The hours fixed for rest had not passed yet, but the people would not hear of a longer halt. Even the sick stretched out their yellow hands from beneath the canvas roofs and begged us to harness the mules and drive on. Briskly and willingly we moved forward, and to the biting of the wheels on the charred earth were joined the cracking of whips, shouts, and songs; of driving around the burnt tract there was not a word now. Why go around when a few tens of miles farther on was California and its marvellous snowy mountains? We went straight across toward them.
Meanwhile the smoke covered the bright view from us again with a wonderful suddenness. Hours passed; the horizon came nearer. At last the sun went down; night came. The stars twinkled dimly on the sky, but we went forward without rest; still the mountains were evidently farther than they seemed. About midnight the mules began to squeal and balk; an hour later the caravan stopped, for the greater number of the beasts had lain down. The men tried to raise them, but there was no chance of doing so. Not an eye closed all night. At the first rays of light our glances flew eagerly into the distance and—found nothing. A dark mourning desert extended as far as the eye could see, monotonous, dull, defining itself with a sharp line at the horizon; of yesterday’s mountains there was not a trace.
The people were amazed. To me the ominous word “mirage” explained everything, but also it went with a quiver to the marrow of my bones. What was to be done,—go on? But if that burnt plain extended for hundreds of miles? Return, and then seek some miles distant the end of the burnt tract?—but had the mules strength to go back over the same road? I hardly dared to look to the bottom of that abyss, on the brink of which we were all standing. I wished, however, to know what course to take. I mounted my horse, moved forward, and from a neighboring elevation I took in with my eye a wider horizon with the aid of a field-glass. I saw in the distance a green strip. When I reached it, however, after an hour’s journey, the place turned out to be merely a lake along the bank of which the fire had not destroyed vegetation completely. The burnt plain extended farther than vision through the glass. There was no help, it was necessary to turn back the caravan and go around the fire. For that purpose I turned my horse. I expected to find the wagons where I had left them, for I had given command to wait for me there. Meanwhile, disobeying my command, they had raised the mules, and the caravan went on. To my questions they answered moodily: “There are the mountains, we will go to them.”