Colorado River

regard as inevitable truly we looked and are a forlorn spectacle and we feel i am sure worse than we look with all this there has been no useless complaining

no murmuring and with all our privations greater than i care to enumerate or even to think about we are none of us ill though a good many feel the effects of their hardships and are weakened by them john stevens walked all the way from the last pimos village and declares he never felt better henry mallory bob layton and i have done almost as much walking and are perfectly well all along the road we have been told we could trade with the yumas here but a few pumpkins seem to be all they had at this season and as our provisions were at the lowest ebb we left for the crossing of the colorado we had the use of a boat in the crossing which belonged to a mr harris who came from texas near houston it was really a large wagon body made into a scow and very useful we found it mr harris treated us with the greatest kindness and aided us with provisions to the best of his abilities and we most sincerely wished him and his amiable wife all happiness and comfort we found lieutenant commander coates most kind and hospitable with the aid of his sergeant's boat a wagon body called we crossed with everything in two days i found the indians who swam our mules the fastest and most powerful swimmers i ever saw being able to swim round the horses and guide them with readiness and facility that astonished us all they swim over-handed i could find no one willing to sell or trade horses and we are about to start on this much heard of and much dreaded desert having lost two mules which were drowned after the company had crossed they returned to drink and losing footing could not regain it and had not sufficient strength to battle against the current last evening i was invited to take supper with lieutenant coates which i greatly enjoyed for seldom have i eaten with such an appetite and i found the beefsteak excellent after being without meat for so long a time for some weeks we have had nothing but an occasional partridge meat in the accepted sense of the word we had only eaten twice since we left altar september twelfth to date october sixteenth living on beans a little rice and as luck would have it sixteen pounds of flour we bought from mr stevenson at the hot springs lieutenant engineer whipple now making observations at the junction of the gila and colorado rivers was very kind to me and this evening colonel thorne came up with us we have been expecting this for some time colonel collins the collector from san francisco treated us with great courtesy and i shall reluctantly bid these gentlemen good-bye and start across the desert with forty-six men half mounted one quarter the rations we should have had mules jaded but the men thank god all in good health october seventeenth we went only two miles to our first camp but to-day came twelve up the river through a cottonwood bottom on the road we heard that captain thorne had been drowned the canoe in which he was making his last trip was capsized and one of the mexicans who could not swim seized him in such a manner that he could not shake him off nor hold him so as to save him and they went down together so ends the life of an officer of distinction whose quiet gentlemanly manner won from me my admiration and good fellowship during the few hours of intercourse

we had enjoyed we passed one or two indian huts all yuma's they were scarcely friendly and our trading was very limited i saw three

about to cross the river here like the ohio when it has low banks but muddy they had a float of dried rushes on which they put their few garments the two men stripped without hesitation but the squaw seemed a good deal put out at our presence she commenced undoing her serape two or three times eventually with a laugh and joke with her companions she waded into the muddy stream until the water nearly touched her garment and then with great rapidity and grace removed it the same instant sinking into the water so quickly that her person was not in the least exposed and she swam the river fully as rapidly as her associates october eighteenth we camped a few miles further on with nothing for our horses and morning saw us tramping over dust and sand to the sand hills twelve miles distant when we reached them i mounted one of them to see how our road lay immediately the rolling sandhills of the carolina coasts were brought to mind there was not a tree to be seen nor the least sign of vegetation and the sun pouring down on us made our journey seem twice the length it really was no date we encamped at the wells cook's wells and started out at two in the morning to go thirty-six miles to the next grass having given our animals a good feed of mesquite beans which we found in great abundance about five miles below us we went on well until we came to the lagoons and truly here was a scene of desolation broken wagons dead shrivelled up cattle horses and mules as well lay baking in the sun around the dried-up wells that had been opened in the hopes of getting water not a blade of grass or green thing of any kind relieved the monotony of the parched ash-coloured earth and the most melancholy scene presented itself that i have seen since i left the rio grande we turned to our road at twelve o'clock the sun blazing down on us and expecting to go nine miles more without water i feared the mules would never do it but about two miles further on we came to good water and after a short rest on we went for seven more when we found shade and a good supper for the sergeant's guard here had killed a wild cow and made us a present of part of it the thirty-six miles had been made and the worst part of the road was passed no date here we stayed one day to wait for some of our party who had waited hoping to purchase provisions they were sorely jaded but had not lost a mule when they rejoined us leaving them to rest i went to colonel collins camp for fifty pounds of biscuit and some rice and we then took the way west for the next water-hole our horses