242 AT THE COCO-MARICOPA AND 
of us, promising to fetch us some in the morning. 
But instead of waiting till the morning, they returned 
to the camp about midnight, aroused the whole party 
with their noise, and wished to strike a bargain at 
once for their fish, a pile of which, certainly enough 
to last a week, they had brought us. There was no 
getting rid of them without making a purchase, which 
accordingly did, when they left, and permitted us to 
get a few hours’ more sleep. 
July 4th, 1852. Left camp at half-past four, A. 3, 
determined not to wait for breakfast, but make the 
most of our time while it was cool; for it would be 
impossible to travel, or rather be attended with great 
inconvenience, during the heat of the day. We con- 
tinued our course due east up the river, towards some 
singular piles of rocks with fantastic tops, appearing 
like works of .art. For some time we all imagined 
these rocks to be the ruined buildings of which we.wete 
in search—the “houses of Montezuma,” as our Indian 
friends called them. We passed over the edge of 8 
mountain, at the base of which the river ran, and 
then came to a wide and open plain, stretching some 
twenty-five or thirty miles eastwardly and southwardly- 
Entering this, we attempted to cross the bottom, 
which was so thickly overgrown with weeds and 
bushes that we could not penetrate it. We tried 10 
vain to get through, but finding ourselves scattered, 
and fearing we should lose sight of each other, We 
retraced our steps along the margin of the hill, until 
we passed the jungle. The bottom now became mor 
open, and five or six miles further brought us to the 
plateau. On our way we saw many traces of ancient 
