164 Audubon's Western Journal 



guide them with readiness and facility that aston- 

 ished us all ; they swim over-handed. I could find 

 no one willing to sell or trade horses, and we are 

 about to start on this much-heard-of and much- 

 dreaded desert, having lost two mules which were 

 drowned after the company had crossed; they 

 returned to drink, and losing footing could not 

 regain it, and had not sufficient strength to battle 

 against the current. 



Last evening I was invited to take supper with 

 Lieut. Coats, which I greatly enjoyed, for seldom 

 have I eaten with such an appetite, and I found the 

 beefsteak excellent, after being without meat for 

 so long a time; for some weeks we have had noth- 

 ing but an occasional partridge; meat, in the 

 accepted sense of the word, we had only eaten twice 

 since we left Altar, September 12th, to date, 

 October i6th, living on beans, a little rice, and as 

 luck would have it, sixteen pounds of flour we 

 bought from Mr. Stephenson at the hot springs. 

 Lieut. Engineer Whipple,^ now making observa- 



^ Amiel W. Whipple, at this time heutenant of topograph- 

 ical engineers, later made one of the principal Pacific Rail- 

 road surveys, and died a major general in 1863 from wounds 

 received at Chancellorsville. The journal of his expedition 

 from San Diego to the Colorado was printed as Senate ex, doc. 

 No, 19, 2d session, 31st Cong, The entry for October 15th, 

 1849, reads as follows: 



"Arrived Colonel Collyer, collector of the port of San 

 Francisco, escorted by Captain Thorne with thirty dragoons. 

 Under their protection is also a party of emigrants, com- 



