Ex Doc. No. 41. ' 81 



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'We made our noon halt at the grass patch. At this place were 

 the remains of an immense Indiait settlement; pottery was every- 

 •ffhere to he found, but the remains of the foundationsof the houses 

 ;rere imbedded in dust. The outlines of the acequias, by which 

 they irrigated the soil, were sometimes quite distinct. 



The soil was moist, and wherever the foot pressed the ground the 

 salts of the earth effloresced, and gave it the appearance of being 

 covered with frost. In this way the numberless tracks of horses 

 and other animals, which had at times traversed the plains, were 

 indelible, and could be traced for great distanced, by the eye, in 

 long white seams. 



We found fresh trails of horses, which might be those of General 

 Castro, or the Indians. When leaving California, Castro's deter- 

 mination, as we learn from Carson, was to go to Sonora, beat up 

 recruits, and return. Our route might easily be reached, for we are 

 now marching along a road everywhere accessible, and within three 

 days' march of the settlements of Sonora and the fort at Tucsoon, 

 said to be regularly garrisoned by Mexican soldiers. 



We passed the deserted lodges of Indians, and, at one place 

 remote from the lodges, we saw thirteen poles set up m a sort of 

 incantation formula; twelve on the circumference of a circle, twenty 

 feet in diameter, and one in the centre. Radii were drawn on the 

 ground from the centre pole to each one in the periphery of the 

 circle. It was tlie fifurino- of some medicine man of the Apaches 



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Or Pimos, we could not tell which, for it was on neutral ground 

 about the dividing line of the possessions claimed by each. 

 After leaving the mountains all seemed for a moment to consider 

 e difficulties of our journey at an end. The mules went oil at a 



th 



frol 



son 



icsome pace, those which were loose contending with each other 

 for precedence in the trail. The howitzers, which had nearly every 

 part of their running gear broken and replaced, were, perhaps, the 

 only things that wefe benefitted by the change from the mountains 

 ^0 the plains. These were under the charge of Lieutenant David- 



5 ^vhose post has been no sinecure. In overcoming one set of 

 difficulties we were now to encounter another. In leaving the 

 »iountains we were informed that we bade adieu to grass, and our 

 ^ules must henceforth subsist on willow, cotton wood, and the long 

 green ephedra. . . . ' 



^''oveviher 10. — The valley on the southern side of the Gila still 

 STOWS wider. Away off in that direction, the peaks of the Sonora 

 fountains just peep above the horizon. On the north side of the 

 !l^er, and a few miles from it, runs a low chain of serrated hills, 

 ^ear our encampment, a corresponding range draws in from the 

 so^east, giving the river a bend to the north. At the base of this 

 .?^*^> a long meadow, reaching for many miles south, in which 

 l^^ Pimos graze their cattle; and along the whole day's march were 

 emams of zequias, pottery, and other evidences of a once densely 

 populated country. About the time of the noon halt, a large pile, 

 ^^ich seemed the work of human hands, was seen to the left. It 

 ^as the remains of a three-story mud house, 60 feet square, pierced 



°^ acK)rs and windows. The walls were four feet thickj and formed 



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