166 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



the camp is called. A considerable stream here gushes out at 

 the foot of a rugged wall of rock, which rises precipitously to 

 the height of one thousand feet above the plain. We were now 

 as near as we could tell in the State of California, but as the 

 boundary lines of the western divisions of our Union are like 

 the Equinoctial line, purely imaginary, we could form no defi- 

 nite idea as to when we crossed the borders of New Mexico 

 and California. It is doubtful if Uncle Sam's surveyors ever 

 ventured into these wild regions, but I will warrant they were 

 well paid whether they performed their duties or not. By way 

 of parenthesis, I will here mention an instance to show how 

 government employees get through their undertakings. When 

 Utah was surveyed some years since, it was by contract, the 

 contractor being allowed so much per mile for the ground 

 traveled over while running the dividing line between the 

 counties. This person, who was a genius in his line, con- 

 ceived a plan whereby he might travel, in imagination, over 

 the greatest breadth of space with the least possible amount 

 of labor and wear and tear of shoe-leather. The ingenious 

 gentleman and his corps, on arriving at the scene of their 

 labors, would encamp at some fertile oasis and then, with their 

 maps spread out before them, and while seated by their blazing 

 campfires, they would commence their arduous labor of travel- 

 ing over the deserts surrounding them — on paper. Growing 

 weary of one camping place they would move to another, 

 when another string of "magnificent distances" would be 

 successfull}^ surveyed ; and so on, until the territory was laid 

 out into counties, after which they returned home and re- 

 ceived their reward. They were paid as much per mile for 

 their imaginary journej^s as if they had really traveled over 

 and chained the whole distance. These were told me as facts 

 by eye-witnesses of the operations. 



The morning of the 10th came upon us clear and cold, and 

 showed us encamped in a region exceedingly rugged and des- 



