NAVIGATION OF THE GILA AND COLORADO RIVERS. 17 
they cover much ground." He pointed in the direction, and after proceeding a short distance 
we all heard distinctly the noise of the horses, indicating a large number. 
Silence was enjoined, and we proceeded stealthily along for some time, when a bright fire 
blazed before us. I halted the guard, and with two dragoons, Londeau and Martinez, pro- 
ceeded unobserved until within a few feet of the fire. Before it stood an armed Mexican. I 
sent Londeau and Martinez with orders to assume the occupation of trappers, and ascertain 
who, and what, the man guarded. The conference was short; other Mexicans advanced, and 
I sent in man for man. It was not Castro, as we expected, but a party of Mexicans with five 
hundred horses from California, on their way to Sonora for the benefit of Castro. 
I took the four principal men to the general, and left a guard to watch the camp and see 
that no attempt was made to escape. The men were examined separately, and each gave a 
different account of the ownership and destination of the horses. 
The chief of the party, a tall, venerable-looking man, represented himself to be a poor 
employé of several rich men aed | in supplying the Spor market with horses. We sub- 
sequently learned that he was no less a personage than José Maria Leguna, a colonel in the 
Mexican service. 
November 23.—We did not move camp to-day, in order to make a refit from last night’s 
capture, and give our mules an opportunity to pick what little grass they could before taking 
the desert of ninety miles, which lies on the other side of the Colorado, and between us and 
water. 
Warner, Stanly, and myself saddled up to visit the junction of the Gila and Colorado, which 
we found due north from our camp, and about a mile and a half distant. The day was stormy, 
the wind blowing fiercely from the north. We mounted a butte of feldspathic granite, and, 
looking 25° east of north, the course of the Colorado was tracked by clouds of flying sand. 
The Gila comes into it nearly at right-angles, and the point of junction, strangely chosen, is 
the hard butte through which, with their united forces, they cut a cañon and then flow off due 
magnetic west, in a direction the resultant due to the relative strength of the rivers. 
The walls of the cañon are vertical, and about fifty feet high and one thousand feet long. 
Almost before entering the cañon, in descending the Gila, its sea-green waters are lost in the 
chrome-colored hue of* the Colorado. For a distance of three or four miles below the junction 
the river is perfectly straight, and about six hundred feet wide; and up at least to this point, 
there is little doubt that the Colorado is always navigable for steamboats. Above, the Col- 
orado is full of shifting sand-bars, but is, no doubt, to a great extent susceptible of navi- 
gation. 
The Gila, at certain stages, might be navigated up to the Pimos village, and possibly with 
small flat-boats at all stages of water. 
Near the junction, on the north side, are the remains of an old Spanish church, built near the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, by the renowned missionary, Father Kino, The mission 
was eventually sacked by the Indians, and the inhabitants all murdered or driven off. It will 
probably yet be the seat of a city of wealth and importance, most of the mineral and fur 
regions of a vast extent of country being drained by the two rivers. The stone butte, through 
which they have cut their passage, is not more than a mile in length. The Gila once flowed to 
the south, and the Colorado to the north of this butte, and the point of junction was below. 
What freak of nature united their efforts in forcing the butte is difficult to say. During 
freshets, it is probable the rivers now discharge their surplus waters through these old channels. 
Francisco informs me that the Colorado, seven days’ travel up from the butte, continues pretty 
much as we saw it. . 
There a caiion is reached, impassable for horses or canoes. The country between is settled 
by the Coyotaros, or wolf-eaters, cochinears, (dirty fellows;) Los Tontears, or fools; and the 
Garroteros, or club Indians. These cultivate melons, beans, and maize. 
On our return we met a Mexican; well mounted and muffled in his blanket. 1 asked him 
