TO IMPERIAL VALLEY 2']^ 



into the maze, dragging the unwilling animals down 

 impossible banks and hauling them up equal impos- 

 sibilities on the other side, where we took our bear- 

 ings afresh, and repeated. 



Physical exhaustion comes quickly under these 

 circumstances. For a few moments that afternoon I 

 had a sharp realization of peril. A sudden faintness, 

 the result of exertion in that extreme heat (it was 

 nine hours since we had eaten), came over me, and 

 with it the thought of danger, the hopeless danger 

 that cannot be fought. Suppose something occurred 

 to defeat us of the expected supply of water? Was it 

 certain even that we had enough in our canteens to 

 last till we got there? Something might go wrong — 

 anything: what then? How long could I go without 

 water, if by any chance I were left without it? In 

 that fierce heat, and struggling with that terrible 

 country, a few minutes was as long as one could go 

 without drinking. In a flash I saw what would be 

 my condition in a single hour — torture : two hours 

 — delirium : after that raving madness, till agony 

 passed into insensibility, and that into death. 



Let not the reader think that I am overdrawing 

 here. Those who travel the desert in the middle of 

 summer, and on foot {which makes all the difference) , 

 know well enough that to be two or three hours 

 without water brings a man within the grasp of 

 death. In that terrific temperature one's bodily 

 moisture must be constantly renewed, for moisture 

 is as vital as air. One feels as if one were in the focus 

 of a burning-glass. The throat parches and seems to 

 be closing. The eye-balls bum as though facing a 



