304 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OP 



rounding prairies, this sheet of salt is said to dissolve down to half this 

 thickness. We were not prepared to exaniine and visit this lake. It 

 lies directly off our route, and has neither wood nor fresh water within 

 many miles of it. The proper time to go to it would be during the 

 rainy season and when there is grass. 



We had procured orders from the vicar general of New Mexico for 

 what corn we should require at Manzana — corn which had been paid 

 in by the peasantry as tithes (diezmos) to the Catholic church. When 

 we arrived there, we found that the corn belonging to the church was 

 some six or eight miles off, at another village, called Torreon. So we 

 were forced to buy on credit what forage we required. 



Here we learned that a small party of Texans had recently been at 

 the ruins of Gran Quivira in search of treasures. Whilst there they 

 sent an Apache Indian in to Manzana for some articles they wanted. 

 An American named Fry, a hunter, who lives at Manzana, went out to 

 the ruins in company with two Mexicans to see these Texans; when 

 he reached there he found them gone. He ascertained while he was 

 gone that there was no water to be found at a "pond where our Mexican 

 guide expected we should find it, as it had dried up ; and that unless we 

 found another small pond some six or eight miles from that, and which 

 our guide knew nothing about, we should be obliged to go without any, 

 tor he said there was probably no snow about the ruins, as about 

 Manzana, which we could melt. So Fry was employed to pilot us to this 

 pond, as, failing to find it, we could obtain no water nearer to Gran 

 Quivira than at the little stream at Quarra, which is a distance of thirty- 

 five miles. 



Monday, December 19, 1853. 



This morning we loaded the wagons with all the corn they would 

 hold ; but it did not amount to over two days' feed, as our other supplies 

 had to be taken along besides. In addition to this the dragoons put 

 into their haversacks enough for their horses for one night. We started 

 about ten o'clock in the morning and retraced our steps toward Abo, to 

 a point on the road known as arroijo tie la Cienega — a dry bed of a wet- 

 weather stream. This is nearly two miles below Quarra. Here we 

 left the beaten track and took a course across the country in the 

 direction of E. 40° S. After travelling some six miles we struck an 

 Indian trail which leads from Manzana to the country of the Mescalero 

 Apaches. This we followed in the same general direction to some 

 holes in the rocky bed of another wet- weather stream called Las Agua- 

 clias. These often contain water enough for a small party with 

 animals, but we found them quite dry. One, only, had a small cake of 

 ice, but no water. They are 13 miles 1,022 3'ards from where we left 

 the road. The country for this distance is quite barren. It has but 

 little grass, but is covered with the tall branching cactus, and with 

 scattered clumps of pinon and cedar-trees. On our right hand, for the 

 last third of this distance, we have had a mesa covered with timber to 

 its summit, which is called L,a, Mesa de Jos Tumanes. It is improperly 

 laid down upon the maps as a Sierra, or mountain range. It runs from 

 west to east, commencing a few miles south of Abo and ending in a 

 point on the plains about fifteen miles east of Las Aguachas, where we 



