IMPERIAL VALLEY TO YUMA 303 



remaining unseen. That I was on the Reservation of 

 the Yuma Indians was brought to notice by a wagon 

 that met me, driven by a handsome fellow with hair 

 hanging to his waist in the rope-like twists that 

 mark the Yuma "buck," and with two squaws 

 dressed apparently in counterpanes of green, purple, 

 and yellow. 



We crossed the river by the high iron bridge as 

 the first raindrops plumped down ; passed through a 

 street or two of adobe or mud-and-pole houses, and 

 got into a livery-stable just in time to escape a ter- 

 rific downpour. Here I left Kaweah in good hands 

 for a couple of days while I made up arrears of mail 

 and looked about the old frontier town. 



This place may be recognized by some of my 

 readers in connection with certain well-worn jokes 

 turning on warmth of climate. The popular belief 

 that Yuma Is separated from the nether regions only 

 by a sheet of paper is probably an error, though not 

 a serious one. The shade temperature did not go 

 over 110° while I was in Yuma, but it was now Sep- 

 tember and the back of the summer was broken. 



The town is on the Arizona side close to the junc- 

 tion of the Colorado and the Gila, and a few miles 

 east of the point where California of the United 

 States and Lower California of Mexico meet at the 

 river. It is the Puerto de la Concepcion of Padre 

 Garces,^ and the site of the ill-fated Mission of La 



^ The name of Fray Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garces 

 should be held in honor. He was a native of Aragon, and one of the 

 most intrepid of those priest-explorers who early pushed their way 

 into the Western deserts, planting the Cross far in advance of the 

 flag. It was in 1 77 1 (he was then thirty-three years old) that he first 



