OLD FORT YUMA
Is a historic spot on the Colorado river. This was the crossing place in the early days of all the thousands of gold hunters from the East. If its history could be written what stories of adventure and suffering would it contain! It was here my brother, in 1849, caught the first glimpse of California after a long and perilous trip across the plains from Ft. Smith in Arkansas. If he would write the story of his ups and downs before and after getting to California it would make mighty interesting reading.
The town of Yuma is not far from the Gulf of California—I saw two little steamboats tied up there. If anyone has been trying to do anything in the way of teaching and evangelizing the Yuma Indians, a company of whom we saw, they certainly have reason to be discouraged. I have seen nowhere more wretched specimens of humanity. The government policy of continuing the Indians as "Wards of the Nation," supplying them with a living without any effort on their part, and the efforts of the Catholics to Christianize them, have been, alike failures.
Now my trip is ended. I have traveled 205 miles in Alabama, 63 in Mississippi, 300 in Louisiana, 947 in Texas, 249 in New Mexico, 414 in Arizona, 728 in California, making in all 2,906 miles. It has been a great pleasure for me to write these letters. I doubt not they seemed very commonplace to many who are used to travel. I haven't had that class in mind at all. I have thought of the many hundreds who were "Shut-Ins" by reason of circumstances, and will in all probability never make this trip or anything like it. I will be glad if the letters have proven helpful to any.
It is proper that these letters of travel should close with something about