BARNEY STATION. 37 
al plain from El] Paso on the Rio Grande to Apache Pass! 
1 hough the mountains were still close to us, the landscape 
as as dreary as could well be conceived. At the bottom of 
, hollow caused by some broken ground lay the two putrid 
ater-holes or ponds, overlooked by the tumble-down walls of 
coralle and ranche. Before us extended an endless parched- 
1 waste; some places were covered with poor grass, others 
ere perfectly bare, and as the wind swept over them, clouds 
dust were driven along or whirled up into the air like 
ars of smoke. 
From Soldier’s Farewell we marched westward to the next 
fater-hole, ‘ Barney Station” (twenty-one miles), also an 
ninhabited ruin like that we had left, and, if anything, more 
reary. There were no mountains near it, the land looked a 
ead level on every side, and not far distant towards the 
uth lay what the Mexicans call a huge “ playa,” or dry 
ike. Over such a tract you may travel fifty miles in a 
r raight line without crossing a water-course. When it 
ins the water collects in whatever part of the almost 
aathematically level flat happens to be slightly depressed, 
nd here often covers many square miles of land to the depth — 
f a foot, or even less. In such places even the scanty grass 
f the desert will not grow, and the whole earth becomes 
overed, as soon as the rain-water has evaporated, with a 
ard white shining crust, resembling eracked china, thus 
prming a “ playa.” 
‘The water-hole here (Barney Station) was even more dis- 
asting than those we had left, for it served to water, not 
the men and stock of the “bull-trains” and troops 
hich passed through the country, but all the wild animals 
velling within a radius of many miles. Flocks of birds, 
rge and small, kept going and coming all day long. It 
