58 FORT YUMA TO MOJAVE CANON.— MOUTH OF BILL WILLIAMS’S FORK. 
purple, relieved here and there by veins of pink and white, were blended in brilliant confusion 
upon the sides of the cafion, producing a weird-like and unearthly effect, which the fantastic 
shapes and outlines of the enclosing walls did not diminish. For six miles we followed the 
windings of the river through this fairy-like pass, where every turn varied and heightened the 
Fig. 11.— Monument Cafion. 
interest of the pageant, and then the lines of cliff stopped, and we issued suddenly from the 
cafion Into a comparatively open valley. Low foot-hills, from the range on the west side of the 
3 : Stream was at that time, 
which happened to be in the present month, February, about thirty feet wide, and several 
unbroken, and for awhile I was quite confounded. My co 
made a great topographical blunder, but I asked Captain Robinson to head for the left shore 
proposing to camp and make an examination. As we approached the bank I perceived while 
closely scanning its outline, a small dent, and after landing repaired to the spot, and Gonaiss a 
very narrow gulley, through which a feeble stream was trickling, and this was all that was left 
of Bill Williams’s Fork. The former mouth is now filled up, and overgrown with thickets of 
willow. An unusual drought must have prevailed for two or three years past in the regions 
