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Show 236 TEAVELS AND ADVENTUEES IN THE FAE WEST. from them. We also passed six deserted wagons, chairs, tables, and feather beds which were left on the road in greater quantities than on the first desert. At noon we arrived at Bitter Springs, the grounds about which are strewn with dead animals, and the polluted atmosphere at this time, one o'clock, P. M., ranges at 95° in the shade of our wagons, and is nearly unbearable. This is a howling, barren wilderness; not a single tree or shrub for the last fifty miles, nor is there one in sight now. I did not observe during the last day^s travel, a lizard or any sign of animal or insect life. There was plenty of food for wolves, but they dare not venture so far from water. These springs are not bitter, but possess a brackish taste. There are small springs in different places; the largest admitted one horse at a time to drink, the rest would have to wait until the water was replenished from the earth. While I write of the sterile and barren desert, over which I have travelled, I cannot but contemplate with admiration the goodness of the Almighty, in placing at intervals, food and water for the sustenance of our animals. Along the whole road there is not a blade of grass for a distance of fifty miles; but in the immediate vicinity of this spring, there are hundreds of acres of the best quality of bunch grass; there is, apparently, the same sandy barren soil, not deriving any nourishment from the spring, which is a mile away. Without the watchful care of Divine Providence, man would be unable successfully to traverse these deserts. June Mh.-We left camp at 5£ P. M., and camped at |
