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Ex. Doc. No. 41. 65 



We passed to-day tBe ruins of t';70 more villages similar to those 

 of yesterday. The foundation of the largest house seen yesterday 

 M'as 60 by 20 feet; to/day, 40 by 30. About none did we find 

 any vestiges of the mechanical arts, excep^-JJie pottery; thestone 

 forming the supposed foundation was rouncl \nd unhewn^ and some 

 cedar logs werfe also found about the houses^ much decayed, bear- 

 ing no mark of an edged tooL Except these ruins, of which not 

 one stone remained upon another, no marks of human- hands or foot- 

 step have been visible for many days, until to-day we came upon 

 a place where . there had been an extensive fire. Following the 

 course of this fire, as it bared the ground of the shrubbery, and ex- 

 posed the soil, &c., to view, I found what was to us a very great 

 Tegetabk curiosity, a cactus, 18 inches high, and 18 inches in its 

 greatest 'diameter, containing 20 vertical volutes, armed with st*rong 

 spines. When the traveller is parched with thirsty one of these, split 

 open, will give sufficient liquid to afford relief. Several of these 



hed of a stream. 



arid lying in the dry 



These and the mezquite, acacia, prosopis odorata, and prosopis 

 glandulosaj now form the principal growth. Under the name mez- 

 quite, the voyageur comprises all the acacia and prosopis family. 



Last nightj about nine o'clock, I heard the yell of a wolf, resem- 

 bling that • of a four months' old pup. In a few minutes there 

 was a noise like distant thunder. "Stampede !^^ shouted a fellow, 

 ^^d in an instant every man was amongst the mules. With one 

 rush they had " broken every rope • and this morning, when 

 ^e started, one of our mules was missing, which gave us infinite 

 annoyance. Our party is so economically provided that' we could 

 iiot aiford to lose even a mule, and I left four men to look it up, 

 ™ did not rejoin us till night. . 



,.^ q^^stion arose involving a serious point of mountain law, which 

 fitters somewhat from prairie law. One of my party captured a beau- 

 titul dun colored mule, which was claimed by another party; the one 

 flaiming the prize for havinor first seen the animal and then catching 

 *- wUn the lazo. The other pleaded ownership of tlie rope, used as 

 ^ 1^20, as its title. It was settled to the satisfaction of the first. 



Ihe mule was one which Carson had left on his way out, and on 

 °^i^g^ asked why .he did not claim it, he said it was too young 

 o be useful in packing, and as we now had plenty of beef, it would 

 ^<>t be required for food, and he did not care about it. 



'October 26. — Soon after leaving camp, the banks of the river be- 



ame gullied on each side by deep and impassable arroyos- This 



rove us insensibly to the mountains, until at length we found bur- 



^^yes some thousand feet above the river, and it was not until we 



^ Hiade sixteen miles that we again descended to it. This dis- 



^ce occupied eight and a half hours of incessant toil to the men, 



'^ misery to our best mules. Some did not reach camp at all, 



"when the day dawned one or two, who had lost their way, were 



^^a on the side of the mountain, within a few steps of a high pre- 



Jpice, from which it required some skill to extricate them. The 



«^n named this pass "the DeviPi turnpike," and I see no reason to 



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