AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY. 171 
into the Colorado about ten miles up; or it may have 
been a sluice filled with the rushing water from the 
tides of the gulf. This latter I think the more probable 
supposition. The Gila, as I have already mentioned, 
is known to enter the Colorado at more than a hun- 
dred miles from its mouth. 
Lieutenant Hardy found two small islands at the 
mouth of the river, and entered by the western chan- 
nel; where there was, at the narrowest point, but a sin- 
gle fathom of water, the width varying from ninety 
to two hundred yards. Owing to the narrowness 
of the channel, he was obliged to stand in so close to 
the shore that the jib-boom nearly touched it. The 
western bank was here high and perpendicular. The 
tide was running at the rate of nine miles an hour. 
With all his care, the vessel was thrown on shore, 
where she lay eight days. The flood and ebb tides 
swept by with the same velocity; and on one occasion 
the receding tide left his vessel one hundred and fifty 
feet from the water. He waited in vain for slack 
water, in order to replace the rudder, which had been 
unshipped. ‘But in the Colorado,” he says, ‘‘there is 
no such thing as slack water. Before the ebb has 
finished running the flood commences, boiling up full 
eighteen inches above the surface, and roaring like the 
rapids of Canada.” 
Since the foregoing was written, I have read an 
account of the most recent attempt to ascend the Colo- 
tado, which is given in the accompanying note.* 
* This statement is contained in the San Francisco Herald of June 
11th, 1853: 
