SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
315 
species of the arundo bambos, and sand grass. Ponds of salt 
water occasionally occur, around which there is a scanty 
supply of coarse vegetation. Over these dreadful wastes— 
scathed of God—is however everywhere found a scanty 
supply of the wild squash—the cucumis colocyntkis , which 
serves only to tantalize the perishing traveller with the 
remembrance of fruitful fields and pleasant homes. In some 
places this fruit is even abundant; but the pulp when ripe is 
a powerful drastic medicine, and when green, furnishes a 
poor apology for food to the starving emaciated wanderer. I 
was informed that the Paiuches Indians eat it when in the 
unripe state, which is probably true ; for I saw, at different 
points, great numbers of the pods or ^hells scattered around 
their deserted fires.” 
“ In journeying down the Colorado one finds a few spots to 
which travellers have given names. The wayfarer descends 
from the mouth of Green River, or Sheetskadee, to a spot 
called Santa Clara, where a little herbage and water are 
found. Near this point the banks rise, and the river is buried 
in deep and roaring chasms. The traveller ascends therefore 
till he reaches another point called the Salt Mountain, and 
thence descends to another place of encampment called las 
Vegas, where there are about one hundred acres of salt grass. 
There a desolate plain commences, which extends about one 
hundred miles, partially covered with loose sand, piled into 
ridges curiously waved over the general surface, and in the 
ravines, whirled by the winds into a great variety of fantastic 
forms. These ravines are very numerous and deep ; very 
difficult to ascend and descend ; mere parched caverns, into 
which the drifting sands are driven by the heated winds. On 
all this plain there is no vegetation except a little salt grass 
on the margins of a few stagnant pools of brackish and sul¬ 
phurous waters.” 
When Doctor Lyman passed this desert, the sands were 
drifting hideously, and he was only guided in the right path 
across, by the carcasses of the horses which had perished in 
