The road is continuous clay and sand, so impregnated with salt and other mineral matter deleterious to vegetation, that sun flowers and salt grass, and the accursed emblem of barrenness and sterility "Larrea Mexicana," [Creosote plant] according to Dr. Trask, are all that are seen in the way of herbage. In places the sunflowers are marvelously luxuriant, and cover miles of the country, and are from five to seven feet high, the road cut through them being the only gap in their almost solid ranks.
The dust in this road is over the shoe tops, and rises in clouds, filling eyes and almost choking us as we trudge along, sore and jaded—men, horses, mules, cattle. We stop at night, after eight hours' travel, having made only fifteen or twenty miles; often without food except by chance, for our animals. Grass is only found in the good bends of the river, which we may strike, or may not.
October 3d. Left at eight in the morning, and rode fifteen miles, where we found water in some holes; we had noticed a very heavy rain yesterday in this direction, which had probably filled them. We rode on until night, when we camped until one in the morning, when, by the light of a full moon we re-packed and started on for the river which we reached at eight in the morning. Resting here for four hours, we started to make five miles or more; necessity demanded our doing this to arrive at good grass.
Passing along the sandy trail we saw hundreds of the plumed partridge (the brown-headed). I shot five in about ten minutes. I could not delay longer, as my fast-walking little mule was too jaded to put to the pain of going faster to catch up with the train. These birds, at this season, seem to feed on the seeds of the pig-weed, which is now and then seen in patches of many acres, putting one in mind of old potato fields. The sandy desolation of the river bottom is beyond belief; nothing but the sand hills of the Carolina coast can compare with it.
Oct. 5th. A few cotton-woods and scrub-willow, with dried weeds, and some sunflower plants, make thickets here and there, and this is all that is to be seen in the way of vegetation, for about a hundred miles below the Pimos villages, which hundred miles we made in five days, and are now, thanks to a placard at the forks of the road, across the far-famed Gila, in a grassy bottom of coarse swamp tufts, which is better than nothing, but our animals do not seem to like it much, though they eat it, in their starved condition.
The river here is a very rapid stream at this season, about a hundred and fifty yards wide, and from eighteen to twenty inches deep, with very deep holes in places. The bottom is shifting quicksand, delightfully varied with drift logs, put exactly where they can best trip up the mules; as the water is like that of the Mississippi, below St. Louis, you never see the logs until you are over them.
We look and long for Gila trout, and wild-fowl, but in vain. I shot two blue-wings and one of our men caught two little trout. Our road is garnished almost every league, with dead cattle, horses or oxen; and wagons, log chains, and many valuable things are left at almost every camping ground by the travellers; we ourselves have had to do the same, to relieve our worn and jaded mules, able now to carry only about a hundred pounds. Our personal effects amount to about one change each, with our ammunition and arms, all else discarded or used up or stolen.
Opposite our camp about three miles from us, is a hot spring of beautifully clear water; it is so hot as to just be bearable (we have now no thermometer) and is tasteless.
Night far on the prairie is always solemn, but when in a doubtful country, where one is uncertain as to the friendliness of the Indians, our watch became one of silence and caution. We saw a long line of regularly placed fires burn up, and, hour after hour, could see them flare up, as fresh fuel was placed on them. We had heard that Captain Thorn[29] with a hundred emigrants was just behind us, and we thought this might be his camp; but when morning came and a long line of dark objects met my eyes as I left my tent, I wondered if they could be mules, so regular in their distances and march. I soon saw it was a procession of a hundred and fifty squaws, each carrying the provisions like a pack mule for her husband, who, hero-like, armed with spear, shield and bow, proudly bore himself and his quiver, made of wild-cat, cougar, or other skin, full of arrows, on to the wars of the Maricopas and Apaches, so it was said; probably the object was to assist the Yumas against the Americans. Of this we had no proof, for all was quiet, owing no doubt to the good effect produced by the appearance of the Americans, and the prompt shooting of a party of Texans who had shot one or two Yumas Indians for not making the right landing. Such summary proceedings never occurred again. We also heard that Lieut. Coats [Couts][30] said that he had been the main cause of the favorable change in the Indians towards the Americans, especially on the part of the Yumas. We saw many of this tribe riding their horses with ropes in the animals' mouths, pads for saddles, and ropes around the bodies in which they can slip their feet.
October 14th. Sixteen days of travel from the Pimos village and such travel, as please God, I trust we may none of us ever see again, brought us to within three miles of the Gila.[31] If we thought ourselves badly off at Altar, we are much more reduced in every way than we were there. The food poor, monotonous and inefficient has been forced down, simply to sustain life. We have lost more mules, of course; our wagon delayed us at least ten miles a day, and we left it after using it three days. We were on the "qui vive" for Indians all the time. Lack of water and grass we have almost come to regard as inevitable; truly we looked, and are, a forlorn spectacle, and we feel, I am sure, worse than we look.