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