We all confess to a gratified thrill at the thought of "camping out." Once we made twenty-five miles in a day, and once we made forty miles (through the Great American Desert), and ten miles beyond--fifty in all -- in twenty-three hours, without halting to eat, drink or rest.

To stretch out and go to sleep, even on stony and frozen ground, after pushing a wagon and two horses fifty miles, is a delight so supreme that for the moment it almost seems cheap at the price.
We camped two days in the neighborhood of the "Sink of the Humboldt." We tried to use the strong alkaline water of the Sink, but it would not answer.

It was like drinking lye, and not weak lye, either.

It left a taste in the mouth, bitter and every way execrable, and a burning in the stomach that was very uncomfortable.

We put molasses in it, but that helped it very little; we added a pickle, yet the alkali was the prominent taste and so it was unfit for drinking.
The coffee we made of this water was the meanest compound man has yet invented.