We were out of the dreadful sands and shadows of Death Valley, its
exhausting phantoms, its salty columns, bitter lakes and wild, dreary
sunken desolation. If the waves of the sea could flow in and cover its
barren nakedness, as we now know they might if a few sandy barriers were
swept away, it would be indeed, a blessing, for in it there is naught of
good, comfort or satisfaction, but ever in the minds of those who braved
its heat and sands, a thought of a horrid Charnel house, a corner of the
earth so dreary that it requires an exercise of strongest faith to
believe that the great Creator ever smiled upon it as a portion of his
work and pronounced it "Very good." We had crossed the great North
American Continent, from a land of plenty, over great barren hills and
plains, to another mild and beautiful region, where, though still in
winter months, we were basking in the warmth and luxuriance of early
summer. We thought not of the gold we had come to win. We were dead
almost, and now we lived. We were parched with thirst, and now the
brightest of crystal streams invited us to stoop and drink. We were
starved so that we had looked at each other with maniac thoughts, and
now we placed in our mouth the very fat of the land. We had seen our
cattle almost perishing; seen them grow gaunt and tottering; seen them
slowly plod along with hanging heads and only the supremacy of human
will over animal instinct had kept them from lying down never to rise
again.
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