Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1894 — THE COCOPAH DESERT. [ARTICLE]

THE COCOPAH DESERT.

A Veritable Valley of Death in South, ern California. For a trip across the Cocopah Desert in southern California, you fill your zinc canteens at the spring in the Canada de las Palmas; then by a gradual descent down the canyon, the heat'noticeably increasing as you descend, you pass out from the cooling shades of the towering Sierra Madres in that veritable “ Valley of Death.” If you are inexperienced, a “ tenderfoot,” never attempt the trip without a guide, and not then between the months of April and October. An Indian will pilot you across for a few dollars, or you may fall in with some old prospector. If so, his first question will be with reference to your facilities for carrying water. There are no landmaks by which to shape your course, so a guide is an absolute necessity. Here and there about the plain are sand dunes, varying in height from Itttle hillocks to sixty feet or more. Lay your course by even the tallest of these and you are lost, for in a few hours it may have entirely disappeared, only to be rebuilded by the wind at right angles to your course several miles away. If you are alone, and inexperienced, your only infallible guides will be the sun and stars; if these are obscured, camp and wait until they reappear, if your water supply will permit; if not, then push on through that scorching sand—and may the Lord , take pity on you. If you are experienced, the rocks and the cactus 1 bushes will tell you which is north and which is south. Opinions differ as to the length of time a man can go without water in that desert and retain his reason, but the maximum limit for one unused to desert travel is eight hours. I know of two leather-lunged old prospectors who were thirty-six hours without water, and yet had sufficient sense and strength to follow their old bell burro, whose animal instinct led them to a water hole hitherto unknown, personally, I have gone twenty-two hours without water there, and then slaked my burning thirst in hot, muddy alkali water that had collected on a bear’s track, and, although I had fought with a big, black mountain tiger for the coveted draught’ it was the sweetest I ever quaffed. There is gold in the mountains, silver, quartz and placets, but there is not sufficient water in the entire town to supply the domestic necessities of an average camp, to say nothing of a stamp mill. There is absolutely no timber, scarcely enough hard wood for camp-fires, and shipping the ore is out of the question, fabulously rich must be the ore that can pay for sacking and packing on burros 100 miles to the nearest railroad station.—[St.-Louis Globe-Demo-crat.