the ethically malodorous transaction already mentioned. Incidentally I continued the ascent of the Twin Peaks, from the top of which is doubtless obtained the finest possible view of the Jordan Valley and Great Salt Lake. To this remarkable body of water a brief reference seems appropriate. It has been so frequently described that it seems proper only to state on the authority of the _American Encyclopedia_ that it contains 22 per cent of Chloride of Sodium (salt), with a specific gravity ordinarily of 1.17, and is probably the purest and most concentrated brine constituting any large body of water on the globe. Having bathed also in the Dead Sea I have found its waters to be equally transparent and about equal in buoyancy, the specific gravity being about the same as that of Salt Lake. The most noticeable difference in effect is the prickling sensation and the smooth oily feeling of the Dead Sea waters, which are attributed to the presence of nearly 3 per cent of Chloride of Calcium; a bitter taste is also imparted by the more than 10 per cent of Chloride of Magnesium. The desire for a rinse in fresh water is strongly felt on emerging from the Palestinian Sea. The warm spring, which as already stated had at one time been pre-empted by Dr. Robinson, was a favorite resort where we occasionally took a plunge. The waters have a temperature of 95 degrees and are impregnated with sulphur. During the summer my companions, Ben and Fred, made a trip to Montana. They assured me that the primary purposes of their expedition were business and seeing the country but who would suppose that they would fail to find the young ladies from whom they had separated at the Parting of the Ways! Later in the season they took the stage for San Francisco and thence sailed for New York via Panama. In the meantime, it became my duty to make a number of excursions, some of which may be of sufficient interest to describe. CHAPTER XXVII THE BOARDING HOUSE TRAIN The boarding house train of the older days was not an institution peculiar to the West alone, for we know that tramp outfits afforded protection to wanderers in ancient times, and even now in the Orient and for an agreed pecuniary consideration the peripatetic traveler may plod along as best he may, or possibly ride at times, and have the dust of the train and the society and fare of the Cameleers. Although more or less familiar also with the mode of travel as seen in the early immigration to the west of Lake Michigan, I had never seen anything of its kind quite so picturesque or that in America brought together so heterogeneous a party of men, as the boarding-house train that I accompanied through the mountains in September, 1866.