26 MOUTH OF THE COLORADO—WILD FOWL HUNTING. 
beyond the flat country bordering the river, and the irregular outlines were converted by a 
powerful mirage into fanciful shapes of castles, domes, and giant statues, painted with glowing 
purple tints and sharply-defined tracery on the blue background of the sky. 
At 7 o'clock we started with a head-wind, and, assisted by the tide, commenced beating up 
the river. In about six miles the water shoaled to three and a half fathoms, and became of a 
deeper red, and very turbid. The tide making against the wind occasioned considerable swell. 
The river appeared to be ten or twelve miles broad; but the low, flat banks and bars visible 
above the surface, combined with the tossing Fite and tremulous motion of the atmosphere, 
made it impossible to form a correct determination of the lines of the shore. 
Captain Walsh informed me that there were two channels; that the eastern one was said to 
be the deeper, but that, being unacquainted with it, he should follow the other. Standing 
across to the west, in pursuance of this resolution, in a few minutes the water shoaled very 
suddenly from three to one and a half fathoms, and the Monterey narrowly escaped running 
aground, A similar result attended an attempt to cross to the eastern shore, and it became 
evident that we had either entered a centre channel or that it would soon become necessary to 
retrace our course entirely. The bottom was remarkably flat and uniform, the surface along 
the middle of the channel being composed of soft mud, and elsewhere of hard clay. 
Two glittering islands were now brought into view by the mirage, the narrow stalks of the 
reeds on their marshy surfaces being magnified into a resemblance to tall and distorted stumps 
of trees. The localities corresponded to those of Montague and Goree islands. The latter 
was soon clo$e abeam. It is a quarter of a mile long, and the highest point has an elevation 
of only a few feet. A green lawn, on which myriads of pelicans were congregated, sloped 
gently from the centre to the water’s edge, and presented a refreshing contrast to the expanse 
of dark water behind us. No channel had been previously known to exist between these 
islands; but being headed off by bars from pursuing a course to either side, the only resource 
was to keep directly on, and as long as the tide served a good channel was found. At noon 
the tide turned, and the Monterey was brought to anchor in four and a half fathoms waters 
abreast of a point about half a mile from the southern extremity of Montague island. 
Attracted by the immense numbers of wild fowl that could be seen fluttering about, the 
mate and myself had a boat lowered, and taking our guns crossed over tothe land. The tide 
had commenced to run out rapidly, and it was no easy matter to find a place to disembark. 
Sinking at every step half way to our waists in the soft, gluey mud, we waded slowly and 
laboriously to the higher ground, and walked a mile inland. The whole island is composed of 
a fine tenacious brick clay, and bears marks of being entirely overflowed at the spring tides. 
The surface is covered with a coarse grass, and intersected in every direction by deep gulleys. 
Innumerable flocks of pelicans, curlews, plovers, and ducks of different varieties, were scat- 
tered over the flats. It was easy to shoot them, but almost impossible to get at them after- 
wards on account of the depth of the mud, and.we started back to the schooner but little 
better provided with game than when we left. The tide was now running out at the rate of 
about three miles an hour. I took a line of soundings across to the schooner, and continued 
them to a shoal half a mile further east. This shoal is the foundation of what will probably be 
before long an extensive island. The surface is now, at low tide, ten feet above the waters 
The faces, where exposed, showed that the formation consisted of horizontal layers of clay an 
inch in thickness, deposited with singular evenness and uniformity. A sheet of water, several 
miles wide, intervenes between this shoal and the sand hills near the eastern bank of the river. 
It contains numerous spits and bars, that would seem to present obstructions to navigation. 
The day has been warm, and at noon the heat was almost equal to that of midsummer in the 
northern Atlantic States. 
November 30.—Tripped peers, 11 and drifted up with the tide, it being a dead calm. 
The r refinetion of the erst se the apparent vibration of the atmosphere, the mirage, 
