174. noma YUMA 
that the river was then much swollen. When low, it 
flows at the rate of about two miles an hour. It is 
then but four feet deep at the fording place at the 
Algodones, where we first saw it; and at such times 
wagons, mules, and cattle may easily cross. When 
the engineering parties crossed here in January, they 
swam their mules and were taken over in boats by 
the Indians. By a stake planted below the junction, 
Major Heintzelman ascertained the rise of the river to 
have been thirteen feet and six inches, when at its 
highest point, which it attained on the 13th of June, 
while the Commission was here. 
Four miles below Fort Yuma are the remains of a 
fortification called Fort Defiance. This is the spot where 
we first encamped, and were unable to reach the water. 
It was an old ferrying place, and the scene of a mas- 
-sacre by the Yumas the year before our visit, the par- 
ticulars of which I will state. 
In 1849, when large numbers of people from the 
United States and the adjacent province of Sonora were 
emigrating to California, many came by the Gila and 
crossed the Colorado here. At this time, as there was 
no garrison on the spot, nor any white settlers, the 
Yumas derived quite an advantage from aiding emi- 
erants to cross, having by some means obtained a boat 
or scow for the purpose. A party of Americans, see- 
ing a prospect of a lucrative business by the establish- 
ment of a ferry, dispossessed the Indians of their boat, 
drove them from the river, and would not permit them 
to help emigrants across or otherwise have any thing 
to do with them. ‘The leader in this affair was a Dr. 
Langdon, of Louisiana. The ferry was established at 
