There were surely two camps between this and the little pond John and I found, among the Cabbage trees, and not more than six by ten feet square.  As we worked away at our foot-wear we talked more in an hour than we had in a whole day before.  We were slowly leaving Death Valley behind us with its sad memories and sufferings.  We were leaving behind the dead bodies of several who had traveled with us and been just as strong and hopeful as we.  We had left behind us all in our possession in that terrible spot, and simply with our lives we hoped to escape, and trust to Providence and humanity on the other side.  Arcane now admitted that they could not have got along half as well, if we had not gone ahead and looked out the land.  It was such a gain to know exactly where the next water hole was, so it could be steered for and struggled toward.  He even went so far as to say they would have no chance alone, and that as he now saw the road, he was sure they have would all perished even before reaching as far as this.  We had strong hopes of the morrow, when we would be all rested, all were shod, and would make every footstep count in our western progress.

It seems quite a strange occurrence that the only two storms we had had since we turned westward on this route, Nov. 4th, were snow storms, and that both had come while we were asleep, so that all our days were cloudless.  Sometimes the sun was uncomfortably warm even in the heart of the winter.  One would have naturally expected that the great rainfall all over the California coast in the winter of 1849-50, and the deep snows that came in the Sierra Nevada mountains the same winter, would have extended southerly the few hundred miles that separated the two places.  Modern science has shown the tracks of the storms and partially explains the reasons for this dry and barren nature of this region.  When rains do come they are so out of the regular order, that they are called cloud-bursts or waterspouts, and the washes in the canons and their mouths show how great has been the volume of water that sometimes rushed down the slope.  If clouds at a warm or moderate temperature float against these snow peaks all the water they contain is suddenly precipitated.  The country is an arid one and unless wealth should appear in the shape of mines, the country can never be inhabited.  We considered ourselves very fortunate in finding the little pools and holes of water which kept us alive.  It was not very good drinking water, but to us thirsty folks it was a blessing and we never passed it by on account of any little stagnant bitter taste.  Salt water we could not drink of course, though we sometimes used it to cook with.