The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-07-28

Slumbering flies. Though only four a.
 m, they buzzed and bit with an alacri- ty which gave you miserable forebod- ings of what you might expect at mid day. Though cool enough to invite sleep, yet rest was out of the. question, The flies sang With fiendish persist ence; they Swarmed over and about you. The fly of Egypt-and 1 have a lively acquaintance with that pest--ls but mild nuisance compared with the fly of the Colorado desert. There is no shrinking modesty about the Egyptian plague. but the Egyptian fly has the sense to prefer the society of son or daughter of the soil to that of the stranger. Fascinating as is the per- sonality of the Indian, and congenial as he is to the desert fly, yet that mis- erable pest will gladly betake himself to the person of white man, unbidden and unwelcome. An Indian has no dis like to fly. It can perch on the bridge of his nose, settle about his eyes, and he will hardly deign to brush it off. Therefore the fly, thinking itself so lit- tie of pest prefers the worrying of a white man to the calm indifference of the Indian.
 And what worry a fly can invent! Strong men grow peevish. The ener- vating, life-destroying pest saps the strength of the hardest creature. Big men snap and snarl like peevish child freshly awakened from sleep. If you try to write, the flies buzz before your eyes, or drown themselves In the capa- cious ink well, which has to be con- stantly watered or vinegared. If you try to read, you bang the book at them so viciously as to break the back. If you hold a newspaper, the heat has made it so brittle that in Tapping 1t about 1t breaks into perhaps a dozer pieces, as if you had placed it In an oven to dry and left it there too long You may darken the room, the fly pre- fers to stay in the secluded apartment to the awful sunlight. You go outside, and it appears as if every fly were on the watch to follow you.
 T can stand the heat" many a man will say, "but, oh, these cursed flies. Do they ever sleep-do they ever rest?"
 The desert flies know no rest-and when the vintage is on there they are in their glory. They rise from the grape clusters in huge black buzzing clouds They chase you as a hawk does smaller bird: they bite-for the desert fly does bite till you are almost insane.
 And how does a man feel when he gets up to face the toll of a long day? He has had no rest; there is heavi- ness of his limbs, and he drags himself off to bed, feeling lstless, worn and i, < lo breeze is stirring the topmost twigs Of the high cotton-woods, the birds are singing gayly enough, and a heavy, op- pressive weight hangs over all things animate. Nothing seems palatable. You eat because you have to eat. There Is no relish to anything put be- fore you All you desire is some cool grotto where you may crawl and com plete the day buried in dampness and gloom. You think regretfully and mournfully of beer cellar and you imagine how well cold iced glass of that beverage, the bitterer the better, would go this morning. But the drea- ry round of toll is before you, and you drag yourself to the work.
 But it is in Salton that you feel the desert and see 1t. No trees break the sweep of the hot wind coming from the north, shrivelling and burning all that crosses it's path. No foliage shuts out the rays of the early sun, and when he rises red and angry, casting lurid glare over that endless breadth of sand, you know that the day before you is one to be remembered. By a. m. the thermometer is steadily rising. It has already passed one hundred degrees, and at il a. m on the day I was there it stood at one hundred and twenty two degrees.
 How high will it go?" I asked.
 "Oh, it will easily reach one hundred and thirty degrees replied Mark Sea- yer, "only I wet down the porch and ease her down to one hundred and twenty eight"
 looked with admiration at this son of Wisconsin. He spoke with immeas- urable pride of the Salton heat. In deed. you might have imagined him to be the stoker of the internal regions, who could cool the abode of the damned, and not let them suffer too much--that is if they behaved them- selves and did not give him too much
 
 stifed, and seek the strongest blast of | the scorching air in order to breathe. | Every fifteen minutes you drink water. | It is impossible to sit still. Motion is l imperative. You feel as if you were black instead of a Viking fairness he could personate the devil realistically. 1 Nor does it suffice to quench the thirst. | You are only clad in shirt and trousers, and these garments are fiery hot. l There are shower baths at Salton. If not, how could one sustain life during l this phenomenal weather? And the | water is piped about one quarter of 0 mile. It is advisable to let the water l run for few minutes, for it issues l from the pipe at boiling heat. You 1 kick your boots off and sit in your l clothes They get soaked, it Is true ! but it is a sort of dry soak. It is not 1 actually wet, but trif1e damp. An in- ward and an outward fire seems to con-
 sume you, and you issue from the bath l as if you had been in a heavy rain and l afterward stood before a roaring fire 1 and your clothes were partially dried. A mans true nature comes out iu l this heat. The most generous-natured ! man will drain the last drop of cool 1 lemonade in the jug or watch with | envy the flow Of the cool liquid down | another's greedy throat. The only way to avoid extreme suf-