. The passengers were 

 obliged to put their shoulders to the wheels of their respective 

 vehicles, in aiding the panting teams up the precipitous, stony 

 steeps which barred our progress, and we were glad when we 

 at last stood secure on the top of the dangerous declivity, in 

 some parts of which the slightest accident would have hurled 

 wagon and team into defiles hundreds of feet below. 



We had an extensive but not inviting prospect from our 

 elevation of the desolate valley beneath our feet, beyond which 

 arose a range of bleak and rugged mountains. We did not 

 stop long to meditate, however, but as soon as the last team 

 was up, struck across the broad desert plateau which lay 

 spread before us : a barren tract of sand and gravel, its appar- 

 ently level outlines occasionally broken by bold, isolated 

 mountains, which arose in dismal grandeur to the height of 

 two thousand feet. I say the plain was apparently level, for it 

 was occasionally broken by yawning chasms where the earth 

 seemed to have been rent assunder by terrific convulsions of 

 nature. One of these chasms, around one end of which the trail 

 passed, was about two hundred feet in width by fifty in depth. 



