The country as a whole proved barren and sterile, like so much of Arizona elsewhere, though here also the Aztecs (or whoever the ancient population were) had left their marks, as on the Salado and Gila. The remains of edifices, or fortifications, and acequias, were still quite visible in various places, and no doubt the ancient settlers had followed up the rivers, and their tributaries, nearly everywhere. They seem to have been a pushing, progressive people, bent on conquest and civilization, after their kind, and doubtless swayed the whole interior of the continent. At Point of Rocks, on Willow Creek, we halted for an hour or two, to explore the wonderful rock-formations there; and subsequently dined with a settler on a wild turkey, that stood four feet high and weighed forty-three pounds, when first shot, and about thirty pounds dressed. We were tired and hungry, from long riding and light rations, and you may be sure enjoyed our meal to the full.
Fort Whipple, already alluded to several times, was situated on Granite Creek, a mile and a half east of Prescott, near the centre of a Reservation there a mile square. It consisted of a rude stockade, enclosing the usual log quarters and barracks of our frontier posts, and was then Headquarters of all the district north of the Gila. Its garrison was small, and dependencies few and petty; but the cost of maintaining it seemed something enormous. Here are a few of the prices then current at the post: hay cost about sixty dollars per ton; grain, about twelve dollars per bushel; lumber, from fifty to seventy-five dollars per thousand; freight on supplies, from San Francisco (and about everything had to come from there via the Gulf of California and the Colorado), two hundred and fifty dollars per ton; and these all in coin. The flag-staff alone, quite a respectable "liberty-pole," was reported to have cost ten thousand dollars; and District Headquarters—a one-and-a-half story frame house, surrounded by verandas, but barely comfortable and genteel—was said to have cost one hundred thousand dollars. This last, plain as it was, was then about the best modern edifice in Arizona, but was used as the Post Hospital—Gen. Gregg ("Cavalry Gregg" of the Army of the Potomac) in the true spirit of a soldier, declining to occupy it, until his sick and disabled men were first well sheltered, and provided for. Himself and staff, as yet, shared the log cabins of the Post proper, through whose open crannies the wind and rain had free course to run and be glorified, during every storm. We were there during a wild tempest of rain and hail, as well as for a week or more besides, and learned well how to appreciate their infelicities and miseries. All honor to this chivalrous and gallant Pennsylvanian, for his courtesy and humanity. A Bayard and a Sydney combined, surely he deserves well of his country; and the Army may justly be proud of such a representative soldier.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
PRESCOTT TO LOS ANGELOS.
Prescott, as already intimated, was not Paradise, and we left there April 13th, for Los Angelos, via Hardyville and Fort Mojave, on our return "inside," with real rejoicing. Our first stage was to Fort Mojave, on the Colorado, distant one hundred and sixty miles, and this we made in five days. Of course, we travelled by ambulance, and "camped out" every night, as elsewhere mostly in Arizona. The road was a toll-road, but its general condition was hardly such, as to justify the collection of tolls ordinarily. As a whole, it was naturally a very fair road, though there were some bad points, as at Juniper Mountain and Union Pass, where considerable work had been required to carry the grades along. At Williamson's Valley, twenty miles out from Prescott, we found one of the best agricultural and grazing districts, that we had yet seen in Arizona. There were but two or three settlers there then, though there were apparently several thousands of acres fit for farms. The hills adjacent abounded in scattered cedars and junipers, that would do for fencing and fuel, and game seemed more abundant near there, than in any place we had yet been. Quails, found everywhere in Arizona to some extent, here soon thickened up; the jack-rabbits bounded more numerously through the bushes; even pigeons and wild-turkeys were heard of; and as we rattled down through a rocky glen, at the western side of the valley, a herd of likely deer cantered leisurely across the road—the first we had seen in Arizona, or indeed elsewhere in the West.
Thence across Juniper Mountain to Rock Springs, some fifty miles, the country was wild and desolate, with a scraggy growth of cedars and junipers much of the way. A few scattered oaks and pines grew here and there, but they could scarcely be called good timber, or much of it. At Rock Springs was a fine bottom of several hundred acres, but not a single inhabitant. Thence on to Hardyville, through Cottonwood Cañon, past Hualapai Springs, Beale's Springs, etc., for nearly a hundred miles, there were no ranches, and no cultivable lands, indeed, worth mentioning. The country, as a whole, seemed a vast volcanic desert—of mountains, cañons, and mesas—and what it was ever made for, except to excite wonder and astonishment, is a mystery to the passing traveller. Even at the high elevation we were travelling, usually four or five thousand feet above the sea, the sun was already intensely hot by day, though the air grew bitingly cold at night, before morning. The principal growth, after leaving Rock Springs, was sage-brush and grease-wood, and in many places it proved difficult to secure sufficient for fires of even these. Water was found only at distances of ten and twenty miles apart, and in the dry summer months it must be still scarcer. Our poor animals suffered greatly, and one day we came near losing several—two of them continuing sick far into the night. Now and then we found an Indian trail crossing the road, but the Red Skins either did not see us, or else kept themselves well under cover, intimidated by the half-dozen cavalrymen, that accompanied us as escort.
The prevailing hues of the landscape were a dull red and brownish gray, and these produced at times some very singular and striking effects. The one thing, that relieved our ride from utter dullness and monotony, was the weird and picturesque forms, in which nature has there piled up her rocks, and chiseled out her mountains. Domes, peaks, terraces, castles, turrets, ramparts—all were sculptured against the cloudless sky; and we fell to interesting ourselves sometimes for hours, as we rode along, in tracing out the strange resemblances to all sorts of architecture and animals, ancient and modern, that nature, in her silent sublimity, has perpetrated there. At sunset, when parting day lingered and played upon the surrounding or distant mountains, it bathed their rock-ribbed sides and summits in the most gorgeous tints of purple and maroon, and filled the imagination with all that was most sublime and mysterious. What Milton must have thought of in portraying Hell, or Dante imagined in delineating the weird and sombre landscapes of his awful Inferno, may well be realized in passing through this singular region, where Desolation seems to have outstretched her wings, and made up her mind to brood gloomily forever.
At Union Pass, we crossed the last mountain range, at an elevation of fully five thousand feet, whence we caught welcome sight again of the ruby waters of the Colorado. Debouching into the valley, we presently struck the river at Hardyville. Here it winds its sinuous course, through a broad valley of volcanic mesas and mountains, and has no bottoms worth mentioning, except those occupied of old by the Mojave Indians. These are fertilized by the annual overflow of the Colorado, like the bottoms of the Nile, and no doubt might be made to produce very largely. As it was, the Mojaves scratched them a little, so as to plant some corn and barley, and raise a few beans, vegetables, etc., the surplus of which they sold chiefly at Hardyville, for Mr. Hardy to re-sell to the Government again—of course, at a profit. It seemed, on the whole, that they did not usually raise enough, off of all their broad acres, to feed and clothe themselves comfortably; and we were told they would often go hungry, were it not for the gratuitous issues of flour, meal, and other supplies occasionally made to them by the commanding officer at Fort Mojave. We rode through their villages one evening, while halting at Fort Mojave, and found they numbered about a thousand or so just there; but farther down the Colorado, at La Paz, there was said to be another branch of them, even more numerous. They were usually a shapely, well-made race, and seemed to take life even more easy, if possible, than their red brethren elsewhere. Their women made a rude pottery ware, that seemed in general use among them, and the men themselves sometimes labored commendably, in gathering drift-wood for fuel for the petty steamers, that occasionally ascended to Hardyville. These Mojaves had been quiet and peaceable for years, and it seemed very moderate efforts would put them on the road to civilization, as readily as the Choctaws and the Cherokees. But they complained, and quite justly, that the Government did not furnish them implements, tools, seeds, etc., to enable them to work their lands and support themselves, while the savage Hualapais, Pai-Utes, and other hostile tribes, were being constantly bribed with presents and annuities. This, however, was only another instance of the stupidity and blundering of our Indian Department at that time, whose policy, or rather impolicy, seemed to be to neglect friendly Indians, and exhaust its money and efforts on hostile ones, under the plea of "pacifying" them! As if "gifts" and "annuities" ever really pacified or civilized a Red Skin yet, or ever will! No; the only true policy with our Indians, then as now, is to encourage and reward the friendly, in every right way; while the hostile ones should be turned over to the Army, for chastisement and surveillance, to the uttermost, until they learn the hard lesson, that henceforth they must behave themselves.