Even the sand of the desert would have been a welcome sight; a single clump of sage-brush would have fascinated the eye; but this was worse than the desert.

It was abominable, this hideous sink of alkali, this bed of some primeval lake lying so far below the level of the ocean.

The great mountains of Placer County had been merely indifferent to man; but this awful sink of alkali was openly and unreservedly iniquitous and malignant.
McTeague had told himself that the heat upon the lower slopes of the Panamint had been dreadful; here in Death Valley it became a thing of terror.

There was no longer any shadow but his own.

He was scorched and parched from head to heel.