Vol. VII. OCTOBER, 1890. Whole No. 54. 



THE COLORADO DESERT. 



(From the 5. F. Chronicle, August 31, 1890.) 



'I'll bet my head that Yuma is south-east of here,' said an old, 

 gray-haired prospector to me at the old Larkin ranch in Jacumba 

 Valley in April, 1889. We parted. He was never again seen 

 alive by man. He staked his head — and lost. One of his horses 

 reached Flowing Wells, on the Southern Pacific Railway, and 

 following back on the horses' tracks old Olsen was found beside 

 the fatal waters of Fish Creek, with life extinct. His other horse 

 was found cruelly tied to a mesquite tree, from which death alone 

 had released it, forty miles away in the midst of the great Colo- 

 rado Desert. 



Tragedies of this nature have not been rare in the past in this 

 desolate and terribly forbidding region, and they can usually be 

 traced to the same causes, ignorance or indifference to the dangers 

 before the traveller and misplaced self-confidence. 



The arid region that forms the eastern portion of San Diego 

 county, and known as the Colorado Desert, comprises about 

 5,000,000 acres of plain and mountainous country. In Decem- 

 ber last the writer proceeded in an easterly direction from San 

 Diego, reaching the little frontier village of Campo on the fol- 

 lowing day, fifty miles distant from the coast. Thence to the 

 confines of the Colorado Desert is a distance ot thirty miles, 

 which brings us to the deserted ruins of the old stage station 

 known as Mountain Springs. The walls of the old stone house 

 and the stone corrals are still standing about half-way down the 

 precipitous canyon grade, and 200 yards to the right is the last 

 mountain water that we shall see 



Up and down the long, rocky grade, two to four full coaches 

 drove at a reckless pace in the old days, carrying passengers and 

 mail between Fort Yuma and San Diego. For the last dozen 

 years, however, the road has scarcely felt the horse's hoof. A 

 few venturous prospectors with their pack trains have passed 

 along the historic route, many never to return; but, considering 

 these years of neglect, the road is still in excellent condi- 

 tion. The cactuses stand like grim sentinels among the rocks, 

 which rise in perpendicular masses on every hand. The hoco- 

 tiilo plant stands out picturesquely from the canyon slopes. 

 Mosses and ferns look out timidly from the crevices of the rocks, 

 quickly retiring before the burning rays of the summer sun, while 

 tne rattlesnake basks in the congenial heat or lies coiled beside a 

 rock ready for its prey. 



From the old stone house on an elevated bench against the side 

 the granite mountain, the Colorado Desert lies spread out to the 

 view in a grand panorama. The San Bernardino Range and its 

 eastern continuation to the northward, the mountains of Arizona 

 and Sonora to the eastward, Old Signal and the Cocopa Range at 

 the south, with the plains of the great basin between, with the sleet 

 and snow of the mountain range we had just crossed behind us, 



