We all buy trinkets of Bill, for we never expect to see him again and we don’t want to forget him. We are told that he is a good old Indian, but was not always so. Years ago, when there were battles to be won, Bill made a record as a fighter. He will fight no more; there are only a few of him left; and Uncle Sam has given him and his comrades a refuge in a little reservation across the river where they hope to live and die in quietness and peace.
A short distance back of the station can be seen the territorial prison or penitentiary, on a bluff overlooking the Colorado River. We thought it was a fort until told that it was a prison. Our train is about to start, and we find a large car or tank of water attached on the front end next the engine and a freight caboose on the rear. We find that a freight crew has charge of us, that the tank of water will be needed to supply the engine, as there is a run of 120 miles through a country devoid of water, and that the crew will need the caboose when they leave us, for they expect to take back from Indio a train of freight. We have S. P. engine No. 1609, with Engineer W. Hayes at the throttle, fired by George McIntyre, Conductor H. J. Williams, Brakemen H. J. Schulte and R. M. Armour. As our train moves slowly off across the bridge that spans the Colorado we take a last look at Yuma and its picturesque surroundings, and in two minutes we are in California and crossing the Colorado Desert.
We are disappointed. We thought California a land of beauty, fertility, and flowers—a desert waste is all we see, bald mountains and barren plains on every side. Our course is upward for about 25 miles, until an elevation of 400 feet is reached, and then we begin to descend, and when we pass the little station of Flowing Well, 60 miles west of Yuma, we are only five feet above the level of the sea. Ten miles farther we stop at Volcano Springs and are 225 feet below the sea level. After leaving Flowing Well our attention was called by Mr. Steere to what was apparently a large lake of clear, sparkling water ahead, and to the left of our train, about half a mile away. We were running toward it but got no closer to it. It remained there, the same distance from us, a bright, sparkling, rippling body of water; not one on the train but what would have said, “It is water.” Mr. Steere says, “No; it is not water;
it is a delusion, a mirage caused by the glare of the sun on the shining salt crust of this alkali desert. There is not much doubt,” continued Mr. Steere, “but what ages upon ages ago all this immense basin was the bottom of a great sea. You can see upon the sides of these barren bluffs and upon those walls of rock the mark of the water line that for thousands of years perhaps have withstood the ravages and test of time. This little station is called Volcano Springs because of the number of springs in this locality that are apparently of volcanic origin. They are not in operation at the present time, but certain seasons of the year they are very active and spout up mud and water to a height of from 10 to 25 feet.”
A thermometer hanging in the doorway of the station, in the shade, registers 101 degrees, and it is not unusual, we are told, for it to reach 125. It is actually too hot in the sun to stand still; it almost takes one’s breath away. We feel relieved when our train starts and we are in motion once more. We create a breeze, a sea breeze, as it were, wafted to us o’er the mummified saliniferous remains of an ancient sea 3000 years a corpse. But the “mirage” still is there, a wonderful delusion, a monstrous deception, a gigantic “Will o’ the wisp,” whose alluring promises have led hundreds of men and animals a fruitless chase that ended in horrid death.
Sixty-five miles ahead of us we can plainly see San Jacinto Mountain, towering 11,500 feet in the air, with its summit covered with ice and snow that glistens in the noonday sun. Twenty-four miles from Volcano Springs we pass Salton, noted for its great salt industry. This is the lowest point on the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, being 263 feet below sea level. About three miles to the left of the railroad we see the great white salt marsh or lake, containing such a vast deposit of this useful substance that the supply is thought to be inexhaustible. Steam plows are used for gathering the salt, and the works erected here have a capacity of nearly 1000 tons per day.