The Old Yuma Trail 



105 



in several directions, sifted the local lore 

 of waterpockets in the rocks and coyote- 

 holes in the sand washes, and traced the 

 routes of both prehistoric and present 

 travel, it seems clear that Diaz' detach- 

 ment worked northwestward to the 

 Horcacitas and on to Rio San Ignacio, 

 and thence across the plains to Sonoyta, 

 where he must have watered and rested 

 before pushing forward by way of the 

 high waterpockets (Tinajas Altas) to 

 the great ' ' River of Good Guidance ' ' 

 (Rio de Bono Guia, an early name of 

 the Colorado) ; and it must have been 

 by the same route that the leaderless 

 party returned in January, 1541. 



With this expedition the third chap- 

 ter in the history of the Yuma trail ends 

 abruptly; for, through the most astound- 

 ing blunder of American geography, the 

 memory of Diaz and the records of Alar- 

 con and his predecessor, Ulloa, dropped 

 out of mind for more than a century and 

 a half .during which the Californias were 

 mapped as a great island in the Pacific. 



THE JESUITS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS. 



Toward the close of the seventeenth 

 century the era of Jesuit missionizing in 

 Papagueria opened, and not long after 

 Padre Kino and his colleagues struck 

 the tribesmen's trail from Baboquivari 

 to Sono3^ta ; and it was in 1701 that 

 Kino pushed westward, necessarily by 

 way of Tinajas Altas (which he was the 

 first to map), and rediscovered Rio Colo- 

 rado, thereby puncturing the bubble of 

 fictitious geography. 



The good padres were ideal pioneers ; 

 wherever the Indian trails led, there the}' 

 followed; and wherever an Indian settle- 

 ment was found, there the}^ erected 

 crosses and sought converts. To them 

 the Place of Corn on the slender rivulet 

 was a fertile field. Some fifteen miles 

 down the sandwash from the principal 

 village they found a smaller settlement 

 gathered about a spring of whitish water 

 seeping from potash-bearing granites, 



for which they adopted the native name 

 House-ring Spring* (Quitobac), and 

 they set their wooden cross midway be- 

 tween the two settlements and called 

 the place Santo Domingo. 



As missionizing proceeded, routes of 

 travel were opened from tribe-range to 

 tribe-range ; and in the course of a few 

 decades the hard trail from Culiacan (or 

 Ures, or Chihuahua, or Fronteras) to 

 Santo Domingo, and thence to the Yuma 

 country on the Colorado and on to the 

 missions of California, became an estab- 

 lished route of travel and communica- 

 tion. The palmiest days of the Yuma 

 trail rose and set in the century 1740- 

 1840. It was trodden by adventurers 

 too poor to ride, yet too plucky to stay ; 

 it was beaten by hoofs bearing churchly 

 equipage and royal commissions and 

 vice-regal reports too precious to be en- 

 trusted to the crude craft then plying the 

 Pacific ; it was furrowed b}^ the huge 

 hewn-log wheels of Mexican carts carry- 

 ing families a few miles a day, and later 

 b}' the iron tires of prairie schooners and 

 primitive stages ; its borders were tram- 

 pled by stock driven out to enrich the 

 distant province of Alta California ; and 

 its course was marked by the pitiful mile- 

 stones of solitary graves, each with its 

 cruciform heap of pebbles. During this 

 period the hard route was dubbed " El 

 Caniino del Diablo ; ' ' and it formed (al- 

 ternatively with the easier but much 



*The typical Papago house is of hemispher- 

 ical shape and made of grass thatch attached 

 to a framework of mesquite saplings and aka- 

 tilla stems ; it is called ki or key. The first 

 stage in building is the erection of a first course 

 of thatch in the form of a vertical ring 12 or 

 15 feet in diameter ; this may be occupied for 

 weeks or months before the upper courses are 

 added to complete the walls and forming the 

 roof ; it is called ki-to. Bac is one of several 

 Papago terms for water or watering place, and 

 is applied specificallv to springs. When the 

 missionaries found a larger Papago settlement 

 about a series of mineral springs 30 miles south 

 of Sonoyta, also called Quitobac, the}' applied 

 a Spanish diminutive to the first found village, 

 and ever since it has been known as Quitoba- 

 quito. 



