HUNT FOR A GUIDE. 93 
__ by land, as I should have to traverse the whole length of the 
_ Sonora Desert. From Tucson the way by land was open, and I 
should be able not only to see the Port of Guaymas, and judge 
of its merits as a terminal depét for a railway on the 
_ Californian Gulf, but should have an opportunity of traversing 
_ Sonora, and of discovering what that out-of-the-way country 
was good for, and what route would be most likely to prove 
_ the best for a branch railway from the trans-continental main 
line. 
There was a celebrated guide at Tucson, whose services 
I hoped to have obtained; when, however, he heard my 
_ proposal, he plainly told me that the risk was too great, 
and that he had had so much good luck in his lifetime, that 
{ he was getting too old to tempt Providence any more. So 
_ I hunted about for somebody else, and had the good fortune 
i to meet with a man named Van Alstine who had taken 
q refuge in Sonora, knew the country well, and was quite 
_ willing, provided of course he got well paid, to conduct me 
as far as Hermosillo. I hope I do not malign the character of 
1 80 good a companion and so excellent a guide when I confess 
_ that at my first introduction to Van Alstine he was hope- 
_ lessly drunk, and that he knew very little about the agreement 
1 he had made until I routed him up next morning, and told 
_ him I was ready to start. He was a tall, wiry old Western 
than, of at least sixty, but hale and hearty; though his hair 
was grey and scanty, his brain was active and his senses keen ; 
4 he was a great talker, and made, as we shall presently see, 
_ very good use of his tongue. During the civil war he had 
been arrested as a Southern sympathiser, and confined for 
nine months at Fort Yuma. This is one of the many 
“hottest places on the earth;” so hot was it the summer he 
_ was there, that my guide told me of two soldiers who, noted 
ie: 
