TO IMPERIAL VALLEY 279 



Pushing, hauling, shouting, we somehow got them 

 to scramble up a breakneck place that caved at 

 every step. Then two hundred yards of baked clay, 

 like bricks set obliquely on edge; then down into 

 another ravine and across its piles of sliding rubbish, 

 with another desperate wall to climb. Still one more 

 headlong descent, and one more ladder-like cliff to 

 surmount; next a narrow mesa littered with jagged 

 rocks. And then, stumbling down a last crumbling, 

 precipitous wall, we found ourselves in a cafion that 

 evidently headed at our desired point. 



It was a huge relief. Three hours had been spent 

 over two miles of direct distance. I now once more 

 had a mind that could appreciate the wild features 

 of the region we were traversing. Cliffs, domes, and 

 pillars of clay in strange and vivid colors — yellow, 

 lilac, rose, green, dark red, ochre, light red, purple 

 — are the commonplaces of this locality. On all 

 sides something novel is constantly coming to sight. 

 Great flakes of clear mineral like plate-glass are 

 strewn among the gravel or jut from the sides of 

 canons, and black pottery-like fragments mingle 

 with delicately tinted blocks of stratified rock that 

 is veined and twisted into curios. The place is like 

 a show. I hope some day to return there and look 

 my fill, but I shall not go by the same route. 



Following the narrowing caiion for a mile or more, 

 we came into a little amphitheatre. Here was our 

 water. A prospect shaft had been sunk by some un- 

 lucky miner and had yielded water instead of ore. 

 The horses crowded up and thrice knocked the 

 bucket over as they pushed their muzzles in simul- 



