Two miles and a quarter an hour for ten hours—that
was what we accomplished. It was hard to bring
the comprehension away down to such a snail-pace as
that, when we had been used to making eight and ten
miles an hour. When we reached the station on
the farther verge of the desert, we were glad, for
the first time, that the dictionary was along, because
we never could have found language to tell how glad
we were, in any sort of dictionary but an unabridged
one with pictures in it. But there could not
have been found in a whole library of dictionaries
language sufficient to tell how tired those mules
were after their twenty-three mile pull. To
try to give the reader an idea of how thirsty they
were, would be to “gild refined gold or paint
the lily.”
Somehow, now that it is there, the quotation does
not seem to fit—but no matter, let it stay,
anyhow. I think it is a graceful and attractive
thing, and therefore have tried time and time again
to work it in where it would fit, but could not succeed.
These efforts have kept my mind distracted and ill
at ease, and made my narrative seem broken and disjointed,
in places. Under these circumstances it seems
to me best to leave it in, as above, since this will
afford at least a temporary respite from the wear
and tear of trying to “lead up” to this
really apt and beautiful quotation.
CHAPTER XIX.
On the morning of the sixteenth day out from St. Joseph
we arrived at the entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hundred
and fifty miles from Salt Lake. It was along
in this wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation
of white men, except the stage stations, that we came
across the wretchedest type of mankind I have ever
seen, up to this writing. I refer to the Goshoot
Indians. From what we could see and all we could
learn, they are very considerably inferior to even
the despised Digger Indians of California; inferior
to all races of savages on our continent; inferior
to even the Terra del Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots,
and actually inferior in some respects to the Kytches
of Africa. Indeed, I have been obliged to look
the bulky volumes of Wood’s “Uncivilized
Races of Men” clear through in order to find
a savage tribe degraded enough to take rank with the
Goshoots. I find but one people fairly open to
that shameful verdict. It is the Bosjesmans
(Bushmen) of South Africa. Such of the Goshoots
as we saw, along the road and hanging about the stations,
were small, lean, “scrawny” creatures;
in complexion a dull black like the ordinary American
negro; their faces and hands bearing dirt which they
had been hoarding and accumulating for months, years,
and even generations, according to the age of the
proprietor; a silent, sneaking, treacherous looking
race; taking note of everything, covertly, like all
the other “Noble Red Men” that we (do not)
read about, and betraying no sign in their countenances;
indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless, like
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Roughing It from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
