94 
POOLS OF WATER. 
thus in the water, and with the wet from the long 
brush soaking our clothes for so many hours ; but 
there was no help for it, as we could not find a blade 
of grass for our horses, to enable us to halt sooner. 
The surface of the whole country was stony and 
barren in the extreme. A mile from our camp, we 
passed a small salt lake on our left ; and at fifteen 
miles more, came to a valley with some wiry grass 
in it. At this I halted, as there was no prospect of 
getting better grass, and the water left by the 
rains was abundant. The latter, though it had only 
fallen an hour or two, was in many places quite salt, 
and the best of it brackish, so thoroughly saline was 
the nature of the soil upon which it had been 
deposited. 
As the afternoon proved fine, I traced down the 
valley we were upon to its junction with a stream 
flowing over a granite bed, about a mile from our 
camp. In this the pools of water were large, deep, 
and brackish, but there was plenty of fresh water 
left by the rains in holes of the rocks upon its banks. 
As, however, there did not appear to be better grass 
upon the larger channel, than in the valley where 
we were, I did not think it worth while to remove 
our camp. 
June 26. — I determined to remain in camp to- 
day to rest the horses, and to enable me to arrange 
their loads, so that Wylie and I might again ride 
occasionally. We had both walked for the last 
eleven days, during which we had made good a 
