harder to overcome.

A little good wheeling is encountered toward the bottom of the pass, and
then comes an area of wet salt-flats, interspersed with saline
rivulets--those innocent-looking little streamlets the deceptive clearness
of which tempts the thirsty and uninitiated wayfarer to drink. Few
travellers in desert countries but have been deceived by these
innocuous-looking streamlets once, and equally few are the people who
suffer themselves to be deceived by their smooth, pellucid aspect a
second time; for a mouthful of either strongly saline or alkaline water
from one of them creates an impression on the deceived one's palate and
his mind that guarantees him to be wariness personified for the remainder
of his life. Since a certain experience in the Bitter Creek country,
Wyoming, the writer prides himself on being able to distinguish drinkable
water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen,
and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably
tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with.

Soon after noon I reach the village of Kishlag, where a halt of an hour
or so is made to refresh the inner man with tea, raw eggs, and
figs--a queer enough bill of fare for dinner, but no more queer than
the people from whom it is obtained. Some of my readers have doubtless
heard of the Milesian waiter who could never be brought to see any
inconsistency in asking the guests of the restaurant whether they would
take tea or coffee, and then telling them there was no tea, they would
have to take coffee. The proprietor of the little tchai-khan at Kishlag
asks me if I want coffee, and then, in strict conformity with the curious
inconsistency first discovered and spoken of at Aivan-i-Kaif, he informs
me that he has nothing but tea. The country hereabout is evidently the
birthplace of Irish bulls; when the ancestors of modern Handy Andys were