Mono
Lake
lies
in
a lifeless, treeless,
hideous
desert,
eight
thousand
feet
above
the
level
of
the
sea,
and
is
guarded
by
mountains
two
thousand
feet higher,
whose
summits
are
always
clothed
in
clouds.
This
solemn, silent, sail-less sea—this lonely
tenant
of
the
loneliest
spot
on
earth—is
little
graced
with
the
picturesque.
It
is
an
unpretending
expanse
of
grayish water,
about
a
hundred
miles
in
circumference,
with
two
islands
in
its
centre,
mere
upheavals
of
rent
and
scorched
and
blistered lava,
snowed
over
with
gray
banks
and
drifts
of
pumice-stone
and
ashes,
the
winding
sheet
of
the
dead
volcano,
whose
vast
crater
the
lake
has
seized
upon
and
occupied.
The
lake
is
two
hundred
feet deep,
and
its
sluggish
waters
are
so
strong
with
alkali
that
if
you
only
dip
the
most
hopelessly
soiled
garment
into
them
once
or
twice,
and
wring
it
out,
it
will
be
found
as
clean
as
if
it
had been
through
the
ablest
of
washerwomen's hands.
While
we
camped
there
our
laundry
work
was
easy.
We
tied
the
week's
washing
astern
of
our
boat,
and
sailed
a
quarter
of
a mile,
and
the
job
was
complete,
all
to
the
wringing
out.
If
we
threw
the
water
on
our
heads
and
gave
them
a
rub
or
so,
the
white
lather
would
pile
up
three
inches high.
This
water
is
not
good
for
bruised
places
and
abrasions
of
the
skin.
We
had a valuable dog.
He
had
raw
places
on
him.
He
had
more
raw
places
on
him
than
sound
ones.
He
was
the
rawest
dog
I
almost
ever
saw.
He
jumped
overboard
one
day
to
get
away
from
the
flies.
But
it
was
bad
judgment.
In
his
condition,
it
would
have
been
just
as
comfortable
to
jump
into
the
fire.
The
alkali
water
nipped
him
in
all
the
raw
places
simultaneously,
and
he
struck
out
for
the
shore
with
considerable
interest.
He
yelped
and
barked
and
howled
as
he
went—and
by
the
time
he
got
to
the
shore
there
was
no
bark
to
him—for
he
had
barked
the
bark
all
out
of
his
inside,
and
the
alkali
water
had cleaned
the
bark
all
off
his
outside,
and
he
probably
wished
he
had
never
embarked
in
any
such
enterprise.
He
ran
round
and
round
in
a circle,
and
pawed
the
earth
and
clawed
the
air,
and
threw
double
somersaults, sometimes
backward
and
sometimes forward,
in
the
most
extraordinary
manner.
He
was
not
a
demonstrative
dog,
as
a
general
thing,
but
rather
of
a
grave
and
serious
turn
of
mind,
and
I
never
saw
him
take
so
much
interest
in
anything
before.
He
finally struck
out
over
the
mountains,
at
a
gait
which
we
estimated
at
about
two
hundred
and
fifty
miles
an
hour,
and
he
is
going yet.
This
was
about
nine
years
ago.
We
look
for
what
is
left
of
him
along
here
every
day. A
white
man
cannot
drink
the
water
of
Mono Lake,
for
it
is
nearly
pure
lye.
It
is
said
that
the
Indians
in
the
vicinity
drink
it
sometimes, though.
It
is
not
improbable,
for
they
are
among
the
purest
liars
I
ever
saw. [There
will
be
no
additional
charge
for
this
joke,
except
to
parties
requiring
an
explanation
of
it.
This
joke
has received high
commendation
from
some
of
the
ablest
minds
of
the
age.]
There
are
no
fish
in
Mono Lake—no frogs,
no
snakes,
no
polliwigs—nothing,
in
fact,
that
goes
to
make
life
desirable.
Millions
of
wild
ducks
and
sea-gulls swim
about
the
surface,
but
no
living
thing
exists
under
the
surface,
except
a
white
feathery
sort
of
worm,
one
half
an
inch long,
which
looks
like
a
bit
of
white
thread frayed
out
at
the
sides.
If
you
dip
up
a
gallon
of
water,
you
will
get
about
fifteen
thousand
of
these.
They
give
to
the
water
a
sort
of
grayish-white appearance.
Then
there
is
a fly,
which
looks
something
like
our
house
fly.
These
settle
on
the
beach
to
eat
the
worms
that
wash
ashore—and
any
time,
you
can
see
there
a belt
of
flies
an
inch
deep
and
six
feet wide,
and
this
belt
extends
clear
around
the
lake—a belt
of
flies
one
hundred
miles
long.
If
you
throw a
stone
among
them,
they
swarm
up
so
thick
that
they
look
dense,
like
a cloud.
You
can
hold
them
under
water
as
long
as
you
please—they
do
not
mind
it—they
are
only
proud
of
it.
When
you
let
them
go,
they
pop
up
to
the
surface
as
dry
as
a patent
office
report,
and
walk
off
as
unconcernedly
as
if
they
had been educated especially
with
a view
to
affording
instructive entertainment
to
man
in
that
particular
way.
Providence
leaves
nothing
to
go
by
chance.
All
things
have
their
uses
and
their
part
and
proper
place
in
Nature's economy:
the
ducks
eat
the
flies—the
flies
eat
the
worms—the Indians
eat
all
three—the wild
cats
eat
the
Indians—the
white
folks
eat
the
wild cats—and
thus
all
things
are
lovely. Mono
Lake
is
a
hundred
miles
in
a straight line
from
the
ocean—and
between
it
and
the
ocean
are
one
or
two
ranges
of
mountains—yet
thousands
of
sea-gulls
go
there
every
season
to
lay
their
eggs
and
rear
their
young.
One
would
as
soon
expect
to
find sea-gulls
in
Kansas.
And
in
this
connection
let
us
observe
another
instance
of
Nature's wisdom.
The
islands
in
the
lake
being merely
huge
masses
of
lava, coated
over
with
ashes
and
pumice-stone,
and
utterly
innocent
of
vegetation
or
anything
that
would
burn;
and
sea-gull's
eggs
being entirely useless
to
anybody unless
they
be
cooked,
Nature
has provided
an
unfailing
spring
of
boiling
water
on
the
largest island,
and
you
can
put
your
eggs
in
there,
and
in
four
minutes
you
can
boil
them
as
hard
as
any
statement I
have
made
during
the
past
fifteen
years.
Within
ten
feet
of
the
boiling
spring
is
a
spring
of
pure
cold water,
sweet
and
wholesome. So,
in
that
island
you
get
your
board
and
washing
free
of
charge—and
if
nature
had gone
further
and
furnished a
nice
American
hotel
clerk
who
was
crusty
and
disobliging,
and
didn't
know
anything
about
the
time tables,
or
the
railroad
routes—or—anything—and
was
proud
of
it—I
would
not
wish
for
a
more
desirable
boarding-house.
Half
a
dozen
little
mountain
brooks
flow
into
Mono Lake,
but
not
a
stream
of
any
kind
flows
out
of
it.
It
neither
rises
nor
falls, apparently,
and
what
it
does
with
its
surplus
water
is
a dark
and
bloody
mystery.
There
are
only
two
seasons
in
the
region
round
about
Mono Lake—and
these
are,
the
breaking
up
of
one
Winter
and
the
beginning
of
the
next.
More
than
once
(in Esmeralda) I
have
seen
a perfectly blistering
morning
open
up
with
the
thermometer
at
ninety
degrees
at
eight
o'clock,
and
seen
the
snow
fall
fourteen
inches
deep
and
that
same
identical
thermometer
go
down
to
forty-four
degrees
under
shelter,
before
nine
o'clock
at
night.
Under
favorable
circumstances
it
snows
at
least
once
in
every
single
month
in
the
year,
in
the
little
town
of
Mono.
So
uncertain
is
the
climate
in
Summer
that
a
lady
who
goes
out
visiting
cannot
hope
to
be
prepared
for
all
emergencies
unless
she
takes
her
fan
under
one
arm
and
her
snow
shoes
under
the
other.
When
they
have
a
Fourth
of
July
procession
it
generally
snows
on
them,
and
they
do
say
that
as
a
general
thing
when
a
man
calls
for
a
brandy
toddy
there,
the
bar
keeper chops
it
off
with
a
hatchet
and
wraps
it
up
in
a paper,
like
maple
sugar.
And
it
is
further
reported
that
the
old
soakers haven't
any
teeth—wore
them
out
eating
gin
cocktails
and
brandy
punches. I
do
not
endorse
that
statement—I simply
give
it
for
what
it
is
worth—and
it
is
worth—well, I
should
say, millions,
to
any
man
who
can
believe
it
without
straining himself.
But
I
do
endorse
the
snow
on
the
Fourth
of
July—because I
know
that
to
be
true.