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Ex. Doc. No. 41. ' 555 



opening I had seen and describedj and believed might be a wagon 

 road. Meanwhile^ the party continued the second day hard at work 

 with crowbar; pickj &C.5 whilst I sent one company and aboiit 

 half the baggagCj packed on mulesj to the first water on the trail^, 

 in a deep ravine below* It was about six miles, and the mules 

 were brought back in the evening. Next morning they took the 

 rest of the loading, and I succeeded that day^ with much labor and 

 difficultyj breaking one^ in getting the wagons to the new camp. 

 Dr. Foster accidentally found the outlet of an old wagon road, 

 (into mine,) and, following back, it led Mm to the verge of the 

 plain, about a mile from our point of descent. He says this is 

 called the pass of Guadalupe; and that it is the only one, for many 

 hundreds of miles to the south, by which the broken descent from 

 the great table land of Mexico can be made by wagons, and rarely 

 by pack mules. I hold it to be a question whether the same' diffi- 

 • cult formation does not extend north, at least to the Gila. If it is 

 so, my road is probably the nearest and best route- But if the 

 prairie, to the north, is open to the San Pedro, and water can be 

 found, that improvement will make my road not only a good but a 

 direct one from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. 



San Bernadino is a ruined ranche, with buildings encltsed by a 

 wall, wifh regular bastions. It overlooks a wide, flat and rich val- 

 ley, watered by a noble spring, which runs into one of the upper 

 branches of the Huaqui river, which is but a few miles distant. 

 Here I succeeded in meeting a few of the Apaches, and obtained a 

 guide, who went about 20 miles, and described the rest of the route 

 to the San Pedro. He was afraid to venture further, and return alone 

 over the plain; the point where he turned back was within four- 

 teen miles of the presidio of Fronteras. It was in the mountain 

 pass that we first saw the wild bulls, from which the command ob- 

 tained their exclusive supply of meat for about two weeks. They 

 are the increase from those abandoned, when the two ranches of 

 San Bernadino an(i San Pedro (on the river of the same name) were 

 broken up, in consequence of incessant Indian attacks. They 

 tave spread and increased, so as to cover the country; they were as 

 ■^'ild and more dangerous than buffalo. 



I made the next 62 miles, to the San Pedro river, with little more 

 difficulty than cutting my way through dense thickets of mezquite 

 and many other varieties of bushes, all excessively thorny. It was 

 but 27 miles without water over the last divide; there was snow 

 o»e day, and for about two weeks, at that time, we suffered with 

 cold. I descended the San Pedro 55 miles, to a point whence a 

 trail goes to Tueson. The guides represented that it was 85 miles 

 of very diflficult, if practicable, ground to the mouth of the San 

 Pedro, and one hundred from there to the Pimos; also, very bad, 

 and little or no grass; and, on the other hand, that it was only 

 about 90 miles of a good road, with grass, by Tueson to the same 

 point. I reflected that I was in no condition to go an unnecessary 

 hundred miles, good or bad; and that, if their statements were- 

 true, the future road must go by the town. I had previously sent 

 Leroux, Foster and others to examine if there was water on the 30 



