The Explorer at length arrived at Yuma. Here the remainder of the party, including Dr. Newberry, having come across country, joined the expedition, and further preparations were made for the more difficult task above. The craft was lightened as far as possible, but at the best she still drew two and one-half feet, while the timbers bolted to the bottom were a great detriment, catching on snags and ploughing into the mud of the shoals. There were twenty-four men to be carried, besides all the baggage that must be taken, even though a pack-train was to leave, after the departure of the boat, to transport extra supplies to the end of the voyage, wherever that might be. It is not easy to understand why so large a party was necessary. Some few miles above Yuma they came to the first range of mountains that closes in on the water, suddenly entering a narrow pass several hundred feet deep. Seven miles farther on, they went through a small canyon where another range is severed. This was called Purple Hill Pass, while the first one was named Explorer’s Pass, after the steamer. The first approach to a real canyon was encountered a short distance above. Emerging from this, called Canebrake, from some canes growing along the sides, the Explorer ran aground, resting there for two hours. They had now passed through the Chocolate Mountains, the same range that Alarçon mentions, and as he records no other he probably went no farther up than the basin Ives is now entering, the Great Colorado Valley. Alarçon doubtless proceeded to the upper part of this valley, about to latitude thirty-four, where he raised the cross to mark the spot. Two miles above the head of the canyon, the power of the Explorer was matched against a stiff current that came swirling around the base of a perpendicular rock one hundred feet high. With the steam pressure then on, she was not equal to the encounter and made no advance, whereupon she was headed for a steep bank to allow the men to leap ashore with a line and tow her beyond the opposition. Above, the current was milder, but the river spread out to such an extent that progress was exceedingly difficult, and Ives expresses a fear that this might prove the head of navigation, yet he must then have been aware (and certainly was when he published his report) that Johnson at that very moment was far beyond this with a steamer larger than the one he was on. It was now January 17, 1858, and it was on January 23d, that Johnson was at the point where Beale intended to cross. The steamer was used as a ferry and then left the same day for Yuma. Captain Johnson with his steamboat had been to the head of navigation. Ives and Johnson must now pass each other before the end of this month of December, and the meeting of the two steamers took place somewhere in this Colorado Valley, for, under date of January 31st, Ives says: “Lieutenant Tipton took advantage of an opportunity afforded a few days ago, by our meeting Captain Johnson, with Lieutenant White and party returning to the fort, and went back with them in order to bring up the pack-train.” He does not mention, however, that Johnson was piloting a steamboat larger than the Explorer. Indeed, I have been told that he failed to reply to Johnson’s salute. Slowly they worked their way up, and on up, toward their final goal, though the water was exceptionally low. At last reaching Bill Williams Fork, Ives, who had seen it at the time he was with Whipple about four years earlier, could not at first find it, though, on the former occasion, in the same season, it had been a stream thirty feet wide. It was now a feeble rivulet, the old mouth being filled up and overgrown with willows. Approaching Mohave Canyon, a rapid was encountered, necessitating the carrying forward of an anchor, from which a line was brought to the bow, and this being kept taut, with the boat under full steam the obstruction was surmounted without damage. This was the common method of procedure at rapids. This canyon, Ives, says was a “scene of such imposing grandeur as he had never before witnessed,” yet it is only a harbinger of the greater sublimity extending along the water above for a thousand miles. Mohave Canyon and The Needles soon were left behind, and they were steaming through the beautiful Mohave Valley, where the patient footsteps of the padres and the restless tramp of the trappers had so long ago passed and been forgotten. Probably not one of that party remembered that Pattie on horseback had covered this same field over thirty years before, or that rare old Garces guided his tired mule along these very banks a full half century ahead of Pattie. To-day, the comfortable traveller on the railway, crossing the river near The Needles, has also forgotten these things and Lieutenant Ives as well.
Black Canyon—Looking Down.
Photograph by WHEELER EXPEDITION.
Many Cocopas, Yumas, Mohaves, and Chemehuevis were met with since the trip began, but there had been no trouble with any of them. Ives now began to inquire for a former guide of Whipple’s, whom he pleasantly remembered and whose name was Ireteba. Fortunately, he soon came across him and engaged his services. Ireteba was a Mohave, but possessed one of those fine natures found in every clime and colour. He was always true and intelligent, and of great service to the expedition. The Explorer pushed on, encountering many difficulties, some due to the unfortunate timbers on the bottom, which often became wedged in rocks, besides increasing the draught by about six inches, a serious matter at this extremely low stage of water. “It is probable,” says Ives, “that there is not one season in ten when even the Explorer would encounter one fourth of the difficulty that she has during the unprecedentedly low stage of water.” At one rapid, after the boat by hard labour had been brought to the crest, the line broke and she at once fell back, bumping over the rocks and finally lodging amidst a mass so firmly that it required half the next day to pull her out. The second attempt to surmount the rapid was successful, and they were then rewarded by a fierce gale from the north, detaining them twenty-four hours, filling everything with sand, and dragging the steamboat from her moorings to cast her again upon the rocks. When, at last, they could go on they came after a short time to a canyon deeper and grander than any they had yet seen, called Black Canyon, because it is cut through the Black Mountains. Ives was uncertain, at the moment, whether this was the entrance to what was called Big Canyon (Grand Canyon) or not. The Explorer by this time had passed through a number of rapids and the crew were growing expert at this sort of work, so that another rapid a hundred yards below the mouth of the canyon was easily conquered. The current becoming slack, the steamer went gaily on toward the narrow gateway, where, “flanked by walls many hundreds of feet in height, rising perpendicularly out of the water, the Colorado emerged from the bowels of the range.” Suddenly the boat stopped with a crash. The bow had squarely met a sunken rock. The men forward were knocked completely overboard, those on the after-deck were thrown below, the boiler was jammed out of place, the steampipe was doubled up, the wheelhouse torn away, and numerous minor damages were sustained. The Explorer had discovered her head of navigation! They thought she was about to sink, but luckily she had struck in such a way that no hole was made and they were able by means of lines and the skiff to tow her to a sandbank for repairs. Here the engineer, Carroll, and Captain Robinson devoted themselves to making her again serviceable, while, with the skiff, Ives and two companions continued on up the deep gorge. Though this was the end of the upward journey, so far as the Explorer was concerned, Johnson with his steamboat had managed to go clear through this canyon.
Rations were at a low stage, consisting entirely, for the past three weeks, of corn and beans, purchased from the natives, but even on this diet without salt the skiff party, worked its way steadily upward over many rapids through the superb chasm. “No description,” says Ives, “can convey an idea of the varied and majestic grandeur of this peerless waterway. Wherever the river makes a turn, the entire panorama changes, and one startling novelty after another appears and disappears with bewildering rapidity.” I commend these pages of Lieutenant Ives, and, in fact, his whole report, to all who delight in word-painting of natural scenery, for the lieutenant certainly handled his pen as well as he did his sword.[[2]] Emerging from the solemn depths of Black Canyon (twenty-five miles long) he and his small party passed Fortification Rock and continued on two miles up the river to an insignificant little stream coming in from the north, which he surmised might be the Virgen, though he hardly thought it could be, and it was not. It was Vegas Wash. This was his highest point. Turning about, he descended to the steamboat camp and called that place the head of navigation, not that he did not believe a steamer might ascend, light, through Black Canyon, but he considered it impracticable. Running now down-stream in the Explorer, the expected pack-train was encountered at the foot of Pyramid Canyon, and a welcome addition was made to the supplies.
[2] It may be of interest to state that Lieutenant Ives became an officer in the Confederate Army, and was killed in one of the battles of the Civil War.
Fortification Rock.
Castellated Gravels at the foot. Near the head of Black Canyon.
Photograph by WHEELER EXPEDITION.