The Iola register., 1891-07-17

to perish from tnlfst. SOmeDouy vi
something-it matters not who OF
what-''put up the STUFF as the boys
say, and the members of the expedi-
ton were selected for their various
qualifications or disqualifications.
The usual amount of delays were
experienced in getting ready, but on
New Years day big freight wagon
drawn by eight horses, train OF pack
laden burros, and number of men on
horseback left San Bernandino for the
north to cross the Mohave desert to
Death Valley two hundred miles
away. In one week the Atlantic and
Pacific Railway was crossed at Dag
get station. Here began the serious
work. Barrels were fitted up on franz
es outside of the wagon bed with water
and casks lashed on the backs OF
burros for it was eighty miles to the
next springs.
Speaking of the burros, the Mexi-
can donkey is an interesting though
not very intellectual beast. We were
afflicted with an especially depraved
and unregenerate lot. The task of
naming them was the cause of much
discussion, but they were in the course
of time all fitted out. There were
Sarah Bernhardt, Fay Templeton,
George Francis Train, Herr Most and
others. There was one pair that the
other burros would not associate with.
These two seemed to be the sole pro-
prietors of an immensely vacant and
meaningless bray. A bright thought
worked its way into my head, and
with tears in my eyes beseeched the
chief of the expedition to allow me to
christen these darlings. The hard.
hear ted man was moved by my artless
manner and gave his assent and there
after when anything went wrong with
the pack train Jerry Simpson and
Mrs. Lease were sure to he the targets
of shower ofmaledictions from every
body within reach.
But enough of burros.
The march was continued day after
day and on the twentieth of January
the tired men and animals surmount-
ing a great divide above the "wash of
the Amargosa" saw stretched before
them to the north great depression
i'm the earth forty miles long and fif.
teen wide-the bottom as white as
snow, the sides of precipitous red and
brown mountains 10000 feet high.
Over all hung dim gray haze. The
silence was awful, and nowhere was
to be found a sign of animal or vege-
table life. We had reached Death
Valley at last, and down to the bot
tom we went, below the level of the
sea, over long stretches of salt hum
mocks and ground like dough which
would break and let the horses feet
down into Shiny alkali paste.
In the course of several weeks the
entire valley was covered by the ex-
pedition, water having been found IN
several places in the surrounding
Then months were spent t
in the valley of the Armagosa-the
and orneriest river in the
United States, flowing more under
than above the ground, and its waters
10 poisonous from the vile salts and
,odas they contain that even famish-
ng mule will not drink it.
We found two or three white men
n this country who have married In
liam squaws and have lived apart
rom the world for many years. They
re not such bad fellows as one might !
hink.
From the Amargosa to the Charles |
on Mountains and Ash Meadows in |
Nevada and thence back to Death |
7 alley and the Panimint mountains |
he expedition dragged itself along
md is now scattered everywhere, the
'reater portion being in the Sierra
levadas. I shall try to give the REG
sTER an account of our wanderings
q this region soon.
FRED FUNSTON.