A Mountaineer*s Opinion

We have been broiled, grilled, and bedevilled for two hundred and fifty miles, over which we have toiled at a tediously slow pace. You cannot trot mules on that trip. Alkali dust, hot sand, prickly cacti, poisonous water, hard marching, have done their worst to us. The jotmdda from Soda Lake to Marl Springs we shall not soon forget : we were very tired. We have seen a queer country. I heard once a quaint description of it from an old mountaineer as I sat at breakfast at Marl Springs. It bordered on the irreverent, but not intentionally. He said ;

" I guess wen this hear old foot-stool was abeout finished, there were some cartloads uv brickbats uv mountings, end shavings uv vegita- tion, end en all-fired-sight uv waste sand, end mortar, on hend ; end the Great Arc/t-e-tect didend kneow zakly what tew dew with it, so he jest dumped it, all of a heap, promiscus ; end this hears the place. [sic]"

Certes we have had a hard trip ; but at its end, I have shown you a superb view^-.- so transcendently superb, that as we stand and gaze upon it, we feel amply recompensed for what we have gone through.

" See Naples and die." Bah ! See the Colorado Valley from the summit of Pah-Ute Hill -.- and you will not want to die.

Buen Camarada a dios.

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