A Visit to Lake Maquata. 161 



alniost invariably be obtained by sinking wells in their vicinity at 

 less than twenty feet depth. 



Leaving the belt of mock willows we drove into the hard sun- 

 baked bed of Laguna Maquata proper and struck out straight for the 

 nearest visible water. A mile was traveled in silence, yet another 

 mile, and still a third, and then the truth burst upon us. We were 

 following the deceitful wiles of the ever alluring, ever delusive 

 mirage! We were still, apparently, as far from the edge of the water, 

 which at first appeared scarce half a mile distant, as when we started, 

 and wlien we stopped our team in disgust, the beautiful phenomenon 

 revealed itself to us fully. 



Gradually, like a bank of fog, it receded to tlie southward, and 

 rose above the s.u-rounding banks of the lake. Fantastically shaped 

 rocks seemed to rise up in the baclvground, and a vision of a. city in 

 the desert might well have been imagined. Many a time before had 

 I seen this interesting phenomenon and equally as inviting, myth- 

 ical lakes of water, but never before had I been so thoroughly 

 deceived and misled. Well might a lonely wanderer on the sands 

 of the desert, half crazed by the heat and thirst, be enticed on to his 

 death by such a deception, though in rational moments one acquainted 

 with deatli by the region would not be thus cruelly defrauded. 



The surface of the lake bottom was bare of vegetation, but strewn 

 with fragments of fish bones and fresh water snail shells in countless 

 millions. Now and then a coyote could be seen leisurely trotting 

 along on his way home from dining out, or perhap-i in search of his 

 supper — or both. 



Driving to the westward toward the Peninsula range, we soon 

 left the bed of the lake behind us, and entered a series of sand dunes 

 like those on our ocean beaches, that seemed to border the western 

 shores of the lake far to the southward. Among these sand hills 

 absolutely no vegetation was observed, but now and then fragments 

 of salt water clams or snail shells were found, particularly of the 

 genera venus and ceritliidea — probably the last organic vestiges of 

 the former dominion of the sea over this region. Beyond these sand 

 dunes we reached a mesa-lil^e formation, resembling the famous 

 citrus lands of Southern California. Here on a little rise or prom- 

 inence, near a patch of luxurious gietta grass we decided to camp 

 for the night, and leaving my companion to prepare our evening 

 meal, I started to search for water in the canon a few miles distant. 



It was a little after three in the afternoon when I left the wagon 

 on my self-imposed quest. If water was not found I knew that in 

 the morning we siiould have to retrace our steps to Coyote wells, as 

 our water supply would by that time be exhausted. As we left the 

 bed of the lake we had seen what appeared like water in the same 

 direction as at first observed, but after our experience with the 

 miirage we were naturally skeptical. Near the summit of the Penin- 

 sula range, in one of the long eailons on its abrupt eastern slope, we 



