g closer as
our water departed on the south, running through the willows,
arrow-weed, and cat-tails. Then the channel opened into Volcanic Lake,
a circular body of water, which is not a lake but simply a gathering
together of the streams we had been losing, and here the water stands,
depositing its mud. All the way across had no depth but a bottomless
mud, so soft it would engulf a person if he tried to wade across.

On the west there was no growth. The shore was nothing but an ash-like
powder, not a sand, but a rich soil blown here and there, building in
dunes against every obstruction, ever moving before the wind. Here
were boiling, sputtering mud pots and steam vents building up and
exhausting through mud pipe-stems, rising a foot or two above the
springs. Here was a shelter or two of sun-warped boards constructed by
those who come here crippled with rheumatism and are supposed to
depart, cured. Here we saw signs of a wagon track driven toward
Calexico, the border town directly north of the lake. The heat was
scorching, the sun, reflected from the sand and water, was blistering,
and we could well imagine what a walk across that ash-like soil would
mean. Mirages in the distance beckoned, trees and lakes were seen over
toward the mountains where we had seen nothing but desert before; heat
waves rose and fell. Our mouths began to puff from the reflected sun,
our faces burned and peeled, black and red in spots. There was no
indication of the slightest breeze until about three o'clock, when the
wind moved gently across the lake.

We had skirted the northern part of the circle, passing a few small
streams and then found one of the three large channels which empty the
lake. As it happened we took the one on the outside, and the longest.
The growth grew thicker than ever, the stream choked down to fifty
feet. Now it began to loop backward and forward and back again, as
though trying to make the longest and crookedest channel possible in
the smallest space. The water in the channel was stagnant, swift
streamlets rushed in from the tules on the north, and rushed out again
on the south. It was not always a simple matter to ascertain which was
the main channel. Others just as large were diverted from the stream.
Twice we attempted to cut across, but the water became shallow, the
tules stalled our boats, and we were glad to return, sounding with a
pole when in doubt.

Then we began to realize that we were not entirely alone in