SEARCH FOR WATER. ' 31 
© some willows and cotton-wood trees about eighteen miles 
istant, where we hoped by digging to find a spring. 7 
_ At sunrise next morning (Saturday) we started, traversing 
‘aslightly undulating plain, covered, as far as the eye could 
teach, with the most magnificent pasturage. For five miles, 
3 s we followed a dry valley or trough in the plain, our route 
assed through a continuous grove of cactus plants, averaging 
rom 10 to 20 feet in height. Here and there a yucca 
Volant, or ‘ Spanish bayonet,” shot up its lofty stems amongst 
the cacti, adding very much to the grotesqueness of this 
urious vegetation. The cactus groves were as thickly stocked 
gavith the Gila quail, really a species of grouse, as a moor in 
#3cotland with its feathered game of a similar kind. Enormous 
oveys of thirty or forty brace rose up on each side as we 
assed, and ran along in front of our horses. 
# On reaching the willows, no amount of digging produced 
@ drop of water ; so after trying several places, both up and 
own the dry bed of a stream, we were obliged to put up 
y ith a dry camp. The poor horses, as usual in such a plight, 
cooked the picture of misery after their dusty march, and 
_peemed to-ask with their eyes, “Why are we forgotten ?” 
Ve chained up the mules with extra care, and let them kick 
“Way to their hearts’ content, and make the night hideous 
vith a chorus from their seventy dry throats. 
‘Sunday, throughout the expedition, was generally kept as 
ay of rest; but this was an anxious one to us, for besides 
de mules, we had forty horses and five oxen, and scarcely 
: ‘ater enough for cooking and drinking purposes. I joined the 
jater-hunters at daybreak, and, armed with spades and picks, 
well as our carbines and ‘six-shooters,” we directed our 
e towards the Burro Mountains, the next obstacle to the 
ward. We had, in fact, nearly crossed the plain between 
