ls as much as they will drink.
After a short halt to refresh ourselves, we ride onward.

We have not travelled far before we recognise the appropriate name of
this terrible journey. Scattered along the path we see the bones of
many animals. There are human bones too! That white spheroidal mass,
with its grinning rows and serrated sutures, that is a human skull. It
lies beside the skeleton of a horse. Horse and rider have fallen
together. The wolves have stripped them at the same time. They have
dropped down on their thirsty track, and perished in despair, although
water, had they known it, was within reach of another effort!

We see the skeleton of a mule, with the alpareja still buckled around
it, and an old blanket, flapped and tossed by many a whistling wind.

Other objects, that have been brought there by human aid, strike the eye
as we proceed. A bruised canteen, the fragments of a glass bottle, an
old hat, a piece of saddle-cloth, a stirrup red with rust, a broken
strap, with many like symbols, are strewn along our path, speaking a
melancholy language.

We are still only on the border of the desert. We are fresh. How when
we have travelled over and neared the opposite side? Shall we leave
such souvenirs?

We are filled with painful forebodings, as we look across the arid waste
that stretches indefinitely before us. We do not dread the Apache.
Nature herself is the enemy we fear.

Taking the waggon-tracks for our guide, we creep on. We grow silent, as
if we were dumb. The mountains of Cristobal sink behind us, and we are
almost "out of sight of land." We can see the ridges of the Sierra
Blanca away to the eastward; but before us, to the south, the eye
encounters no mark or limit.

We push forward without guide or any object to indicate our course. We
are soon in the midst of bewilderment. A scene of seeming enchantment
springs up around us. Vast towers of sand, borne up by the whirlblast,
rise vertically to the sky. They move to and fro over the plain. They
are yellow and luminous. The sun glistens among their floating
crystals. They move slowly, but they are approaching us.

I behold them with feelings of awe. I have heard of travellers lifted
in their whirling vortex, and dashed back again from fearful heights.

The pack-mule, frightened at the phenomenon, breaks the lasso and
scampers away among the ridges. Gode has galloped in pursuit. I am
alone.

Nine or ten gigantic colum