22 INTRODUCTION. 
The members of the expedition were assembled in San Francisco in the middle of October. 
The interest, which I would here gratefully acknowledge, displayed by General Clarke, com- 
manding the department of the Pacific, and by the officers of his staff, in furthering the 
necessary preparations, enabled these to be soon completed. The party was divided into three 
detachments. One of them, in charge of Dr. Newberry, started on the 28th of October in the 
coast steamer to San Diego, at which place some mules were to-be procured and taken across the 
desert to Fort Yuma. A second detachment, in charge of Mr. Taylor, went by the same 
steamer to San Pedro, from whence they were to repair to Fort Tejon, collect the remainder of 
the animals, and cross also to Fort Yuma. Mr. Carroll and myself, with eight men, were to 
go by sea to the head of the Gulf of California, there put the steamboat together ; ascend the 
Colorado to Fort Yuma, and join the rest of the party. Lieutenant Tipton, 3d artillery, and 
twenty-five men, to be taken from the companies at Fort Yuma, were detailed by General 
Clarke as an escort to the expedition. 
It was on the Ist day of November, 1857, that I sailed from San Francisco, for the mouth of 
the Colorado, in the Monterey, a schooner of 120 tons burden, employed to carry supplies to 
the head of the Gulf, for transmission to the garrison at Fort Yuma. There had been almost 
a full cargo taken in before any of the expedition property was put aboard, and to find 
room for the latter was a matter of considerable difficulty. There was no other way, however, 
of getting my party and stores to their destination, and the quartermaster, Colonel Swords, 
had, at some inconvenience to himself, kindly allowed me the use of as much shiproom as could 
possibly be spared. Every nook in the hold was closely stowed, and much of my property, 
including the parts of the steamer, had to be carried on deck. The eight sections of the hull 
were distributed along on either side of the masts, resting upon piles of lumber, amongst the 
pieces of the engine and wheel. The boiler, an unwieldy object, weighing rather more than 
three tons, was lashed as securely as it could be, amidships. Two skiffs, a long whale boat, 
and some boxes completed the deck load, leaving an area of only five or six feet square around 
the helm, and a still smaller space at the bow, unencumbered. 
It was of course necessary that a certain number of mechanics and laborers should accom- 
pany me to the mouth of the river to put the steamboat together, and take me up to the fort, 
but Colonel Swords did not feel authorized to encroach upon the already limited accommoda- 
tions of the captain and crew by quartering nine persons upon them, and I should have been 
much embarrassed but for the obliging offices of the master of the vessel, Captain Walsh, who, 
with much trouble, and at the risk of still more discomfort, succeeded in neering places for 
the party. His own small cabin he shared with Mr. Carroll and myself. 
We sailed out of the harbor of San Francisco with a brisk breeze, which abeidad soon after 
we had passed the headlands, aud for twenty-four hours remained light, allowing but little 
progress to be made, but then a fresh northwester set in, and continued for several days, 
during which the Monterey, though not in sailing trim, made so good a run along the coast, 
that on the evening of the seventh day out the land near Cape St. Lucas, the southern 
ke pi of the peninsula of Lower California, hove in sight. 
_ This rapid accomplishment of the first two-thirds of the distance encouraged anticipations of 
a © aes voyage not destined to be realized. The next morning the wind had died away, and a 
week of dead calms, of burning tropical days, and stifling nights, found us, at its termination, 
weit rolling on the glassy swell, and still in sight of the lower end of the peninsula. 
In the Gulf of California the currents of air generally set in the direction of its length, either 
= or down, according to the season of the year. During the month of November it appeared 
that what breeze there was blew down the Gulf, and we had to beat slowly up against it, 
making sometimes little more than twenty miles in the twenty-four hours. When near the end 
of ee voyage the long-wished-for wind indeed came, and then it blew a gale, and for twelve 
a sea was ranning that, peuntioned, in the deeply laden schooner, considerable apprehen- 
