Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ... Fires were made from the scant fuel of the desert--the grease-brush--supper was cooked and eaten with little or nothing to drink, and then all prepared for the most pitiful experience that comes to the traveler, the passing of a night in a dry camp--a camp without water--a camp in which the cattle bawl, the men toss about, and mothers with DEATH VALLEY, NEAR EMIGRANTS' LAST CAMP. breaking hearts vainly strive to soothe the little ones wailing for want of drink. Wretched as was that last camp, its sufferings were but the prelude to the terrors of the coming day. With the first streak of light, the search for water and a pass'into the snow-capped range in the west were sought for. It was a hurried search from the first, a search that under the smiting rays of the sun quickly became feverish and at last delirious. Abandoning camp and wagons in their frenzy, the party separated, and in groups spread out to the north and the south along the face of the Panamints, walking over sand so hot that even the desert Arab, inured to its terrors, wraps his boots in sacks.when obliged to cross it at mid-day; over a marsh, covered with a crust through which the foot breaks to sink in corroding brine; climbing up gulches where the black rocks seared their hands and the stirring of the air was like a blast of flame. There were thirty souls in that party, of whom perhaps a dozen got beyond the Panamints. Of this number, a man named Towne, with his wife and one or two others, reached the Argus Range, and camped there while they killed a couple of oxen and dried the meat, saving one animal that Mrs. Towne might ride it. Bones of men who had tried to follow them across the Slate Range, but were unable to do so, were afterward found by prospectors. Sidney P....
