FORT YUMA TO MOJAVE CANON——-MOJAVE SPIES—-THE NEEDLES. 59 
that furnish its supply. The Colorado, according to the Indians, is as low, proportionally, as 
its tributary. 
The party of Lieutenant Whipple contained one hundred men, two hundred mules, and four 
wagons, but the trail is entirely obliterated. Not a trace, even of the wagons, remains. 
The navigation to-day has been generally good, but we struck one sunken rock, and passed 
several that are now visible, but that would be dangerous at a higher stage of water unless 
their position were accurately known. The iron put into the hull of the Explorer must have 
been of excellent quality or she would have been sunk long ago by some of the thumps she has 
experienced. 
We met, in the caiion, two Chemehuevis, with their wives, children, and household effects, 
paddling towards the valley below, on rafts made by tying together bundles of reeds. There 
being no bars to interrupt us we passed them under a full head of steam, and made a great 
impression. They drew their rafts into a little cave when they saw us coming, and peered out 
at the steamboat, as it went puffing by, with an amusing expression of bewilderment and awe. 
Having, themselves, heavy loads to carry, I imagine they appreciated, better than their friends 
below, the advantage of being able to stem the current without manual labor. 
As Captain Robinson and myself were walking out this evening we suddenly came upon two 
Indians reclining on the top of the bank, in sight of the steamer. I at once knew them to be 
Mojaves. One of them must have been nearly six feet and a half in height, and his proportions 
were herculean. He was entirely naked, excepting the ordinary piece of cotton about his 
loins, and his chest and limbs were enormously developed. A more scowling, sinister looking 
face than that which surmounted this noble frame I have seldom seen; and I quite agreed with 
a remark of the captain, that he would be an unpleasant customer to encounter alone and 
unarmed. His companion was smaller, though a large man, and had a pleasant face. Neither 
took the slightest notice of us, but both continued looking at the steamboat, the taller man 
with an expression that indicated a most unamiable frame of mind. Doubtless they were sent 
down from the valley above to learn something in regard to our party. I am sure that the 
report of one of the two will be anything but complimentary to the steamboat and ourselves. 
I can scarcely blame him for his disgust, for he must suspect that this is the first step towards 
an encroachment upon the territory of his tribe. 
Camp 38, Chemehuevis Bend, February T.—For two or three days a norther has been blowing, 
similar to those experienced almost weekly at the mouth of the river. At times it has made 
the boat unmanageable, and the surface of the water having been so agitated that it was impos- 
sible to distinguish the channel. Our progress has been difficult and slow, and scarcely twenty- 
five miles have been made since leaving the mouth of Bill Williams’s Fork. While the gale 
lasted we were nearly blinded and choked by drifts of fine sand, that darkened ot Ra and 
penetrated into the luggage, bedding, provisions, fire-arms, and the very pores of one’s skin. 
The bed of the stream has been covered in spots with gravel, and two or three times, when 
the water was shoal, we have had the unpleasant sensation of having the bottom of the boat 
indi uch edges of the stones. 
pip seb a ey wy — days very much to the west. A little below camp the river turns 
to the north, and continues in that direction till it enters a chain of mountains twelve or fifteen 
miles above. This chain, which we call the Mojave range, separates the Chemehuevis and 
Mojave valleys. A cluster of slender and prominent pinnacles, named by Lieutenant Whipple 
‘The Needles,’’ is in close proximity to the river. The Monument mountains bar eho view 
towards the south. The region which we are travelling scarcely deserves the name of valley. 
tis he Monument and Mojave mountains, and by spurs pro- 
It is a basin of the desert, bounded by t ng 
jecting from them. ‘There is very little alluvial land or vegetation. One place was passed 
