A Visit to Lake Maquata. 159 



sixty or seventy miles, along the western base of the Cocopah moun- 

 tains — a low range of barren hills of forbidding aspect. Along the 

 shores of the dry lake were found numerous remains of the unfor- 

 tunate fish, the former denizens of the defunct lagoon. All the 

 skeletons observed were of the mullet (Mugil Mexicanus), and of 

 these the coyote, or desert wolf, had left but the barest evidence. 



Millions of fresh water snails and clam shells were strewn over 

 the bed or along the former shores of the lake, sufficient evidence 

 that it had once been filled with fresh water. 



During the summer of 1890, apparently reliable reports reached 

 me to the effect that the Colorado river had again overflowed 

 its bank, inundating anew the New river country as in former 

 years, and filling to the brim the Laguna Maquata with water teem- 

 ing with fish — like unto the season of 1884. The barren, but natur- 

 ally fertile, desert plains had been transformed — so ran the reports — 

 into a jungle of tropical luxuriance, a Paradise for man or beast. 

 The mesquite trees were loaded with their crisp bean pods, the grass 

 was growing as high as a horse's back, and all the sloughs and 

 lagoons were full of water and delicious fish. 



With the coming of cool autumn weather, early in October, I 

 again entered the confines of the Colorado desert with a suitable 

 outfit and an efficient companion. En route from San Diego we had 

 received slightly conflicting reports from parties who claimed to 

 have recently crossed the plains of the desert from Yuma, Arizona. 

 Several white men affirmed that there was an abundance of fresh 

 water both in the lagoons of New river and in Maquata lake. One 

 aged Mexican, whose acquaintance I had previously made, kindly 

 advised me to depend on the large canons in the Peninsula range of 

 mountains for my water — not on lake Maquata. I learned that a 

 friend of mine, with nearly twenty years' experience in the region, 

 came near perishing from not finding water at Las Posas de los In- 

 dios — Indian wells, while others reported an abundance of water 

 in the adjacent lagoons. The water at Coyote wells, however, was 

 universally condemned as unfit for man or beast, from being so 

 strongly impregnated with the deadly alkali. 



Reaching the ruins of the old Rock house, on the Summit sta- 

 tion on the old Ft. Yuma and San Diego stage line, we filled our cans 

 with the pure water from the mountain springs — a solitary spring in 

 the solid granite, really about half way between the desert plains 

 and the summit of the first barren mountain ridge. The ' nine miles ' 

 from here to Coyote wells, through a deep, rocky canon and over a 

 sandy plain, proves to be fifteen long and weary ones. At Coyote 

 wells the dark-colored, repulsive pool of water would "have been a 

 delight to the thrifty New England housewife, since, with it, she 

 could easily dispense with her ash barrel and lye! Two'small mes- 

 quite trees alone mark the vicinity of Coyote wells, the old adobe 

 stage station being completely razed to the ground, and the alkali 



