ssion would be
found; but every rock that we came to was most eagerly scrutinized, for
on any one of them might we find the King's symbol engraved.

For two or three days we had been travelling through a region very wild
and desolate. Far away along the western horizon rose a range of
mountains whose bare peaks cut a jagged line along the sky. The country
between us and these far-away mountains was made up of many parallel
ranges of rocky hills; which ranges were separated by broad, shallow
valleys, where cactus and sage-brush covered the dry ground thickly; and
the only trees that broke this dreary monotony were pita-palms, the most
dismal thing in all created nature to which the name of a tree ever has
been given by man. There was no trail, and travelling through this
tangle of briers was very difficult. All of Rayburn's skill, which long
practice had developed to a high degree, was required to enable us to
pick a way through so thorny a wilderness. At times the Indians with
their _machetes_, and Dennis with his axe, had to cut a path for us; and
despite all our care, our own hands were cut and torn, and the legs of
our poor beasts were red with blood.

The deadly dryness of this arid waste added to our discomfort. A strong
dry wind blew steadily from the north, building up out of fine dust
which was over all the surface of the baked ground little
whirl-winds--_remolinos_, as the Mexicans call them--which went dancing
down the valleys as though they were ghostly things; and occasionally,
when one of these struck us, we were covered with a prickly dust that
fairly burned our skins. What water we got was to be had only by digging
in the _arroyos_ which traversed the centre of each valley
longitudinally; and although this water always was muddy, and had a
strongly alkaline taste, it is the only thing that I remember with
pleasure in all that weary laud. Of animal life there was nothing to be
seen, save a-plenty of rattlesnakes; and a few great buzzards which
wheeled above us from time to time as though with the intention of
keeping track of us until we should fall down and die of thirst and
weariness, and they should be able to feast upon us at their ease.

At the end of the third day of this dreary travelling we had come close
to the great western range of mountains, and our camp that night was
made in the mouth of a little valley that opened from among the
foot-hills. The night before we had made a dry camp, and for