ake is two hundred feet deep, and its sluggish waters are so strong
with alkali that if you only dip the most hopelessly soiled garment into
them once or twice, and wring it out, it will be found as clean as if it
had been through the ablest of washerwomen's hands. While we camped
there our laundry work was easy. We tied the week's washing astern of
our boat, and sailed a quarter of a mile, and the job was complete, all
to the wringing out. If we threw the water on our heads and gave them a
rub or so, the white lather would pile up three inches high. This water
is not good for bruised places and abrasions of the skin. We had a
valuable dog. He had raw places on him. He had more raw places on him
than sound ones. He was the rawest dog I almost ever saw. He jumped
overboard one day to get away from the flies. But it was bad judgment.
In his condition, it would have been just as comfortable to jump into the
fire.

The alkali water nipped him in all the raw places simultaneously, and he
struck out for the shore with considerable interest. He yelped and
barked and howled as he went--and by the time he got to the shore there
was no bark to him--for he had barked the bark all out of his inside, and
the alkali water had cleaned the bark all off his outside, and he
probably wished he had never embarked in any such enterprise. He ran
round and round in a circle, and pawed the earth and clawed the air, and
threw double somersaults, sometimes backward and sometimes forward, in
the most extraordinary manner. He was not a demonstrative dog, as a
general thing, but rather of a grave and serious turn of mind, and I
never saw him take so much interest in anything before. He finally
struck out over the mountains, at a gait which we estimated at about two
hundred and fifty miles an hour, and he is going yet. This was about
nine years ago. We look for what is left of him along here every day.

A white man cannot drink the water of Mono Lake, for it is nearly pure
lye. It is said that the Indians in the vicinity drink it sometimes,
though. It is not improbable, for they are among the purest liars I ever
saw. [There will be no additional charge for this joke, except to
parties requiring an explanation of it. This joke has received high
commendation from some of the ablest minds of the age.]

There are no fish in Mono Lake--no frogs, no snakes, no polliwigs
--nothing, in fact, that goes to make life desirable. Millions