THE MIRAGE.
I thought I saw it going out, but was mistaken. I am not prepared yet to say it was not a lake of water or mud, for they say the Salt Springs and the Volcanic Springs of mud are hereabouts. One dares not approach too near the latter. It spreads itself out over many acres and maybe many miles. If it is dangerous to explore, who knows but the so-called mirage is a real lake of mud and water! But there it is out a few miles from the railroad, and for miles you can see it. You see distinctly the shadows from the other bank and little knolls and islands, all through it, cast their shadows distinctly on the face of the water. Yet they say it is all a delusion, there is no water there! Maybe so, but I am a skeptic.
In a former letter I spoke of the four wire fences on either side of the road and suggested that it was more than 3,000 miles long; but I discovered in the Colorado desert, which I passed at night while going, there is no fence for hundreds of miles, nothing but bare sand, and of course, there are no cattle to get on the track.