172 FORT YUMA 
A few weeks before my arrival here, a fight took 
place between eight soldiers and a body of Yuma 
Indians, in which the former were all killed. The 
Mr. Turnbull left San Francisco in the schooner General Patterson, 
with stores for the garrison at Fort Yuma. At the mouth of the Colo- 
rado he met with a serious obstacle in the number of sand-banks and 
the high tides. “The tide,” he says, “rises from twelve to sixteen feet 
every twelve hours; the tidal wave, being sometimes four feet high, 
carries every thing before it. If a vessel strikes on a sand-bank at high 
tide, she becomes high and dry in a little while, and may remain so for 
weeks before she can be got off. Fortunately, the General Patterson, 
shortly after entering the mouth of the river, met a whale-boat contain- 
ing the mates and four of the crew of a vessel belonging to Mr. Turn- 
bull, which had been lying in the river for several months. They had 
been engaged in obtaining soundings, and were consequently enabled to 
pilot the Patterson up, without stopping at every moment to try whether 
she was over one of the dreaded sand-banks. In this way she ascended 
the river thirty-three miles in two days, and anchored. No other vessel 
had ever before made the same distance in less than twenty days. Mr. 
Turnbull, with a party, took a whale-boat at this point, and ascended 
the river to Fort Yuma, upwards of a hundred miles. 
“The river was swollen almost to a torrent by the melting of the 
snow at the head waters; and the country for fifteen miles on both 
sides was entirely inundated, the water standing four feet deep upon its 
banks. The current was running at the rate of seven or eight miles an 
hour, and multitudes of floating snags of trees were rushing down. So 
completely was the country overflowed, that Mr. Turnbull found in a 
distance of a hundred and twenty-five miles but two dry spots on the 
banks where he could cook his food. He was obliged to sleep on board 
his boat, as there was no land to be seen. 
“Within a few miles of Fort Yuma, he heard of the loss of the 
steamer Uncle Sam, which it was his purpose to run regularly on the 
Colorado. He had brought out machinery for her in the Patterson, 
which would have enabled him to stem the current of the river, and 
probably to have ascended considerably above the Fort. He has not 
yet given up his purpose, and will take the hull of another steamer out, 
the machinery being still at the Fort.” 
