l occurs in the shape of a
cluster of low, mound-like hills, whose modest proportions are made
gorgeous and interesting by flakes of mica that glint and glisten in the
sunlight as though the hills might be strewn with precious jewels.

The sun is getting pretty low, and no signs of human habitation anywhere
about; but the wheeling is excellent, and the termination of the
lake-like level is observable in the distance ahead in favor of low
hills. Between my present position and the hills the prospect is that of
continuous level ground. Imagine my astonishment, then, at shortly
finding myself standing on the bank of a stream about thirty yards wide,
its yellow waters flowing sluggishly along twenty feet below the surface
of the desert. The abrupt nature of its banks, and an evidently
unpleasant habit of becoming unfordable after a rain, tell the story of
the abandoned trail I have been following. Whether three feet deep or
thirty, the thick, muddy character of its moving water refuses to reveal,
as, standing on the bank, I ruefully survey the situation.

No time is to be lost in idle speculation, unless I want to stretch my
supperless form on the barren, brown bosom of mother earth, and dream the
dreary visions conjured up by the clamorous demands of unsatisfied
nature; for the sun has well-nigh sunk below the horizon. Clambering down
the almost perpendicular bank I succeed, after several attempts, in
discovering a passage that can be forded, and so, wrapping my clothing,
money, revolver, etc. tightly within my rubber coat, I essay to carry the
bundle across. All goes well until I reach a point just beyond the middle
of the stream, when the bed of the stream breaks through with my weight
and lets me down into a watery cavern to which there appears to be no
bottom. The bed of the stream at this point seems to be a mere thin
shell, beneath which there are other aqueous depths, and fearful lest the
undercurrent should carry me beneath the crust and prevent me recovering
myself, I loose the bundle and regain the surface without more ado. The
rubber covering preserves the clothes from getting much of a wetting, and
I swim and wade to the opposite shore with them without much trouble.

To get the bicycle over, however, looks a far more serious undertaking;
for to break through in this way with a bicycle held aloft would probably
result in getting entangled in the wheel and held under the water. It
would be equally risky to take