580 Ex. Doc. No. 41. 



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forks also head. Our-camp ^vas well supplied with a fine fish from 

 the river resembling a little the black bass; its flesh was not firm but 

 very delicate. The California quail abounds in the bottoms. A 

 iiew sort of sycamore !li'ee made its appearance here; it has a bark , 

 ^precisely like our own sycamore tree^ or button^wood, and a leaf re^ 

 sembling tlie maple; the leaves are now yellow with the frostj as 

 jthey are of the most deciduous plants. Found some of the fruit of 

 the black walnut of this country; it is about half the size of our 

 Iblack walnut, and not rough on the o.utside as ours* but shows the 

 veins of the seams of the outer bark. The roses^ the hops, mus- 

 ^uitoes, and poison oak looked familiar, and some other plants 

 linown in the United States, names unknown. Just as we were 

 leaving camp to-day, an old Apfiche chief came in and harangued 

 ^the general thus: "You have taken Santa F6, let us go on and take 

 ^Chihuahua and Sonora; we will go with you. You fight for the 

 soil, we fight for plunder; so we will agree perfectly* Their peo- 

 ple are bad Christians; let us give them a good thrashing, &c.'^ 

 Marched seven and a half miles, and encamped at the upper end of 

 a canon, through which w^e could not travel to-night; grass good. 

 Octoher 21. — Marched at half-past seven, and, going down the 

 river a few miles, we commenced climbing a rugged mountain of 

 ^asaltic rock, where our mountain howitzers will find trouble in 

 climbing; for seven miles our track lay over the mountain, up and 

 down steep declivities. At one point we had a magnificent view 

 "down the Gila, which lay before us, running sc uthwest. At a long 

 distance south, the horizon was limited by mountain peaks between 

 ^us and them, and to the limits of the horizon until we came to the 

 Sierra Del Buro, southeast there was a vast plain of diluvion cov- 

 ered with grama grass. This plain connects with that of the Del 

 Korte, so- that one can ride south of the Sierra Del Buro from the 

 Del Norte to the Gila without crossing a single mountain. In* 

 passing the mourjtr.ins 'to-day we encountered the usual basaltic 

 rocks, then sienite, then basalt, then feldspathic granite, then red 

 sandstone, (small specimen;) this was standing northwest to south- 

 east, vertical across our route, and a cliff overhung us, probably of 

 the same rocks, with a dip to the northwest, dipping from the Si- 

 erra Dei Buro; then to feldspathic granite again like that of the 

 Wishita salt, very easily disintegrated. The live cedar and a 

 tree resenibling oak on the hills, but scattered; grama and other 

 grasses quite abundant; saw one deer and one flock of partridges; 

 saw a dwarf species of mulberry on the hills; th^e miseltoe abounds; 

 also, the sweet cotton-wood and willow thinly scattered along the 

 river; very little brush in our way. The poison oak must be for some 

 ■wise use, for it grows here too. A sort of wild squash, which grows 

 from Bent's fort to Red river, is also found here. Our mules be- 

 gin to show^ symptoms of failing. We passed to-day very little 

 land that would bear cultivation even by irrigation; the upland is 

 gravel aii4 sand, the bpttoms a sort of volcanic dust, madevery loose 

 by the undermining of myriads of rats and mice of hew varieties- 

 Caught two new kinds of fish in the clear waters of the Gila, bait- 

 ing with grasshopper?. Our howitzers dicj not get up this nigUt^ 



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