In the secluded Jim-Jam Valley of the San Bernardino Mountains there are the most marvelous mirages known to the world. The wonderful mirages of the Mojave Desert have been talked about a great deal, and they are entitled to all the prominence they have had. But those of the Jim-Jam Valley are far more wonderful than these.
It is called Jim-Jam Valley because of the strange things seen there, and I defy any man, however sound of mind he may be, to go in there and not think he has "got 'em" before he gets out.
This valley is about twenty-five miles long by fifteen miles wide. It is uninhabited. It is bordered by the main San Bernardino range on the east, and by a spur of the Sierra Magdalenas on the west. There is no well-defined trail through the heart of it. The valley is a desert. The surrounding mountains are terribly serrated and cut up. The peaks are jagged. Altogether the surroundings are weird and forbidding.
Leaving Fisk's ranch on the trail at the foot of the Sierra Magdalenas, you climb an easy grade to Dead Man's Pass, the entrance to the valley.
Go in, and pretty soon you see lakes, and running rivers, and green borders, and flying water-fowl. Willows spring up here and there, and in the distance you see water-lilies.
What you behold contrasts finely with the rugged mountains, and you are charmed with it, and go on thinking you have struck an earthly paradise. Indian camps appear in view, and little oarsmen propel fantastic crafts upon the waters. Advancing still farther, dimly outlined forms may be seen, and the pantomime reminds you of a strange hobgoblin dance.
Sometimes a storm brews in the valley, and then the scene is all the more terrible. Forked lightning blazes about, and strange, uncouth animals, differing from any you have ever read about, are to be seen there.
These phenomena are seen for a stretch of about fifteen miles, up and down the middle of the valley principally, and they have been viewed by a great many people. They can not understand why the forms of the mirage, if such it may be called, are so much more strange there than on the Mojave Desert.
Everybody is in awe of the valley, and there are mighty few men, however nervy they may be ordinarily, who care to go there a second time.