Freeman wondered where the juice came from.

The floor of the desert seemed for the most part level, though there was a gradual dip towards the east and northeast, and occasionally mounds and ridges of wind-swept dust, sometimes upwards of fifty feet in height, broke the uniformity.

The soil was largely composed of powdered feldspar; but there were also tracts of gravel shingle, of yellow loam, and of alkaline dust.

In some places there appeared a salt efflorescence, sprouting up in a sort of ghastly vegetation, as if death itself had acquired a sinister life.
Elsewhere, the ground quaked and yielded underfoot, and it became necessary to make detours to avoid these arid bogs.

Once or twice, too, Freeman turned aside lest he should trample upon some dry bones that protruded in his path,--bones that were their own monument, and told their own story of struggle, agony, exhaustion, and despair.
None of these things had any depressing effect on Freeman's spirit.
His heart was singing with joy.